Kekich Credo #47 - The right thing is usually not the easy thing to do. You may sacrifice popularity for rightness, but you’ll lose self-esteem for wrongness. Don’t be afraid to say “no”.
Doing the right thing is to do what is ethical or just. To act or behave correctly, or appropriately, or doing something with the best intentions. In a written document writers use capitalization for emphasis. When used in a speech, the RIGHT thing is always emphasized as though capitalized.
Doing the wrong thing is a mistake. The word mistake has many uses. A mistake in math class results in the wrong answer, but a mistake with a weapon could get someone killed. When you make a mistake, the best thing to do is admit it. Not apologizing for a mistake is another mistake.
Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’. The fear of saying ‘no’ stems from the urge to avoid conflicts or confrontation. We don’t like others to be critical of us or to be angry with us. We avoid saying ‘no’ when we are afraid that it will put us in conflict with someone else. We don’t want to disappoint someone or hurt their feelings, so we tend to worry about saying ‘no’.
Saying ‘no’ can help you establish healthy boundaries and enables others to have clarity about what they can expect from you. It is important to be able to say ‘no’ so you feel empowered. It builds your self-esteem and confidence and creates more mental health stability. It is always better to say ‘no’ now than be resentful later.
Saying ‘no’ to something allows you to say ‘yes’ to many other things that you really care about. If you show others that you value your time, your work, and your priorities, they will respect you for it.
Saying ‘no’ now can also be changed to a ‘yes’ later on. When I was the director of a summer camp, I would counsel my camp counsellors to answer the campers’ request with a ‘no’ if they weren’t sure if that was allowed. Tell the campers I am going to say ‘no’ right now and I will find out if that is allowed or not. Then if later on they found out it was not allowed or if they really didn’t want their campers to do that requested thing, they could say sorry, I checked with Quechua (my camp name) and the answer is ‘no’. That way the campers could be disappointed in my answer rather than be upset with their counsellor. If the answer was yes, then the campers would be happy their counsellor was respecting the rules of the camp and willing to check it out for them. It was a win/win situation for both the counsellor and the campers.
Thoughts? Comments? Can you share your experience about being able to say ‘no’?
# living life abundantly # published author
