154: The Hard No ❌

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The easy no's are obvious. Those are things you already know how to say no to. It's the hard nos, the tricky no's. The ones that will only increase the more success you experience and the more visible you are. So how can we get better at delivering the hard nos?

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It's time to talk about a perpetually tricky topic here@freetime HQ and that is saying no. Not just saying no to the easy stuff, the obvious stuff, saying no to the tricky requests, the ones that have a big should attached or that pull on your heartstrings where you would really love to say yes, all things being equal to this request or this person. But you just, if you're being truly honest with yourself, do not have the capacity. You've heard a common theme across the Pivot podcast and even here on FreeTime, where I'll talk to people who have achieved a lot of success and a lot of visibility with their book or their podcast or their platform, whatever it is that they're creating. What I find so interesting about reaching those levels in career or any kind of visibility or recognition is that this tricky topic of saying no only gets harder. It only becomes more challenging as you become more successful. So it's not like there's this inverse relationship that, oh, as you become more successful, you have somehow figured this out. No, it's just you go to the next higher and higher and higher levels of needing to have discernment, needing to protect your time and energy, and often needing to say no to really great things and really great people just because there is such a sheer quantity coming at you. I find this to be particularly vexing because I've shared so many times I'M a people pleaser. I have a big heart, I want to do well by others. I often want to say yes. And especially it's been hard for me to develop that muscle of checking in with myself. What do I really want and need if I weren't feeling swayed by someone else's needs? And so when I'm around other people, I tend to be monitoring the room. What does everybody else need? What does everybody else want? And then when there's room, I'll check in with myself. Now, I'm not saying this is a good habit. It just is a habit of mine that I have to actively work to turn around and to actively check in with myself. What are my needs before I'm run down? Just before the holidays, I had two weeks, not back to back, one week where the couch swallowed me whole again. I was really teetering on the edge of burnout. And yes, I know that there are specific rules that define burnout. And that's how I was feeling. I was feeling completely maxed, resentful at everything. And I know because I get to the point where I feel that I'm drowning in communication. Like I just can't keep up with the level of communication going on in my life. And that can include phone calls, text messages, emails, messages in any other inbox. And I have such small capacity. And then sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by just managing communication in and of itself. And you know this because you hear me talk about it a lot on this show. And so there was one week where I was just swallowed whole by the couch. Couldn't move, couldn't do anything, didn't want to do anything. And then there was another week where I had a cold and it just really knocked me out. I felt horrible, couldn't get out of bed, that whole thing, you know, all those cold symptoms. And in New York it was getting cold. The weather tends to do that. Being smashed at the subway with a bunch of people tends to do that. I had hosted a get together at our house for a bunch of my husband's jujitsu friends. Who knows, might have caught something there from, you know, being crammed into our apartment with so many people. This is a long way of me getting to the point of telling you that when I finally started to get my energy back after these two things happened in relatively short order, and I was getting ready for the holidays, my no filter, the dial just turned way up because I was sick of it. I was tired of feeling tired. And I just knew that when I get to that point, that Things like that happen and my body starts to just demand, you better get better at this. You better get better at saying no. This episode is called the Hard no because it was a conversation I was having with a few friends that there's kind of a double meaning. The hard no is a very clear no in the sense that it's a hard no. You're not budging. It is what it is. It's clear. And then the other meaning is that it's hard to say no. Sometimes we have to deliver the hard no, and I always try to deliver it with grace and I try to come back to whatever my truth is of the moment. I've struggled to do this so much that in the past with other friends, we had notes on saying no and we collaborated in a big notion document back and forth with quotes and ways that other people think about this and opportunities. And how do we be graceful and grateful while still honoring our own needs? And how do we not have compare and despair when looking at what other people are able to do and say yes to compared to what we feel? Our capacity is so building on the previous solo episode 152, I want to encourage you, in the spirit of doing less, to practice building your hard no muscles. Again, the easy no's are obvious. Those are things you already know how to say no to. It's the hard nos, the tricky nos, the ones that will only increase the more success you experience and the more visible you are. So how can we get better at delivering the hard nos? Of course, as always, I would love to hear from you because I don't consider myself an expert at this. I just consider myself somebody with a front row seat to how challenging this is in my own life and work. One thing that I talk about in free time is that sometimes indecision is its own decision. So by the time you are debating, it's probably a no. You just don't want to admit it. I even talk about this in Pivot, where I talk about separating decisions from difficult conversations. So this theme has come up in both books. Sometimes we think we don't know. Let's say you're invited to attend an event and you go, I don't know, do I want to go? And you start waffling. In actuality, your decision, if you would separate it from difficult conversation, is that you don't want to go, but you're afraid to say that you're afraid to say no. So it almost feels like you're not sure if you want to go. But by the time you're debating it. It's probably a no. So I just want to say that, that if you feel indecisive about something, check in. Is it really indecision or is it more of a hesitation that you don't want to disappoint somebody else?

We'll be right back just after this.

