The Power of Saying “No” When You Feel Pressured to Say "Yes"

“When I claim more than what I can han­dle, I lim­it the oppor­tu­ni­ties for anoth­er per­son in my com­mu­ni­ty.” — Jeff Shin­abarg­er, Author, More or Less: Choos­ing a Lifestyle of Exces­sive Generosity

Feel­ing too busy, or pres­sured to try to please, can get in the way of mak­ing sound deci­sions. It’s part of the human condition.

Here are two per­son­al examples:

• Some­one calls to ask me for help. If I speak with them, I know I’ll want to help, even though it will take time from anoth­er com­mit­ment, or things I need to do for myself, my part­ner, kids or friends.

The desire to be of ser­vice when you don’t have the band­width can cre­ate a lot of problems.

• While shop­ping for a piece of fur­ni­ture recent­ly, some­one strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed some­thing I thought wouldn’t look good. Even though I said three or four times that I didn’t believe it worked, they were adamant and asked me to trust them. So I said OK and ordered it. The moment it was deliv­ered, I knew it wasn’t right for me — and my instincts were proven right. So I sold it for a frac­tion of what I paid for it — it was cus­tom ordered — and was hap­py to see it go.

The desire and pres­sure to please in that moment can over­rule your own good instincts.

What we all need, as one of my coach­es once told me, was a strate­gic fil­ter to say ​‘no’ or ​‘yes’ imme­di­ate­ly. It makes it eas­i­er to say ​‘no’, the first time. Oth­er­wise, you’re in for all kinds of new problems.

We recent­ly did a won­der­ful Growth Whis­per­ers pod­cast about the pow­er of say­ing ​“no” that you can check out.

The Chal­lenge

• Deter­mine your strate­gic filter/​criteria for say­ing ​‘no’ or ​‘yes’.
• Sit down and make a list of all the things already in progress, that you real­ly should say ​“no” to in your Work and/​or your Life.
• Make a sec­ond list of new things you’re think­ing about doing to which you should prob­a­bly say ​“no”.
• Con­sid­er ask­ing your team to do the same thing.

For more about this, lis­ten to Episode 74 of The Growth Whisperers.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

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