Saying Yes and No Appropriately

SUMMARY

In learning to say “yes" and “no” appropriately, the first thing you need to do is be able to reconcile what's really going on.

You need to flip, reverse, remove, unlearn and rethink that before you can move forward and say “yes” and “no” appropriately.

You see, you don't have a problem saying “no”; because every time you say “yes” to someone else out of obligation, you are saying “no” to one of your own priorities.

Everything you say “yes” and “no” to has a counterpart because you can only be one person in one situation at any given time. So by realising that you don't have a problem saying “no” but perhaps have a priority problem, you will have an accurate understanding of your current reality.

This week, I want to help you to build your Personal Power by helping you to say “yes” and “no” appropriately.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you have a problem saying no? Are you always getting caught up in other people's priorities and then, wishing you could take it all back?

Well, stick with me because this week, I'm going to help you to shift that and move it away forever.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to help you to build your Personal Power by helping you to say “yes” and “no” appropriately.

Last week we started talking about Personal Power, and we looked at the fact it is that inner certainty, and it's the foundation of all your identity. It's the greatest competency of Emotional Intelligence because it underpins everything else that you do well.

We've talked before about this thing called the performance trap, where we perform to get the approval of others. However, that being the motive doesn't always give you the results that you want. It's an unhealthy motive because if you are always looking for that external validation, you may not get it.

We have also talked about the fact that it erodes your identity, which is the true sense of who you believe you are. We talked about the fact that you can flip that and build up your identity, your Personal Power so that you decide who you are, and you can look in the mirror metaphorically and physically and be okay with what you see, knowing that you have things you still need to learn and need to work on, but you're okay with your progress.

That shift allows you then to go from a position of self-approval and then perform out of that instead of trying to get it from everybody else.

When you're operating in the performance trap, you tend to say “yes” to things that you could say “no” to. Unfortunately, you normally do that at the detriment of your own true priorities.

During my corporate career, there have been many times when I would say “yes” to my boss about something staying back, coming in early, orwhatever it was. However, it held me back from doing things I had committed to with my children, my wife and my family.

Every time that happened, there was that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because my true priorities were what I wanted to invest my energy into. However, because of the belief that I had that if I don’t say “yes” to my boss, he’s going to think ill about me, and therefore, it’s going to mean that…

This kind of thinking can quickly spiral down, and all your previous priorities can be thrown out of the window just so you can get that instant fix of approval.

In learning to say “yes" and “no” appropriately, the first thing you need to do is be able to reconcile what's really going on.

I asked you at the beginning if you have problems saying “no”. People tell me all the time that they cannot say “no” or they cannot say “no”.

What I want you to understand is that that's incorrect.

You need to flip, reverse, remove, unlearn and rethink that before you can move forward and say “yes” and “no” appropriately.

You see, you don't have a problem saying “no”; because every time you say “yes” to someone else out of obligation, you are saying “no” to one of your own priorities.

Everything you say “yes” and “no” to has a counterpart because you can only be one person in one situation at any given time. So by realising that you don't have a problem saying “no” but perhaps have a priority problem, you will have an accurate understanding of your current reality.

Every time you work out of an accurate understanding, you get to put a strategy together that's going to help you to solve the challenge.

So the first thing I want you to do is to think about all the things that you are constantly saying “yes" to and put them through your values and your priorities. As they filter through, ask yourself these questions:

“For what purpose?"

"At what cost?”

Take my situation with my previous boss as an example:

Before I said “yes” to my boss when he asked me to stay back for the third time in the week, I first need to ask myself:

“For what purpose would I say ‘yes’?"

If the answer to that question is because you’re scared of what you’re boss might think of you or they may fire you, then you challenge that and get a healthier understanding around that. Because if you make a decision based on that, you’re bound to make the wrong one which is going to be detrimental to your true values and priorities.

The second thing is to ask the other side: “At what cost?”

For example:

If the cost will cause you not to be able to attend your son’s soccer game as you have promised him, you then weigh those things up as to which is the most important.

To do this, you need to get your internal dialogue, your “mini-me”, under control.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to help you with that.

Let’s get the concept and the process understood today, and then we'll keep adding layers as we go.

So, it is:

“I’m saying “yes” to this for this reason. Therefore, this is the cost.”

Another example might be my health:

By saying “yes” to sitting down all day watching Netflix.

If I look at the purpose of doing that and then I look at the cost of that, I'm getting a true understanding of what's going on.

So the first thing is to understand and identify the things that you're saying “yes” to all the time.

The second thing is to run through that process (just like I did) and be able to (in that moment) instead of just saying “yes”, thinking and putting yourself through those questions to go:

When I say “yes” to this, I'm saying “no” to that.

You can do that with things that are taking you away from your priorities, but you can also do that to confirm the things that are good for you.

So, when I say “yes” to going for a walk every day, I'm saying “no” to a stiff body sitting in the office.

Being able to put it on either side of the ledger for what purpose at what cost and then truly identifying “what” when you say “no”, “yes", and vice versa will help you to get a clearer understanding of what's going on. It will break that pattern of instantly just going “yes" or “no” and filtering it through a logical process for you to make a different decision.

Being able to say “yes” or “no” appropriately is vital for you to be able to stay strong, healthy and resilient. It also reduces stress and, in particular, reduces that unhealthy internal dialogue that goes on, where you beat yourself up for not investing the energy and the priorities that you say you want to.

Being able to have a process to interrupt the pattern and to make different decisions around the things that you're saying “yes” and “no” to is what this process is all about.

It also is a work in progress. It's something that's going to change and become easier to do as you build up your own identity.

We're going to continue to do that over the coming weeks, and going through that process of unlearning that old behaviour and relearning new behaviour that you repeat is going to mean that you'll say “yes” to different things that are closer to your own priorities, and therefore make you feel good about the choices that you are making.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we add another layer to building this competency of Personal Power. I'll see you then.