Say “No” Often
“Here’s the magical rule: If you want to take discipline and smart thinking to a whole different level – and thus achieve better results – say no to the things that don’t matter the most.”
In today’s fast-paced world, we are presented with opportunities almost every waking minute. Messages, products, emails, phone calls, offers, meetings, and activities bombard us on a continual basis. We are possibilities people, so sometimes these things look attractive. But it is possible to have too many choices. Here’s the magical rule: If you want to take discipline and smart thinking to a whole different level – and thus achieve better results – say no to the things that don’t matter the most. People usually don’t say no because they don’t know how, they don’t want to miss out on anything, or they don’t want to offend someone. But people-pleasers are rarely wildly successful. If you don’t learn how to say no, needless activities can pile up on the calendar, draining valuable moments from important projects and goals—valuable moments from your life that you’ll never get back.
Say no strategically. Most often the right time to say no is at the beginning. There are a lot of ways to say no and still make people feel as if you care. If you’re an author, for instance, you can say no to a free speech opportunity and offer to send them a free case of your books for their group or event. If you’re an entrepreneur who gets invited to participate in a deal, you can say no and instead send one of your colleagues to do the research and attend the meeting.
When you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else. When you say yes to a client dinner, for instance, you could be saying no to dinner with your children. When you say yes to counseling someone after work, you could be saying no to counseling a family member in your own home. When you say yes to lunch with a friend, you may be saying no to completing an important deadline at the office. If you say yes to every activity, meeting, lunch, or volunteer opportunity, you’re saying no to anything else that could have been in that time slot. It is easier to build relationships and build your business when you eliminate so many of the distractions, unwanted attention, unnecessary obligations, and meaningless meetings.
Saying no also creates space. In order to create margin time, which is that extra space in your life that you very rarely have, even if it’s just for a moment of solitude and thinking, you have to start getting good at saying no more often.
Saying no reduces stress and gives you more time and energy. Successful businesses are not built on a feeling of obligation or a fear of saying no. Successful businesses are built when clarity, focus, and execution converge over and over again.
