Saying “No” can be positive
“No” is one of the hardest things to utter in social and business settings, because of our inherent desire as humans to help other people. Every time we say it though, we feel terrible, because most of us genuinely enjoy seeing how our contributions can result in positives for other people. However, there’s a direct relationship between the quality of the things we do and the number of times we say the word. The more we say “No” when people ask us for help, especially when we’re already stretched thin, the better we are at the things that we already have on our plates.
Learning to prioritize and focus our attention on the things that are important is difficult. Add to that the social pressures that can come with the introduction of unanticipated requests for help, and our efforts can get thrown off. Ultimately, though, we can only get better at the things that are most meaningful to us if we can dedicate our complete energy to those pursuits. Saying “No” to stuff that’s outside of the scope of those goals is critical to their attainment.