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Here are a few do's and don'ts or rules of thumb that I've developed for myself. And I hope you find some of them helpful for you too. Do ask, is my focus done? So before you're even debating whether to say yes or no to something, check in. Is your big focus of the quarter of the month, of the day of the year? Pick whatever time interval, but know what your focus is and ask is it done? So sometimes I'll think to myself, my rubric for this is if someone wants to quote, have a call with me and I'm not initiating it. I'm not like jumping out of my. I mean, I never jump out of my chair to get on the phone really. But I think to myself, am I caught up with grandma? And sometimes that's my focus in terms of communication. If I'm not caught up with my immediate family who lives, they all live across the country from me, then I don't feel right having calls sometimes beyond that, beyond a really close inner circle. So just number one, do ask, is your focus done? Number two, maybe you want to create a blanket rule. So Jim Collins, Tim Ferriss often talks about this. He will quote Jim Collins, who I think is quoting Peter Drucker saying, don't make a hundred decisions when one will do. For example, a while ago I stopped saying yes to summits. You know, things happen online where there's a trend and then all of a sudden everybody jumps on the trend. Everybody's doing the same thing and just becomes really a drag. And I found that when I would say yes to an online summit, a million more emails would follow. Like all the logistics, all the social sharing. Can you send this now? Can you send this? Just checking in. Have you sent this? Now? We need this prep work for your interview. Now, after the interview, we want you to promote the bundle and oh my goodness, the one little yes. It's not just for an interview. It's not just an hour of my time. It's the email clutter that ensues. So now I have a blanket rule. I don't do online summits. And that means it's really easy to know what to say yes and no to, because that's just going to be a no. And I'm sorry, sometimes good ones are going to fall through the cracks in this case, but it works better overall. Online summits are not a part of my business objectives, and so it works better for me to have a blanket rule. I don't do these. The third do celebrate space. As Oprah says, celebrate what you want to see more of. But truly celebrate when you are able to create and leave open space for yourself, that is an accomplishment. Don't feel obligated to fill something in that time just because somebody else asked for it. The fourth do trust in timing. Trust in your unique body compass, your intuition that's telling you it's either a quick and excited and enthusiastic yes or it's probably a no. Trust yourself. Don't doubt yourself. What if you double down on your intuition and trust in the timing? That even if you say no now, if you're really meant to connect with this person or this opportunity, that there might be a better timing that's more in flow later down the road. Now for a few don'ts. Do not say no by punting something to your future self. What I mean by this is resist the urge to let someone down easy by saying, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm really focused on client work at the moment, but feel free to circle back next month and we can get something on the books. In that case, you've just punted something to your future self who might not be very happy with you if this is not something you wanted to do in the first place. So try not to say no by hedging too much and just punting it into the future when you inevitably may still not feel like Doing that thing. And again, this is no offense to anyone making a request. It's just that if the quantity is 10x what you have capacity for, you're going to have to say no. The second. Don't. Don't spend too many cycles thinking about your decision. By the time you're spinning, you're already allocating so much precious time and energy and attention just to thinking about it and what you should do and what you should say. Try to notice if you feel yourself kind of spinning out, it's probably a no. And that means that you just need to craft your graceful no, your graceful, grateful message. Be clear, but don't spend any more time thinking about it, because again, you didn't necessarily ask for the request. So you shouldn't need to spend too much time and energy weighing the request either, because again, it's not scalable. Especially the more successful you become, the more and more those are going to get lobbed over in your direction. Another no. Don't beat yourself up. Don't be hard on yourself if you're not actively working out, getting enough sleep, catching up with your loved ones, your family. I mean, you are probably going to need to say no to a lot of things and a lot of people. And again, it just has no bearing on what you think of anybody making the request. It's about your sanity and sustainability. So don't beat yourself up. And the final. Don't. Don't cave to fomo. The fear of missing out. As a friend said to me once, many years ago, when I was overwhelmed by networking requests, basically, I don't know how else to say it. This was like 10 years ago, and I was getting so many like, can I pick your brain? Or you want to have coffee? But what does you want to have coffee really mean? It means I want to pick your brain in some cases. And she said, you know what? You got to just give a blanket no. And then I think at that time I was just so worried that I would let a good person go. I would miss out on connecting with someone, but I didn't know how to sort it all out. And she just said, you know what, you might. You might miss out on a few good opportunities here and there, but that will be worth it for the calm that you're able to create by overall having a blanket rule of saying no. So try not to have fomo. Know that yes, a few good things may slip through the cracks, but it's not gonna be the end of the world because you know what, you're focused on. So I encourage you to choose one thing that you need to say a hard no to and craft a graceful message. Take all the time you need. You might even want to sleep on it. But find your truth, your kernel of truth. Craft a graceful no your reply, and then even save it so that you have something to turn to in the future when you feel weighed down by the emotion of it and you just want to go look at something you've already started. Like a know that you've already crafted. I'll say that I never like to lie. I don't like white lies. I don't like lies in general. So I don't say oh I'm sick if I don't mean it. I will just be really honest. I'll say I'm just coming off of two back to back colds and I'm really trying to leave space open or sorry, I don't do those types of calls anymore because I'm really trying to leave my calendar free in 2023. So I try to find the kernel of truth that is true that really puts it on me. That has nothing to do with the request or the person. It's just how it fits into what my focus is and what my needs are in that moment. It's not easy. Does it get any easier? I don't know. Sometimes I have no momentum. Actually, I mean that in both senses of the word. Sometimes I get on a roll and I say no to a bunch of things at once. That's no momentum. And sometimes I have no momentum. I still struggle with this. With that, I hereby give you permission to disappoint people. Remember that you're doing it in service of being and expressing your best self. So while you might be disappointing someone else in the moment, maybe even in a smaller way than you anticipate, I'll link to an episode on Spaghetti Throwers versus Spaghetti Twirlers in the comments that also been referred to as ask versus Guess culture. Maybe they were just flinging spaghetti your direction and they're not even bothered. They might be inspired by your reply. So even when you think you're disappointing people, remind yourself that it's in service of you being your best self and expressing your best self. Thank you so much for listening. Have a beautiful rest of your day and I'm sending good thoughts for any hard no's that you need to send this week.

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