Saying No.

Ahh saying no--not always a fun activity and yet...very containing, affirming, helpful. 

“No” gets a bad rep I think.  Saying ‘no’ is associated with being uncollaborative, being negative, being unwilling.  

All the times we say no however, are paving the way for our current and future yesses.  When I was in my early 20’s I thought I was supposed to say yes to every opportunity. Don’t close the doors of opportunity!  Say yes to friends, say yes to plans, say yes to options. 

This however is a huge recipe for unhappiness.  This is directly tied to that quote about pleasing everyone is a recipe for being unhappy.  The issue with no and yes is partially an issue of binary thinking.

Sometimes we need binary thinking. The issue for a lot of people can come when we are starting out, because we are encountering new situations where we haven’t decided in advance what to say no and yes to.  

For example - you’re offered your first job, and you’ve been searching for months and finally somebody says yes to you.  So your answer is an automatic yes-because you’ve been on yes mode and waiting and waiting.  Then you realize you didn’t stop to figure out what saying yes to this meant really- and you’ve got to do a lot of back pedaling and say no in reverse.   It would be easy to say this could be prevented, but to a large extent we need to make mistakes - because they are part of having experienced life and give us ways to figure out our next decision.

Saying no will keep you sane.  One issue worth noting is that the best no doesn’t always sound like a no.  It sounds often like a yes to something else.

I can’t meet at 9am tomorrow but I could do 1pm. 

This is a very boring simple sentence...and yet… Let’s go behind the scenes and add in all of the parts that are none of the other person’s business:

I can’t meet at 9am tomorrow but I could do 1pm. 

Oh hell no I can’t meet at 9am tomorrow because I will be working out, or sleeping, or scrolling instagram, my circadian rhythm is such that I’m just no good at that hour, I’ll be busy drinking coffee, I’ll be busy working on a video<wow look at all the things I’m saying yes to.

but I could do 1pm. <here’s a yes.

This seems easy, but some of you reading this-especially those who struggle to say no, like I did, may not even realize you have this option. I sure didn’t when I was starting out.  The only times I would say a sentence like the above was really if I had another meeting with another person-and I’d go on about justifying myself that I had to be at that meeting etc. and so on.  The thing is - most people want you to uphold your own boundaries and say your own ‘no’s’
Don’t make others do your work for you.  Say your no’s. 

Some no’s are of course harder than others because of all the emotions that get mucked up in the middle of them.  Feeling guilty about saying no - well, that’s something to suss out with yourself, a trusted friend, a therapist perhaps. 

A good process can turn “I can’t say no and I don’t know how” to
“When I say no I feel guilty.”  or maybe “If I say no, other’s won’t want to be my friend.”  
to eventually “I love saying no, because I’m saying yes to this other thing.” (and if that other thing is sitting on your couch with personal pizza, that’s generally nobody’s goddamn business.)

“...BUT WHY?”

People will ask you “why?” sometimes, Why don’t you want to? Why is that the policy? What if we do xyz?

To a degree this is part of the game, and you need to become somewhat expert at knowing when and to whom you need to give up your why.  This can become a tricky area, but on some matters it’s fairly black and white.  If it comes to your own body for example, you owe nobody any ‘why’ answers. This is called boundaries. 

If it comes to something like your schedule, you may need to give some ‘why’ answers.

I do have a specific and deep hatred for people who will try and use your why to negotiate. There is a time and place for negotiation and much of life is a subtle negotiation, among colleagues among friends, spouses, family etc.   

I’m not talking about that though, I’m talking about a conversation where you have said no, the other person asks why, and upon hearing your ‘why’ then tries to argue with your why.  This is when you will likely need to state a stronger no and then move on with your day.  Some people have not earned the right to ask you why.  

An easy example is strangers on the street - Do you have a moment to save the penguins? No. I don’t. Why? Nope. (It’s none of this person’s business how many moments you do or don’t have and if you’ve spent any of them saving penguins.)

You’ll notice who the people you really want to work with and be around don’t spend much time trying to ask you why and negotiate your ‘no’s’ they tend to accept your ‘no’ at face value. If they are asking you ‘why’ it tends to be about understanding you better and not about an impending negotiation.   

What does saying no look like?

It actually looks so many ways that it’s enumerable.

Some possible examples though:

“I’d like to but I can’t.”
“That’s not something I’m interested in.”
“No Thanks!” Said cheerfully
“No thanks.” Said kindly
“No thanks.” Said with no affect.
“This one’s a pass for me/us” etc.

These are simple examples and yet, if you haven’t used these you may need some practice. 

The silent ‘no’

Here’s a way of saying no that I’ve seen used a lot.  I’ve seen managers do this, it’s painfully annoyingly potent.

They say nothing.  They just wait for the other person to volunteer to do the work.  Oy vey.  I mean, I suppose that’s one way to do it, and there is a lot of subtext and pre-agreement in this, but I have to admit it is quite effective.  

For example. Sitting in a meeting, a project is brought up, lots of discussion is happening, ideas flowing. Then the conversation starts to turn to who is doing what.  Suddenly, the most eager to please people are volunteering to send a follow up email, call the client, take the notes, and so on and so forth.

Who leaves the meeting with action items? Who leaves the meeting having gotten something done through other people?

To a degree, again, if you’re in charge you may have this luxury of silence on the action items-maybe you’ve earned that power or right. Maybe it’s not really your project.  This is why I think consulting is a genius field of work:  Here ya go, here’s all the work I think you should do. 

I digress.  

Point being - silence is an effective way to say no, sometimes. Sometimes you need to say no and get back to the important work you were doing before everyone called a meeting about some reactionary thing. 


Default Settings

It can be immensely helpful to have some default settings. Things you say no to in your everyday work.  I am for example toying with the idea of saying no to all requests for a letter of reference.  This may seem selfish, but the truth is, there comes a point when the sheer scale of people who I’ve led out numbers the hours I have in my day to write letters for other people.

I can feel myself even now feeling selfish in toying with this rule - this is actually a good sign, because this feeling means I’m on the edge of a potential discovery.  If it were easy and comfortable it would mean I’d already learned this lesson.

Other People’s Agendas:
As a general rule, I say no to answering email until later in the morning.  Which is a larger prioritization of taking care of my important work first and only then responding to everyone else’s agendas.

If I can save you from spending a decade of your career answering emails as your default, god please tell me I did, because it will make me so happy.  I think email, slack, messenger, and all of their variants are necessary and helpful in their places, but if you zoom out to see that a lot of it really is someone else's agenda’s for you then you realize that you need to lower these on your priority list and do something meaningful before you check email.  

Checking email and running your day based on other people’s agenda’s is a really convenient way to hide from your own power, your own will, and your own meaning. 

No. It can be a beautiful thing

When I look back on all the things I’ve said no to, I feel a lovely sense of accomplishment.  Like bathing in a warm soup of opportunity.   I feel like Pam in The Office yelling out “No More Meetings!” I feel the power and weight of all the yeses are ushering me forward. 

What are you saying no to today?