It’s a mere two letters long and it can make life so much easier at times, so why is it that we have such problems saying it? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why we may find it hard.
GUILT
We live in a ‘yes’ culture, where we are socially-conditioned from an early age to say ‘yes’ to things because what we don’t want to do is upset someone but rejecting them or their proposal. If we say ‘no’ to someone then we feel like we’re rejecting them and no-one wants to do that, but we are quite happy to put more onto our own plate.
FEAR OF NOT BEING USED AGAIN
We spend months contacting our Funeral Directors and Arrangers and building up those relationships and when we say ‘no’ there’s always the question at the back of your mind, ‘Well, if I don’t do it, who will they ask? And will they do a better job than me? If they do, then maybe I’ll never hear from them again.’
We work in a very competitive field and more and more celebrants are coming along all the time. Face it, we can’t do every single service. There will be some we can’t do for other reasons and don’t kid yourself that you get chosen for every service the Arranger or FD has. If they’re good at their job then they’ll put the right celebrant with the right family.
SELF-EMPLOYMENT
We’re self-employed and we get it that it may be feast or famine. If we don’t accept every single job that is offered then who knows when the next one may come along?
Well, guess what. People have been self-employed for years and that’s the nature of self-employment. Sometimes the phone will ring off the hook non-stop. Sometimes you won’t hear anything for weeks, but in the end, it all has a tendency to work out and saying ‘no’ to one or two jobs isn’t going to make a big difference one way or the other.
EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT
Our role, by its’ very nature, means that we come into contact with people when they are at a very low state emotionally. They may be still coming to terms with their grief and will need to have their hand-held throughout the process. And who better to do it? Us of course!
And it doesn’t matter that we already have a number of services that day or week because obviously there’s no-one else that could shoulder that emotional load better than us, is there.
Once again, let’s not kid ourselves that no-one else is capable of dealing with these grieving families. All the celebrants should have been on a training course and will probably have a good few services under their belts, some will have plenty more than you, so stop thinking no-one else can do it.
IT’S VERY FINAL
Even though it’s only two letters long, it sounds so…well, final. I’m pretty sure that none of us would be so abrupt as to simply say ‘No’ and hang up the phone but there are ways of tempering the blow and making sure that you leave the door open for future business.
You could always suggest another celebrant that you know and have a reciprocal arrangement with them, so even if you did lose a service there’s always the chance that you’ll pick another up at a later date.
If you don’t know another celebrant well enough, just say ‘I really hope you find someone’ and arrange to call back after the service to see how things went.
There are always going to be times when we have to say those two little letters and I get it, it’s hard but hopefully, we can understand why and accept that saying ‘no’ is an important part of life and we can grow from that.