No is Yes is No

Here’s a (potentially) uncomfortable fact:

You do not find saying ‘No’ to people difficult.

I hear people say all the time, “I’m not very good at saying no” or, “I’m find it awkward telling people no.”

Every ‘Yes’ is a ‘No’. A no to something else you could have done with that time. You could be saying no to advancing a project that would benefit your customers in a real and meaningful way. You could be saying no to a family member who would love to spend that time with you, except you gave it away already to someone who asked first.

Every ‘No’ is a ‘Yes’. A no to something that doesn’t require your time, so you can spend it on something that does. A no that enables you to move things forward, progress in business or in life. A no that lets you spend time with your most precious people, rather than keeping them waiting because you Yessed your time away.

You might not like saying No. But every time you say No, you say yes to everything else. And equally, every time you say Yes, you say No to everything else.

Since you can’t get out of saying no, you might as well get comfortable with it and instead decide what to say no to.