In the previous post, I gave you some examples of exactly how to firmly but genuinely decline a request. Well, there’s one little thing you can add to your communication that will help the person accept your answer.
When you say something like this:
“I truly appreciate that you thought of me for this – and, although it does appeal to me, in order for me do it, I’d have to back out of something I’ve already committed to and I feel that wouldn’t be right.”
Add something like this:
So, as we were discussing in part 1: when someone has made a request of you that you don’t want to do, you need a sincere yet definitive way to nicely say “no” that lets the person down easy but doesn’t give them any room to wiggle around your answer.
Here are two suggestions – which you can tweak to suit your particular situation and to make your reply genuine and honest:
As you know, building an acting career requires a great deal of your resources – a lot of time, energy, and money.
As you also know, your resources are limited. Very often, the actors who are moving forward are the ones staying focused on what they want to achieve and making wise choices about how they use their resources.
In other words they are “putting their own agenda first.”
You’re a smart, proactive actor. You’ve been diligently and consistently doing all of the “right” things for months (maybe even years.) So why aren’t you getting the results you want?!
Well, here’s the deal…
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