If you are too personable or generous, you probably noticed that people were more likely to approach you to solicit your help. Your reputation has made you a magnet to queries and you probably work more for others than you want.
To bring your helpful reputation back to a more equitable level, you will have to bring to the knowledge of your compelled that your devotion now needs to be tame.
Gone are your permanent availability, open to all and for any form of demand! We’ll have to learn to say no.
We know that this exercise will be more difficult for those who – fond of recognition – have taken a liking to accumulate all kinds of debts, obligations and other passive forms of thanks from their assistants. But before offering you some magical formulas to help you achieve the necessary balance between self-realization and selfless love, it is important to draw your attention to the difference between helping others and making them pleasure.

Helping others is a behavior that leads you to offer your help, your resources to facilitate the achievement of their goals.
To give pleasure is to seek to concede to others what can – in return – assure you their approval.
If helping someone can win you good graces, your main goal is to facilitate something. Your gesture expresses an act of love, brotherhood, sharing, human compassion. It reveals your heart values ​​and makes sense in your presence, your personal investment in the relationship thus developed with your protégé.

This attitude is very different from that of systematically erasing yourself for the benefit of others, to please them, thus making them indebted for too tactical anxiety. There is always a price to pay in return for a favor.

Thus, to be able to say no in all serenity, one must learn to say yes in all conscience.

Here are some formulas that will allow you to do so without ruining your reputation. By offering alternatives, these formulas seek to alleviate the anguish of finitude (see “manager of elite” p 59) to which your interlocutor can be confronted when it is necessary to digest your refusal.

Alternatives to time
Commit to a new application processing time.
· I’m busy for now. Come back to see me in two hours.
· I want to finish this important work. I’ll come back to you in two hours.
· I will respond to your request no later than <dd-mm-yyyy> to <hh>.

Alternatives to the Solicitor
The principle is to refer to your desire to keep your commitment to other people before serving a new application.
• Several people have made similar requests. To answer, I organized a meeting on <dd-mm-yyyy> at <hh>.
· I promised to respond to Mary before <dd-mm-yyyy> at <hh> and I always keep my promises. I can not fulfill your request.
· I deal primarily with requests from the hierarchy. I’m sorry I can not help you this time.

Alternatives to the purpose of the request
Offer alternative solutions that enhance the chances of success.
· I am not qualified to answer your request. Please refer to <….>.
· I am not the best interlocutor for this rather see <……>.
· Contact <………> for an appointment with <xyz>. We can benefit from his experience.

Joker
If the previous three alternatives fail

· Sorry – it will not please you – but I aim to improve my ability to say no. Your insistence puts me to the test because it offers me the opportunity to win a great victory over myself by not giving effect to your request. Thank you for your understanding. Emotional Intelligence What is your situation? Too kind? Too individualistic? Emotionally Intelligent? Discover your strengths and the axes of personal development that will enable you to say not without indisposing, without exposing yourself, without imposing or decomposing … Come learn how to compose help strategies that resemble you. Read more …