The Importance of Saying No

There will be times in your life when the importance of saying no will be critical to your growth, health, happiness and success. This is particularly necessary for those of us who have chosen a life and career that is defined by creativity, innovation and discovery.

You have to give yourself time, and by that I mean time filled with no outside obligations or committments. The ideas and focus we seek are not likely to occur during a 60 hour work week jam packed with meetings, deadlines and distractions.

Time to let your mind wander and also focus, and space to do it unbothered by the cacophony of requests that come from the outside world, is the most important factor in achieving your future success and happiness.

This is not about giving yourself nothing to do. It is about creating space for new things to grow. For a spark to have the oxygen and fuel to build into a fire. Room for new ideas to have time to make themselves known to you, and time for you to focus on them.

Make time so you can say yes to the special things that genuinely ignite your curiosity and speak to your values.

The human mind, particularly when it comes to creative breakthroughs, absolutely requires this kind of “breathing space” in order to do this work. The creative brain is wired differently, and you need to work hard to ensure a balance is maintained and growth is fostered.

“People who are more creative can simultaneously engage brain networks that don’t typically work together.”
— Roger Beaty, “The Creative Brain is Wired Differently”

One of the reasons I have trouble saying no is because I always feel I need to have a justifier or a defense. You can’t control how others see or feel about you to the detriment of your own journey and values. You don’t owe anyone a reason, you don’t need to hold up your packed calendar of busy-ness as a defense, and you certainly don’t need to apologize.

Don’t get me wrong, you can be nice about it, but you aren’t required to have a reason that will make that other person allow it.

“When we look back at many of the most creative people in history, including Nobel laureates, they seem to operate in a completely different way. They pursue curiosities, sometimes purposely not thinking of immediate applications. They embrace serendipity. At certain points in their career, they were even considered aimless or seen as lazy underperformers…”

— Michael Simmons

A recent article describing Warren Buffet’s advice for success listed seven things the most successful people say no to on a regular basis.

1. They say no to opportunities and things that don’t excite them, speak to their values, or further their mission in life.
2. They say no to superficial networking events in which people swap business cards and never hear from one another. Why? Because successful people don’t network. They build relationships.
3. They say no to spending time with uninspiring, critical, or negative people who drag them down. Time is precious — choose a small circle of people who will energize you and challenge you to be better.
4. They say no to overworking. While it’s true some successful people and many entrepreneurs put in 60 to 80 hours per week, very successful people aren’t workaholics who neglect self-care and family. They recognize that if they can’t take care of themselves, everything else suffers.
5. They say no to doing all the work. This comes down to one word:
   D-E-L-E-G-A-T-I-O-N.
6. They say no to giving the steering wheel of life to anyone else. Another Buffett quote affirms this: “You’ve gotta keep control of your time and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.”
7. They say no to people-pleasing. Successful people don’t neglect their deepest wishes and desires to accommodate and yield to others’ wishes and desires.

Start saying no so you can focus on the things that you care most about or elicit that curiosity. If you let others get every last bit of you and your life that they are grabbing for, you’ll likely give your time away to efforts and people who don’t matter the most to you.

You choose who and what you extend a hand out to with the generosity of your time and attention, and you can’t offer a strong hand if you yourself haven’t learned to float joyfully in the big scary ocean at night, all by yourself.

Tracey Halvorsen is the Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer at Return Solutions and the Founder of Create Velocity. Return is a SaaS application for sales enablement and real-time business intelligence. Create Velocity is a consultancy working with digital agencies and clients to embrace digital transformation. Formerly Co-Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at Fastspot, a digital agency.