Change Your Relationship To “No”
JONNY ROMAN
One of the things I encounter most with leaders that I coach is one word: Overwhelm.
And it’s not hard to see why. They have an incalculable number of responsibilities and tasks on their plate that they must attend to: managing multiple employees, driving growth, meeting deadlines, moving a project forward, hundreds (or thousands) of emails every day, and endless hours of meetings each week…sometimes it seems like it never ends. One client told me by the end of the day they “collapse in bed.” I feel exhausted just writing that.
When I ask them why they think they’re so overwhelmed, I hear all sorts of reasons: too many meetings, incompetent employees don’t know how to figure things out themselves, leadership is setting unreasonable goals, the pandemic has made it too easy to keep working late into the night since I’m no longer traveling to and from work, it’s hard to say no, I don’t like disappointing people, and many other reasons. On the surface all of these reasons seems legitimate on some level. They all have some truth to them. But really there’s only one that stands out as the real problem: I don’t like saying No.
“No” gets a bad rap.
When I ask the leaders I coach about why it feels hard to say no, they all say some version of “not wanting to disappoint people,” or “I’m a people pleaser” or “it’s uncomfortable” or some version of that. Because people relate to No as a negative, like it’s this Great Disappointer and needs to be avoided at all costs.
But the problem is, the real “Great Equalizer” is time.
We all have the same amount of time, and it’s extremely finite. And we’re all after the same thing: results. We’re not toiling away on projects or spending countless hours in meetings or responding to hundreds of emails or slack messages just for the sake of it. We do that because we’re working to create some kind of tangible end product: a sale, revenue growth, product development, client satisfaction, an impact in the world with our products, or on the personal side, deeper connection with our kids, or more fulfillment in our marriage, or better health in our bodies, or more fulfillment and purpose in our lives. And there’s truly only so much we can do in a given amount of time…so we have to make decisions of what we are going to prioritize and focus on…and what we’re not.
Warren Buffet says “All successful people say No to almost everything.” No doesn’t need to be a negative. Saying no to one thing actually means saying Yes to something else. When you say no to that additional meeting that you don’t really need to be at, you’re saying yes to more time to spend on your real priority, you’re saying yes to having a time to breathe for a few moments and take a break, so your mind and boy can reset, you’re saying yes to having a few extra moments with your wife or husband or kids, you’re saying yes to having an opportunity to go out for a walk or a run, get some exercise, or even a few extra minutes to nap. By saying no, you are directing your yes more intentionally, and creating more of your life than just bowing to the whims of every request or demand.
It’s time to change your relationship to No.
What are places you can say No in your life that you’ve been putting off?
No can be empowering to you and empowering to the person you’re saying no to. Because they need to get creative, or identify new ways of addressing whatever problem on their own they needed you to solve. Sometimes saying yes can make an employee co-dependent on you.
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