We all know that “no” is a word we need to get better  at saying. In fact, we need  to start saying “no” more and “yes” a whole lot less. But why do we find it so hard? And why is it important that we  get into the habit of saying “no” more frequently?

Like so many other women in business, I’ve felt the intense pressure to be perfect. I’ve tried to be everything to everyone all at once: the world’s best mother, manager, partner and friend. And while I value those roles greatly, my past people-pleasing and inability to say no led me to the brink of burnout. 

It wasn’t until I stopped to question my ‘busyness’ and the toll it was taking on me did I realise the importance of shifting my mindset, changing my habits and learning to say “no”. 

Today, I want to share with you the four key reasons why I believe saying “no” really matters, and the six values I live by to guide me through my life and work. 

Enjoy!

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And as I was thinking about today's episode, it reminded me of when I was a new parent. Imagine having given birth to your first baby and five months later, you're returning to full time work. You've got very little family support around you. And that added pressure of going back to work full time and building, rebuilding a career in a brand new country.

And to be honest with you, it actually left me on that brink of burnout. Really hitting that sense of helplessness and absolutely exhausted because I was just trying to be the perfect everything. I was trying to be the perfect parent, the perfect manager, the perfect partner, the perfect friends all at once and what actually happened for me by saying yes, yes, yes and people pleasing, it depleted all the energy levels that I had and I was operating purely out of a sense of survival.

And surprisingly, my boss at the time responded with, Oh my goodness, Janine, of course, what can we do to help? What can we do to help you? And this was a real turning point for me because I realized that being exhausted wasn't leadership, nor was it inspiring to other people. And I also realized that saying yes to everybody else, that was not serving me in any way.

And actually, yes was serving everyone else, and it wasn't serving me. It wasn't putting me into that position of feeling great, well, healthy, thriving in any way. And this got me thinking about how many of us actually operate from a place of people pleasing. And as a result of that, we put other people before ourselves first.

It's almost like we get an email and we flick it onto someone else and it's off our to do list, but guess what? Our inboxes, those in of inboxes or emails end up with inboxes overflowing and we say yes, way too much to everyone else's demands, versus saying no and looking after ourselves. This busyness has become almost a default response.

And I think we've got to rethink this thing. You know, we say yes to the possibility of something, but what we fail to do is think about the cost of that yes. And every single yes is costing us in terms of time, in terms of money, in terms of energy, in terms of focus. It's costing us in terms of yet another email in our inbox, yet another commitment in our calendar, yet another thing that suddenly we've got to divert our energy, our focus, our time, our energy on.

And actually email is in control of you more than you being in control of it. So reason number one is that when we say no, it actually gives us a sense of direction.

You make all these commitments to yourself, all these new year's resolutions, all these new plans for your business. And you set off with great intentions. You know, for me, I wanted to learn to ocean swim. I wanted to refresh my client programs. I wanted to grow my business. I wanted to create more space for myself and I wanted, you know, more, more, more, more and then as this lists of once grew, what quickly became obvious to me is that list was unachievable. I was setting myself up for failure from day one because I knew that I had limited time to focus and actually move that business forward. So what I had to do is really think about what I was going to say no to. I had to be very intentional about what I was going to commit to, where I was going to focus my time, my energy, my dollars, my commitment, my [00:07:00] connections, so that I had the focus to ensure that that doubling down of energy would enable the direction of my business to grow in the way I wanted it to grow.

And so saying no allowed me to essentially, what I did, you think about that concept or the analogy of having too many eggs in one basket, what I was doing by saying no was removing eggs. So I ended up with a handful of eggs in my basket that I could actually focus on and ensure that every single bit of effort, of time, of energy, of money, was focused on a small number of things.

So that's the first thing. The second reason I think no really matters is I think when you say no it gives you a resolve. It helps make you stronger against those naysayers. The people that are trying to zap you of energy or trying to hold you back. And the more that you can say no, and have the resolve around that, the more that you can hold your ground. Whilst it may annoy some other people, it might piss some people off, saying no becomes empowering over time. So it shows that you're absolutely committed that you have the resolve to focus your time and energy on the very thing that matters. An example of that for me was very much a commitment. You know, we've got a busy business.

And so for me, in this instance of no giving me a resolve, was instead of saying yes all the time to every single invitation that came out or every single networking function or every single opportunity to connect, this was making me really clear that nothing could take away that quality time either from the business or from my family.

You know, Warren Buffett, the very famous and very successful entrepreneur, famously once said that the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. So really successful people say no to almost everything. I truly believe that if you can save yourself the time and the stress by saying no to activities that don't serve you at this moment in time.

I'm not going to do that. Now this final one, the final, the fourth reason, I want to share as to why no really matters is I do believe that no allows you to align with your value system. It allows you to align with your value system. Think about it. How many times have you said yes to something? How many times have you said yes to a project, a contra deal, meeting up with someone, going to a networking event, doing some work.

Could be an employee, could be a client. Could be getting involved in something. And the reason, you know, you end up regretting it is because it's not aligned with your values. It's not aligned with the work that you want to be doing with the clients that you want to work with. And so I think saying no allows you to align with your values.

So what I do, I've made a list and I'll share them with you in a second of the six key values that I work to, and I ask myself before I say yes, I make sure that I'm only saying yes to things that are aligned with these values that are aligned with the vision and the direction that I'm taking our organization, our business, our family, and my life.

Yes or no? And if there's no's, if it's no's all the way through, it's a big fat no from me. If there's the only occasional no, that's where I'm intentionally making a decision. I'm making an intentional choice as to whether I say yes or no versus passively people pleasing and saying yes immediately.

Or is it going to deplete my energy? If it's going to deplete my energy, it's a big fat no from me. The third one I have is I want to work with people that are curious. and so the question. that I'm asking myself is, is this opportunity? Is this phone call? Is this meeting? Is this networking event? Is this new client?

Are these people curious to become better? And I know that I get my biggest, I do my best work when I'm amongst people that are curious. So that's my third one. My fourth one is. I ask myself, does this thing support my personal growth? And when I talk about personal growth, it could be mentally, is this something that I'm growing from, intellectually, physically, spiritually, creatively.

So I have an unreasonable commitment to my clients and to connecting with them and to my family. And so this fifth value for me is really making sure that whatever I'm saying yes to it cannot in any way detract from my existing clients. It's got to add to them and I'm asking myself, does this benefit my family?

And the final one is, does this help me create a priceless memory? So I'm always asking myself, does this help me create a priceless memory? So I'll go over those quickly again. So I believe that saying no really matters for four key reasons.

And those values again are for me, it's got to be fun. It has to fuel my energy, not deplete my energy. I have to be amongst people that are curious. It has to support my personal growth and that could be mentally, physically, spiritually, creatively, intellectually. Number five, it has to benefit my family and those I love because they come first and not detract from my existing clients and my commitment to my clients.

It allows you to say yes to the right things, the things that are going to benefit you as a leader, you as a business owner. That are going to enable you to double down on the right work that's going to support the growth of your business and you being in service to your clients and allow you to say yes to the very things that enable you to do the work that you love in the way that you want to do it, working with the clients that you love.

So make sure you drop in the comments or give me a message, DM me. I'd love to hear what you think. about these four reasons why saying no matters and I'd love to hear about your values. I'll catch up with you next week.