“No” is probably one of the hardest words to say. We’re naturally inclined towards pleasing others and rejecting them or something they’ve suggested or asked for, whether in business or in our personal lives, can be scary.

Nobody wants to hurt somebody else’s feelings on purpose, nobody wants to be the bad guy and nobody wants to wonder later on if they missed out. It’s understandable, then, that many of us end up doing favours we resent or working on projects that don’t feel right to us all because we’re scared to say one little word.

You want my advice?

Get over it.

It’ll be the best thing you ever do.

“No” is arguably the single most important word in your vocabulary. If it’s hard to say it’s because it’s bloody powerful. It is a boundary setter, a respect generator and a pre-emptive strike against time wasting and ultimately resentment. When you say “no”, you’re saying that you value yourself too much to put your time and energy into something you’re not 100% comfortable with. Think of each “no” as saying yes to the possibility of something better. You’re not missing out on an opportunity, you’re holding out for one that’s right for you.

Being firm doesn’t make you a bitch! There’s a lot of power in the word “no”. Image © Richmond Pictures

How to say no in ten steps

♥ Trust your gut. Your gut is a clever little buddy. It knows exactly what is best for you, don’t ignore it out of guilt or duty. If someone asks you to do something and you feel uncomfortable about it, then you just can’t do it. It’s not right for you.

♥ If you run a business where you have to say “no” a lot, prepare a stock response that you can edit and personalise. That way it’s a lot easier to find the words to kindly reject somebody’s offer. If you have to think about it every time, you’ll find yourself procrastinating or wavering.

♥ Do it right away, like pulling off a plaster (or a band aid, for our American readers). The longer you leave it, the harder it will be and you’ll end up avoiding the situation.

♥ Imagine a tangible bubble of light around you. Nobody can penetrate that light or take it away from you unless you let them. When you say “yes” to something you’re not happy with, you’re allowing people to suck that light from you.

♥ Ask yourself what you owe the person asking for a favour. Nine times out of ten it’s probably nothing, and even if they’ve been there for you in the past, that doesn’t mean you are at their beck and call. You don’t have to give away a piece of you to everyone who wants it, be protective of yourself and remember that you don’t owe anyone anything.

♥ Be really clear and get everything in writing. If you reject someone over the phone, be sure to follow it up with a polite email. As awful as it might feel to say “no” twice, that way everybody is definitely on the same page and there won’t be any awkward misunderstandings later. Don’t rub it in, just be short and courteous and give the person in question a heads up over the phone that you’ll send them information in writing.

♥ Don’t overly justify yourself. It makes you look weak, a little bit like you’re lying and a LOT like you can be persuaded if hassled long enough. I have often been a victim of the over-justification syndrome – when I simply don’t want to do something because it’s not the right thing for me trying to explain it away with a million excuses. If you must give some sort of excuse, keep it brief and simple. “I’m unavailable that day,” or “I’m not able to do that, sorry.” or “that won’t be possible.” If you get lots of follow up questions either keep it simple or politely say that the answer is personal and you’d rather not get into it. Try not to get forced into a compromise if your initial answer was an unequivocal “no”. You won’t do yourself any favours or soften the blow that way, it’s as effective and healthy as ending a relationship by saying “but we can still sleep together… I guess…”

♥ If you have already agreed to something and you change your mind, pull out early and with integrity. Obviously the best option is always to stick to your word, but if you can’t do so, there are ways to extricate yourself with minimal damage. Don’t leave somebody in the lurch at the last minute or chicken out without telling anybody, and definitely don’t leave it long enough for them to shout about your involvement, or their involvement with you, only to be made to look foolish. Your “yes” was your mistake, face up to it, be apologetic and if you really can’t follow through with your promise, try to escape with your reputation and your conscience intact.

♥ Don’t dwell on or panic over a situation where you have to say no to somebody. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said “no” and then spent the rest of the day panicking that the other person will be angry or upset about it. You can only be responsible for yourself, their reaction is their problem. And every time, without fail, people have been fine with it and it hasn’t been an issue between us again, so all of the worry was for nothing. If you find yourself getting worked up over a difficult conversation, remind yourself of previous occasions where you’ve had to have a tough talk and it’s worked out fine. The fact that you have to remind yourself proves that it will soon be long forgotten anyway.

