The Story Behind It
Idea for this blog came while working to prioritise my time for important tasks and balance the family, work, and friends. Something will be left. I had a guilt few years back for saying No for few things but today I felt if I must take care of my energy and myself. When you say No if you feel anxiety, stress is normal but over time you will understand every YES you make you are saying NO anyways. So anytime you have trouble saying NO understand what the YES is you will have to stick and what is the opportunity cost?
By BHOOMI DIWA
“Self-care isn’t selfish. It’s necessary. The problem is, if you’re constantly saying yes to other people, putting their priorities ahead of your own, you won’t have the time or energy to care for yourself. And you’ll slowly become irritated, cynical, and miserable.” ~ Damon Zahariades
The main job as a leader is to focus on the most important
goal or tasks. From the laundry list of the work to be done, our job is to find the most value generating tasks. So, any job that distracts us from the main objective should be the ones we must say NO to. So it should be very easy to say NO to the things but many times as we cave into our need to please people in general or power in particular. If we try to please leads to us to overcommit, over stretch
or drained over passage of time not only for us but for our teams as well. For once or twice team will do it but gradually you will see the drop in the productivity and morale of your team. This is just opposite of what we want from our teams.
“We have a limited number of hours to play with each day. That means every time we say yes to someone, we’re saying no to someone or something else.”~ Damon Zahariades
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” ~ Warren Buffett
To able to say No to you must be able to understand your goals. Since we work in the times when rate of change is constant so generally as leaders you should be working to revisit your priorities every 1-3 months depending upon the industry you are working on. Knowing the direction for that duration helps to say YES to things which align with it and bring all people together to same mission.
Before even thinking about saying yes or no, understand the WHY. Take your time to reflect on what you understood alongside your WHY and later think whether it aligns with your short-term goal or long-term goal. If not, just learn to say NO. Obviously if it matches both short term goal and long-term goal its easy Yes. If it matches just long-term goal not yet short-term goal, simply mention it is a good idea, but it might need bit of prioritisation. Have your team and stakeholder be on the same page for upcoming timeframe you are planning to place it. As much as you need people from power position to be on your side you need people from your team members to be on your side. If it doesn’t match either short term or long-term goal, formulate your response to maintain the cordial relationship. It should answer your comprehension and WHY regarding the request. Your considerations and your why which led to your response. Be strong be humble and genuine. .
Seeing your NO, many of your fellow colleagues might find
the courage to say yes to the things that matters to them the most.
Once you learn The ART of SAYING NO, you will realize you are able to achieve more within limited time frame and you were able to save yourselves from lot of disappointments .
Want to meet you as आ life coach
Reach me out on diwa.bhoomi@gmail.com for any coaching