Why you should make this month a "No"-vember

Are you a people-pleaser like me, with a tendency to say “yes” to everything and everyone…only to find that, as a result, you fail to get any of your own stuff done?

If so, I’ve found a simple (though not, necessarily, easy) solution to this dilemma: Start saying, “No.”

I’m not talking about saying no to friends or family or colleagues -- people you care about, who rely on you, or who need your help. I’m referring to your being more selective and more consciously aware of how – and with whom – you choose to spend your limited and valuable time.

Start by asking yourself:

“Am I filling my calendar with activities that are unproductive? Or investing a lot of time doing favors for, or acting out of obligation to, people who are just draining my energy or taking advantage of my goodwill?”

How often do you find yourself wasting an hour on a “Hey, let’s get to know each other!” call with someone who, it turns out, was just trying to sell you something?

Or agreeing to allow people you barely know to “pick your brain,” thereby leaving you with progressively fewer brain cells with which to focus on your own priorities?

If you know the classic metaphor about the jar of rocks, pebbles, and sand, this is exactly what I had been doing. As the analogy goes: If you fill up the jar (i.e., your life) with small, insignificant stuff (the “sand and pebbles”), you will have no space left for the big things that really matter (the “rocks”).

So, if you are looking for a sign of inspiration to make a change, it is right there in the first two letters of this month’s calendar: “NO”-vember!

And here’s what to do: Over these last two months of the year, make the commitment to yourself to only say “yes” to those things that are going to allow you to meet your year-end goals and/or to help set yourself up for success in the new year.

To help you get a running start, here are just a few examples from my end:

DECLINE: Having recently surpassed 11,000 LinkedIn connections, I’ve lately been declining LinkedIn invites from people I don’t know who are obviously just angling to sell me something. And I’ve stopped feeling the need to respond to every single Linkedin post that tags me for a Like or a Comment.

WINNOW: I’ve narrowed down my list of professional networking groups I belong to, and unsubscribed from numerous newsletters, keeping only the few that I most enjoy, value, and benefit from.

PASS: I’ve been politely saying “No, but thank you for asking” to a lot of those generic, “getting to know you” meeting requests, as well as invitations to appear on podcasts that may not be the right fit for me or the best investment of time. And I’ve had to make the tough decision to turn down a few project opportunities that I was, actually, very interested in, but for which I, simply, did not have the bandwidth to take on.

Reclaiming all those hours by saying no has enabled me to be more focused and to reinvest those hours into my highest priority commitments and opportunities. As Peter Drucker’s famous adage reminds us: “Time is the scarcest resource. If it is not managed, then nothing else can be.”

Is there some guilt associated with saying no? Yes. Do I often experience FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)? Sometimes. Might some people end up being disappointed? Possibly. Might there be some potential opportunities missed? Probably. However, if you are currently doing what I was doing, and going as I was going, you know firsthand that maintaining a “say ‘yes’ to everything” habit is neither sustainable nor productive, and is neither mentally nor physically healthy, as it often leads to burnout.

The bottom line is that something has to give…before you have nothing left to give.

So, if you are currently feeling as overloaded and overwhelmed as I often do, my recommendation is to give some thought to where and how you spend your time, be more consciously aware of the things and the people you are saying “yes” to, and seek to put this “Just Say No” practice into action.

Make this a November – and December – to remember…by focusing only on those things that will enable and empower you to achieve your current goals and to realize your future vision. And if you do, I bet that, looking back a year from now, you'll be glad that you did.

After all, saying “no” to others will enable and empower you to say “yes” to yourself.

So…what are YOU going to say “no” to -- starting this month?

For more on how you can maximize your performance, your productivity, and your potential, please check out my book, VisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life (Post Hill Press/Simon & Schuster, 2020).

BIG FAVOR REQUEST: If you have read VisuaLeadership but have not yet posted an Amazon review I would be most grateful if you would!

Todd

P.S. Oh, and btw, one of the benefits of saying “no” to some things is that it allowed me to be able to say, “yes” to my request that we get a puppy after putting it off for so many years just because we "didn’t have the time.” Although I have found that little Lucy Cherches is someone who is really hard to say “no” to.