♥ Look at the results as an incentive to keep saying “no” when you need to. I’ll bet you feel a lot less stressed, your life / businesses / relationship is a lot less cluttered and frustrating and everything is higher quality. You’ll also probably find that people respect you more and think of you as a person who knows their mind and has a clear focus and vision.

Don’t let fear rule your life. How many times have you said “yes” when you really meant “no”? Take your power back and change your answer – you’ll be amazed at the results.

Sunday is a day for lazing around and doing nothing – and the perfect time to read something inspirational to take with you to whatever you have to do on Monday morning. This week’s motivational quote:

So true! How many times have you put off doing something because you were afraid of failing? I know I’ve done it plenty of times. Well, I have news for you (and me) if you don’t try, you fail by default. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, but it’s seemed out of reach, take your shot. If you don’t try you’ll never know.

Deadpan Cat looks down on our petty, human problems

Darling Lovely Life interiors posts are destroying my marriage

Dear Deadpan Cat,

This may not sound like a pressing problem, but I need some advice! My wife and I can’t agree on how to decorate the living room in our new house. She wants it all floral and girlie, whereas I am a fan of the modern look and more minimalist decoration. She loves your blog and wondered if there is something you could suggest so that my wife and I can meet in the middle ground?

Love,

Painted Pink in Peacehaven

Dear Painted Pink in Peacehaven,

I’ve told my mummy to say that it sounds like your wife has excellent taste and that you should let her decorate your living room.

On a serious note, I often hear my human mummy and daddy talking about something called “compromise”. I’m not sure what that means, but my daddy says that when everything gets a bit too pink, he goes to somewhere called his “man cave”. I followed him there once. There are lots of pictures of aeroplanes and things my mummy keeps putting there muttering “awful” under her breath. 

When it comes to a shared space, I know just how you feel. The humans haven’t put any special scratching furniture in for me and won’t even let me sharpen my claws on the sofa any more. It is all very flowery, but my human daddy does have a special chair that’s only for him. And for my nap times of course. 

Maybe you could build one of these man caves (and, if you have a deadpan cat of your own, make sure you include a special kitty scratching area for him). 

Love, 

Deadpan Cat

Do you have a problem for Deadpan Cat? Email his cat-to-human interpreter, [email protected] for answers.

I’d like to run across these office tables, singing no you won’t have me, no, no you won’t have me – I’ll keep running till I reach the sea. Martha Tilston – Artificial

Isn’t it the worst? You’ve invested months, maybe years of your life in a job or project. Maybe you’ve done an entire degree, poured thousands of pounds, hours, blood sweat and tears into getting to where you want to be. Then you get there and find it’s not where you want to be at all. The dream job you thought you wanted is more nightmare than fabulous fantasy. There can be a whole host of reasons why you’re not happy in your professional life. Perhaps you’re with the wrong company, maybe it’s the right job but the wrong subject matter, or external factors and worries are affecting your ability to focus.

But sometimes there’s that nagging voice in the back of your head that says “get me out of here –  I want to be free of this.”

The problem is that the nagging voice (which, by the way, is probably your gut, who you should always trust unequivocally) is invariably followed by a series of other voices: “but you’ve put so much money / time / effort into this… don’t lose your investment…” or “what else will you do?” perhaps it’s “how will you support yourself?” or worst of all “what will everyone think if I cut my losses?”

Losing sleep over going back to your desk every Sunday night? It may be time for a change!

Five signs you’re ready to move on and find your passion

♥ You dread work. The thought of it makes your stomach knot. Turning on your computer is an ordeal, sitting at your desk is torture. You find your attention drifting just about every five seconds. Simply put, you just don’t want to be there.

♥ You’re out of ideas or inspiration. OK, so this doesn’t really apply if you’re a pilot or a carpenter, but if your job requires creative thinking or outside-the-box strategy and you’re coming up with a big pile of nothing, it could be a sign that you’ve come as far as you’re able to with the work that you’re doing.

♥ The stress from your job is spreading into other areas of your life. You can’t enjoy your time off, you’re tense and worried and think of your weekends as an all-too-short countdown until you have to be back at your desk.

♥ People are responding to your work with apathy. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that your lack of enthusiasm is palpable and people want to be inspired and have confidence in you. Your heart isn’t in it and they can tell.

♥ You spend more time complaining about work than actually doing it. All of your friends think of you as the one that hates their job.

Can you fix it?

