Your cart is empty.
Keep shopping
Assertive Communication: Set Boundaries and Say No
352 students
Assertive Communication: Set Boundaries and Say No
assertive communication | how to say no | setting boundaries at work | emotional intelligence | conflicts | feedback
Last updated 9/2026
English
English [Auto],
What you'll learn
- Notice your own reaction before it becomes the thing you say
- Say the difficult thing so it is heard rather than defended against
- Identify the belief that stops you speaking up, and argue with it
- Hold a position when someone escalates, without escalating back
- Say no by giving the work to whoever actually owns it
- Set a boundary on your calendar and defend it with a method rather than a mood
- Recognise the stress pattern that builds when you never decline anything
- Ask for feedback on yourself and use what comes back
- Learn alongside Mike's 1.6 million students from 185 countries
- Get the author's experience from Preply, Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank
Explore related topics
Course content
14 sections • 38 lectures • 22h 32m total length
Requirements
- A working relationship where you keep agreeing to things you did not want to agree to
- No prior training in communication or psychology required
- Willingness to practise a conversation before having it
- English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
- Honesty about which conversations you have been postponing
Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Most advice on saying no is a list of phrases. The phrases are fine. The reason you did not use them is not a vocabulary problem.
What actually happens in the moment
Someone asks for something. You feel the answer is no. And then a belief arrives faster than the sentence does — that refusing will damage the relationship, that you will look difficult, that this is what a good colleague does. By the time you have finished processing that, you have already said yes and you are annoyed about it. I have done this for entire years of my career, and I got better at it only when I stopped looking for better wording and started looking at what happened in the two seconds before I spoke.
What this course actually covers
Six blocks. First, emotional intelligence: noticing your own reaction before it becomes your answer, the effect you have on a room, and how to change a communication habit rather than mask it. Second, saying the difficult thing — why people avoid it, the four things that block it, and a six-step model for saying it in the moment. Third, what happens when someone pushes back: how conflict escalates, the situations you will actually face, and how to resolve one without either capitulating or escalating. Fourth, saying no by handing work to whoever owns it, including the psychological barriers that stop most people delegating. Fifth, boundaries on your own calendar: prioritisation, time-blocking and procrastination. Sixth, the cost of never declining anything, and how to see it coming.
A note on the material
Twenty-two of the thirty-six lessons were recorded for people who lead teams: giving feedback to an employee, managing conflict in a group, delegating tasks, burnout in an organisation. The skill itself has no direction. A boundary works upward, downward and sideways, and the reasons people avoid a hard conversation are the same whoever is on the other side. If you manage people, all of it applies without translation.
Who is teaching this
I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.
What is included
Lifetime access to all 36 lessons
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Working material: the six-step feedback model, the conflict resolution algorithm, RACI, the Eisenhower matrix, the 4D technique, the burnout audit
Practical scripts you prepare before the conversation rather than during it
Where to start
Think of the last thing you agreed to and did not want to. Write down what you believed would happen if you had said no. That sentence, not your vocabulary, is what this course works on. Enrol now and start today.
Who this course is for:
- Specialists who say yes to everything and resent it by Thursday
- Managers who avoid the conversation until it becomes a performance problem
- People who go quiet in meetings and write the good argument afterwards
- Anyone whose workload grew because declining felt impossible
- Team leads dealing with a colleague who talks over everyone
- Professionals working in a culture more direct than the one they came from
- Anyone who has been called too soft, then too harsh, for the same conversation