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- Never Idle - Edition #15
Edition #15
Hi All!
Here is your weekly serving of practical guidance and inspiration to ensure you live your life with purpose. Feel free to forward this along to friends and family. Enjoy!
I wanted to give a quick shout to the 8 amazing individuals who have joined us since last week. Thanks for being here and welcome to the Never Idle team!
Read Time: 7 Minutes
Master Your Mindset
Say No So You Can Say Yes
Have you ever overcommitted to so many things that your focus was pulled in all sorts of directions?
Maybe you even had to back out of some of those obligations at the last minute.
Let’s solve this painful feeling for you once and for all, so you can avoid overcommitting and lacking focus and purpose.
When you say no to the inessential, you can say yes to the essential.
“Want to go to the bar tonight?” - by saying no to this you can say yes to a morning workout tomorrow.
“Want to watch an episode of X show?” By saying no to this you can say yes to spending an hour working on your business.
Conversely “Can you meet to discuss X business matter?” By saying no to this you can say yes to spending quality time with your family.
It all comes down to your priorities. Today, there is an abundance of information and opportunities to explore.
But you don’t have time to do it all. It’s just not possible. You need to be selective.
Mastering the skill of prioritizing what is essential to your progress will make this decision of what to say no to (and therefore what to say yes to instead) much easier.
It’s what you decide to cut out of your life that allows you to make time for what really matters.
And here’s the thing — You are going to have to say no to A LOT more than what you say yes to.
This is not a 1-to-1 relationship.
This is a 1-to-many relationship.
Say no to a hundred different things so you can say yes to the one thing that demands your focus at that moment.
Steve Jobs said this perfectly:
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”
So you might be thinking, well that’s great I know I should be saying no to a lot of things but I feel guilty or bad about saying no.
This is where the mindset shift becomes incredibly important.
Here are the 3 steps you need to internalize to say no without feeling guilty.
3 Steps to Saying No Without Feeling Guilty
Don’t justify, give excuses, or provide fluff
When we say no to someone or something we have this urge to justify why we are saying no.
So we provide an excuse or an array of excuses.
We add fluff to ‘soften’ the blow.
But all this does is make us look uncertain about our choice of saying no.
“Ah, I’d love to but I have this meeting in the late afternoon and then I think my wife said she wants to run some errands, and then I have this thing I gotta do early tomorrow morning so I just don’t think it’s gonna work out this time. Sorry man.”
Ever ‘said no’ like this before?
I know I sure have. Said 51 words except the all-important one: No.
For what? To soften the blow? To make the person on the other end of the excuse feel better? To make yourself feel better?
It does none of those things.
It makes you look uncertain and lacks firmness.
It gives the person asking the opportunity to nit-pick at your excuse, which could give rise to you giving in.
The next time you NEED to say no, SAY NO.
Be polite, but be firm.
“I can’t, sorry man. Appreciate the offer.”
Polite yet firm.
It will be awkward at first but it will get easier with time.
And your time is what you are protecting.
Reframe your thinking to “I’m helping them”
When we say no, we think we are hurting the other person.
Perhaps in the short term, this could be true. But in the long term, you are actually helping them.
Imagine your friend asks you if you can help them move some furniture on Saturday. You already have plans to use that time to spend with family. But you feel guilty so you say yes, initially.
When Saturday rolls around, you bail at the last second. “Man, I’m so sorry. I thought I’d have time but the wife and I are actually headed to the park for the day. Didn’t realize this was going to conflict. Wish I could help. Next time, I promise.”
By overcommitting you left your friend high and dry, tarnished their trust in you, and still ultimately ‘said no.’
If you were just firm in the first place, “Sorry man, I have plans with the family that day,” you may have annoyed them initially but they now have the opportunity to go look for someone else who genuinely can help them.
In the short term it may be painful, but in the long term you allowed them to get the proper help they needed.
Reframe your thinking to “I’m helping them, not hurting them.”
Offer alternatives (only if possible)
This step is not necessary.
By no means do you have to solve their problem for them.
Sticking with the example above, you are not a bad friend because you’re choosing to spend time with family rather than help them move furniture.
If they think that, get a new friend.
Moving the furniture is ‘their problem,’ not yours.
However, if you do have alternatives available, offer them.
“I’m busy with the family on Saturday, can it wait a day? I am available on Sunday to help.”
OR
“I can’t but Mitch owes me a favor, I’ll get you a 2nd pair of hands.”
Again, do not go fishing for these alternatives just for the sake of it.
ONLY offer them if you genuinely have an alternative to offer.
If you don’t, your firm and polite ‘no’ along with the internal understanding that you are helping them by saying no is plenty.
There you have it. 3 steps that can help you begin to feel comfortable saying no so you can start saying yes to the few truly important things in your life.
Remember:
What are you saying no to, so you can say yes to what matters?
Hone Your Habits
Commitment Devices
Every day I fail to write and post 3 tweets, I send my sister $50.
Why do I do this?
To hold myself accountable to the habit of creating content daily.
Let me explain this powerful device:
A commitment device is a tool you can leverage to help make habits stick.
James Clear introduces them in Atomic Habits as a strategy that helps you overcome your present biases and align your future behavior with your long-term goals.
So what does this mean in a practical sense?
Essentially, this is a choice you make in the present that helps you control your actions in the future.
Let’s look at some examples:
You go out to dinner and when you order you ask the server to bag half of your meal before it is ever served to you (example Clear uses in Atomic Habits). The decision is made before the temptation is in front of you. This makes it way easier to ensure you don’t overeat.
You set up website blockers in advance to ensure you don’t get distracted when you should be doing focused work.
You set up automatic transfers from your paycheck to ensure you are saving before you even have the chance to overspend.
There are tons of other ways you can use commitment devices based on what your target behavior is, but I really want to hammer home the principle of their power so you can apply it toward any habit you wish to build.
Make a decision now to simplify a decision later.
Put a constraint or obstacle in place that makes it significantly harder for you to deviate from your intended behavior.
Sure, you can rip open the doggy bag that the server put half your meal into but it’s more difficult than just continuing to eat if all the food is on your plate.
The less you overthink, the more likely you will perform the intended action whether it be saving money, creating content, exercising, and so on.
Put yourself in an advantageous position to build a desired habit by bridging the gap between your present desire and your future aspiration with commitment devices.
Words of Wisdom
“Who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love — is the sum of what you focus on.”
You can complement this weekly newsletter with short reminders, ideas, and thoughts about personal development by following me on Twitter.
Thanks for reading! And always remember…
Slow and steady. Never Idle.
Until next week,
Austin Sargent