On the road to rebuilding one’s life, I’ve spoken to a few people about how they managed to rebuild successfully.

Perhaps surprisingly, most of them were emphatic that saying no more often than yes played a crucial role.

This strongly aligns with a belief I’ve often held.

Saying no more often than yes is beneficial for many reasons:

✅ It protects your time so you only perform actions that aid you in recovery and beyond

✅ It builds confidence, allowing you to practice declining offers in a graceful way that don’t align with your future goals

✅ Saying no alleviates the inner stress and pressure that’s immediately built-up by feeling forced to say yes (see Never Split the Difference)

In addition, with the world being a more hurried and frenetic environment, it’s easy to unconsciously succumb to other’s desires at the expense of your own.

A person’s innate desire to help others is a high danger signal that one’s own health may be put at risk in such a case.

But most people are afraid of saying no.

They believe this places them at a disadvantage and will bring-forth undesired consequences.

This stems from people’s ability to instantly conceive the worst possible outcome as the only possible result.

But such thoughts usually discount the benefits of acting in such a manner, as mentioned above.

Indeed, one’s time really is the most precious commodity of all.

I’ve been subtly experimenting with saying no in different ways to people, so it is accepted by them.

The trick is to make them believe that if they don’t accept your no, it’s not in their best interests.

There’s a lot of psychology in how I do this and I may open-up more in future in how I go about this.

But for now, I would encourage you to learn to say no more frequently.

Yes, you will feel discomfort at the beginning.

But it’s only through discomfort that we begin to grow. 🤫