Being dissatisfied with your work doesn’t always have to mean it’s the end for you and that career. Here are some things to consider before calling it quits:

♥ Is it you or them? Perhaps you don’t need a new career path, you need a new company, new colleagues or even *gulp* to set up shop on your own.

♥ Are you getting out enough? Sometimes if you work for yourself or for a small team, finding inspiration and staying motivated can be a chore. Perhaps an inspirational training course, networking event or talk could reignite that fire.

♥ Is there anything else wrong in your life? When my dad was ill I didn’t want to go anywhere near my job – it wasn’t that I didn’t like it, it was more that every second I was at my desk I was missing precious time with my dad. Even after he passed away, I needed time to heal and work out who I was again before I threw myself back into work. Maybe you don’t need to quit entirely, but you may need to take a break and focus on other things that are important.

How to successfully make the career leap

♥ Don’t be too impulsive. It can be easy to think that you can’t spend another minute in the situation that you’re in (I’ve always lived by impulse and most of the time it’s worked out, but I think I’ve been really lucky). Try to work out what it is you want to do before you burn all of your bridges. If you can’t find the space to think about what makes you tick while you’re stuck doing something you hate, then quit but don’t leap straight into something else you may get tired of quickly. Find another way to pay your bills while you work out what it is you love doing.

♥ Feel the fear and do it anyway. Trust in the universe and ask yourself what’s the worst that could happen if you leave the situation you’re in – then remember that you only die once!

♥ Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have it all worked out right away. Your lightbulb moment will come to you when you’re ready for it. Also, don’t beat yourself up for time and money wasted on your previous career – you wouldn’t have got to the stage you are at without it – it was all there to teach you something important that you will undoubtedly use in the next stage of your life.

♥ If you’ve made up your mind about your next step, be really positive about your new venture. Don’t send it any negative or doubting energy, be really sure of yourself. If you feel negative about it, it’s probably not the right change of scene for you.

♥ When you start your new job or venture, start as you mean to go on. Evaluate your old working style or system and create one that works much better for you this time. This could be a process of trial and error but you’ll be thrilled with the results.

Welcome, Darling Lovely readers to the first of what we hope to be many posts on our brand new blog, Darling Lovely Life.

Some of you already know us, we’re the team behind Under the Vintage Veil wedding blog. After two and a half AMAZING years at the helm of Under the Vintage Veil, we made the bold and exciting move of taking all of our wedding content with us and starting a fresh new adventure under a new name.

We love weddings, and we’ll still be covering them, but we both felt we had way too much to show and tell to limit ourselves to one category of this Darling Lovely Life we live! We’ll be writing about love, life, travel, shopping, interiors, weddings and celebrations, hair, beauty, style, baking and crafting, DIY and so much more!

We’ll be starting with one post a day and adding content as the site grows with us. You can read our manifesto and all about us here, but for those of you who haven’t come across us before, here’s who we are (and what we do):

Sara – editor and owner of Darling Lovely Life

Sara is the editor and owner of Darling Lovely Life. When she’s not blogging, she’s busy with freelance PR and journalism work, and her many creative hobbies which include (but are not limited to): photography, singing & songwriting, baking, crafting and knitting, creative writing and looking after her many pets!

John – IT, web and advertising manager

John is our self-billed geek in residence. An IT manager by day, John provides tech and business development support to Darling Lovely Life in his spare time.

How can you get involved?

If you like what you see so far and you want to be involved with Darling Lovely Life, there are several ways to grace our pastel-pretty pages!

The first is to send us a DIY, crafting or baking tutorial. Send your idea over to [email protected] and we’ll send you our guidelines for creating a Darling Lovely Life tutorial.

The second is to send us pretty pictures of your home. If it fits with the blog we’ll either ask you to take more or send one of our lovely partner photographers round to capture the loveliness.

If you know anyone who lives a Darling Lovely Life, doing what they love and being excellent at it, we’d love to interview them. Nominate someone amazing for our “The Darling Lovely Life of” feature, which will start soon.

And finally, if you like any of our features and think you have something fabulous to say that could fit in, we’re always happy to hear your ideas.

We can’t wait to get to know you all and for you to be a part of this new adventure! If you want to contribute, comment or just say hi, please feel free to email [email protected] – follow us on Twitter and Instagram with the username @darlinglovelies, like us us on Facebook and find our Pinterest account here.