Learning to say no….this is so important.

It occurs to me that I have written at length about the importance of being intentional and proactive in what you decide to do.  In short, this is making a decision, ahead of time, about all of the things that we will say ‘yes’ to.  But, it occurs to me, I have only written by way of implication about the need to say ‘no’ to things as well.  Learning to say no….this is so important and if do not learn this then being productive and effective in our lives is impossible.  In fact, I would go so far as to write that saying ‘no’ is actually the only thing that give your ‘yes’ meaning and power.

Let me illustrate with a silly made up example.  Here are 4 people, called Simon (our protagonist), and then Lee, John & Sarah.

Simon’s yes is meaningless because he hasn’t said no.

Why saying ‘no’ matters

We cannot do everything, we know this.  There is not time and there is not capacity.  Saying yes to one thing and no to something else are the two essential aspects of assigning importance and value to the things we say yes to.  Somethings are objectively important, but everything is also important relative to everything else.  In fact, assigning importance and priority, is by definition an act that elevates something above everything else.

But here is the key thing.  Most often, we will say yes, without also saying no.  We might look at our list of projects and goals or tasks and decide that we intend to focus on some, but without also deciding that we will not do certain other things in order to protect the value of our decision.

So, we mark out a time slot for writing something (for example), but we don’t disconnect from chat, email, messaging and our phone.  We don’t say ‘no’ to those things to protect the value of our writing.  We plan to spend a day with our family, as we consider this important, but we spend that time checking our emails, browsing social media or whatever.

Learning to say no….this is so important, because only saying no provides meaning to our ‘yes’.  

Learning to say no

This is very hard as so many of us our people pleasers, and what I come to next is even harder (but we aren’t their yet)!  We want to say yes, we do not want to disappoint.  But saying yes, is really easy.  Here is the lesson, if we say yes to everyone, then we will disappoint everyone as we will not have capacity to keep all the commitments we make.  So we need to learn to say no.  And it is hard.  This is why taking time to plan is essential.  You need to take time to look at a list of what needs to be done and make a double edged choice.  Edge one is the choice of what you will do and edge two cuts away everything else.

This is a habit that takes time to form.  Initially, it is worth consciously considering what you are saying ‘no’ to as you plan your time and then actively considering the steps you might need to take in order to ensure you follow through on that ‘no’.

Then, you need to consider the kind of additional requests that you might get and work out what to do about them.  This will look different all the time. This episode of my podcast may be helpful on some of this, though no directly about it.

For example, you might put things in place to mean that additional requests simply cannot reach you.  You have decided that what you are doing is so important that everything else is a firm no.  You might do this for a family holiday, or at a wedding or funeral.

You might disconnect from email or chat and only consider requests that come in by phone.  That at least filters what comes at you to only things that person making considers them important enough to call you about.

Dealing with new requests

So, when requests do reach you, or if you receive requests to do things that will either take time or be for the future, you need to develop a habit of actually considering them against everything else on their individual merits.

If it’s from your boss, you may not be able to say no, or you might need to explain the costs of you saying yes and allow them to make a judgement.  But, with everything else, you need to compare the importance, the value and the opportunity of the request being made against the importance and value of everything else you are currently doing and make a judgement.

Two questions that are worth asking:

1. Is there greater value, benefit or a greater opportunity to serve offered by this, than something else I could drop in order to take this on. 
2. Is it worth taking this on and then doing this and something else less well, in order to make the most of both and do I have capacity for this.

Saying no to yourself – the controversial bit

 I am about to embark on a 3 part series in my Newsletter – E|F Muses on…, which is all about saying no to yourself.  So much of what you read out there is about saying no to other people in order to look after yourself.

But, I argue, that it is equally important to say no to yourself for a multitude of reasons, including serving other and caring for yourself.

Learning to say no to yourself, is HARDER than saying no to others.  But, I plan on writing this into my newsletter, which is free and you can sign up here.  Later down the line, the material will get polished up for my blog, but that might be in a few months.

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E|F Muses on....

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