Why is saying no so hard? Try this.
By Jason Henkel, Chief Balance Engineer
For those who have been through our Balance and Productivity trainings, you'll recall us putting quite a bit of emphasis on the art and craft of saying no. This is an area where most busy people have never really studied and practiced. Here at Focus to Evolve, we consider the act of saying no as one of the four primary meta-skills that are required for that doubling-of-meaningful-output-in-the-same-number-of-hours-worked benefit. We call it a meta-skill, because there is no area of your life that won't improve (dramatically) when you begin to get good at saying no to the things that simply should not be on your plate.
In the training, we address how to say no with kind and mature confidence. And then secondly, with the freed up time (instant and powerful benefit), how do you parlay that into spending those newly freed up minutes on your dream-priority things that mean the most to you? This is done through what we call architectural calendaring. Having dropped all the sneaky little commitments that don't mean anything to you, you'll find a tremendous amount of minutes and calories (and cognitive energy) to really knock your most important tasks out of the park.
You may wonder why I'm qualified to speak on this very important subject. I should have started with this, but please believe me when I tell you, I used to be a professional "yes man." I was a brown-nosing, butt-kissing, corporate-ladder-climbing yes man. And guess what…it worked! I climbed to a very nice global role where my teams were deploying CRM and ERP systems in more than two dozen countries. I was one BUSY dude. I would say yes to everyone and everything…but at what cost? Let's keep this answer short. At the cost of my joy, health, happiness, and family relations. Now this may be an extreme example, although true. But the idea is the same. If you feel off balance and not out in front of it, one of the quickest fixes is learning to get up above the clutter and look at the proverbial 100 things on your plate. Take the bottom 20 priority items and say no to them - immediately. Drop them! Clean and fast - say no to them. Cut and paste those newly released minutes and calories to the top 20 priority items and watch your life sky rocket towards your defined dream and feel the balance that rushes in.
It is likely that you may upset some people by informing them that you are no longer working on their dream because it's your turn. That said, I find that it's not usually the case. When I'm candid and mature with the reasons why I'm carving down my commitments, they usually understand and even admire me for taking control. I used to feel like I was responsible for the happiness of others (which is what led me to the frantic, shallow working, hamster-wheel sprint situation I used to be in at work). But with a lot of internal work, I finally came to realize that I'm not responsible for other people's happiness. That's their responsibility. My saying no to them doesn't mean I don't respect them or don't love them. It just means, "Sorry, I would like to spend my minutes building out my dream now."
We're only talking about saying no to the bottom (priority) 20% of your list here. We are not advising that you tell the boss no to all his or her requests or the big customer or the elderly woman across the street who may have no one else. Those hopefully are top priority things. We're talking about saying no to all the "meh" stuff in your life that may have once been important to you but no longer should be hijacking your energy.
I always revert back to Derek Sivers saying, "For me and the things I spend my life on, it's HELL YES! or it's no."
If you or your team would like to sign up for our 2 hour Balance and Productivity training to instantly double your meaningful output and find the feeling of lasting flow and optimized work life balance, please click here and say hello!
Productively Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team