The Book of" No", 250 ways to say it and mean it and stop people-pleasing foreve, are detailed strategies that will help you take charge of your life. The author is social-psychologist Susan Newman. Susan, good to have you here this morning. Thank you. (Good to be here. ) Such is one of my new year's resolutions, to be able to say "no" more often , but really when we think of no, really is, it, to many of us, it sounds like such a negative thing. But you say, / doesn't have to be, why?

Well, it really isn't an negative. It's the exact opposite. It's a positive because you get to take back your time and do things for the people that you really care about. (en-en) We get to start doing things for friends of friends and then we say what happened to me? I have no time for the people who are important to me.

And you say that when people say yes often, they are falling into that people-pleaser trap. What can we do to break that pattern?

They fall into the trap because they are afraid that people will think they are lazy, uncaring, selfish, at worst they think they'll leave their job, they'll lose their job. So we, we have all these negatives that have come from childhood and they pop back into our heads and it just doesn't work that way.

So when you're saying no to people you're really saying yes to yourself and you actually have some good points in the book to help people take charge of their lives-being able to say no more often. Then let's go through 5 other steps you say: make a list of your yeses, make your time well managed, get your priorities straight, know your limits and give control to others. So, tell us how we can put these into practice.

I think that giving control to others is the key because we all think we can do something better when in fact there are other people can do then (delegate, then) . . . Yeah, you wind up president of the PTA, you don't have to do that. Somebody else can do that. Somebody else can car pool and then you can go get your nails done. And saying no doesn't make you a terrible person.

What do you mean by making a list of your yeses though , I mean how is that, how should that be taken into consideration with your decision-making?

Because you will be shocked how many times and how many people you say yes to. And you don't save any time for yourself and the people who are important to you.

So that allow you to kinda set your priorities based on, you know, and when, knowing when you can say no.

Figure out who has the first crack at you. Is it your boss? Is it your husband? Is it your children?

What about, you know, a lot of us fear the effects of saying no. Will it destroy my relationship? Will people remember this? Will this be. . er. . held against to me at work? (en-en) How do you get over that and even some of the guilt that goes along with saying no?

The one of the alerts in the book is , and I think this is key, is that people don't think about you as much as you think and worry that they are. They're moving on to the next person. You won't water my plants. You won't (do,) drive car pool. You won't take this job upon the work. They are looking for the next person. They are really not thinking about you.

And roll quickly, you have (that) which you call the "no credo" and you say it should be your bill of right to say, make feelings known, guard personal boundaries, exercise your choice to say no, postpone an answer, withhold explanations and you can change your mind . So again, bottom line, here roll quickly.

Bottom line is to think yes before you think no. I think no before you

Think yes to , Yes, Yes to yourself though.

Yes to yourself and no to everyone else.

Susan Newman, thank you so much. Nice to talk with you.