Making peace with saying no

I find it ridiculously hard to say no in work situations. I’m fine in the rest of my life which I find even stranger. The issue is clearly linked to work situations. So what’s going on?

I think saying no is hard if you’ve ever worked in the contracting space. You’re never totally sure where your next piece of work is coming from. This uncertainty requires a certain amount of nerve, particularly if you’re responsible for paying bills that are not uncertain - like the mortgage. If work comes along you take it, because you don’t know where the next piece is coming from.

This plays havoc with my workload. I really struggle to figure out when I have too much work and have had to come up with strategies to manage this.

At the moment I’m particularly bad at saying no. I am having a baby, so this should be a really easy time to say no, but it’s going to require me to say no a lot. I’m planning to take some maternity leave but in order for this to happen I have to start saying no. What do you think happened yesterday when someone asked me if I was interested in a new piece of work? I set up a meeting to discuss it. I did not say no. I postponed saying no in case I could find a way to make it fit.

I find my inability to say no even stranger when it’s one of the core principles of my business. We promote saying no to our part-time professionals. We tell them it’s ok, we remind them there are no consequences to saying no, we will come back to them with future work opportunities. Our business model requires that our people are reliable and deliver, so honesty and the ability to say no is important.

Why are we so worried about saying no? Is it because we’re worried we’ll miss out? And what exactly are we missing out on? I was raised to believe I should grab any opportunity that came along. At least I think I was. Actually, on further reflection that may just be my personality (cue nature vs nurture discussion). I think what I need to start doing is evaluating each opportunity before I grab it.

The piece of work I was offered yesterday wasn’t particularly amazing. It was interesting and involves working with people I respect on a new topic. I do struggle to resist new topics. But if I do manage to say no, there won’t be any consequences. It’s not going to stop them asking me to do something else for them. In fact, saying no means that I’ll probably do a better job of delivering the other work I’m already doing for them. But, what are the odds that I am going to listen to my own logic?

Do you struggle to say no? Or do you have great strategies for this that you could share with me?