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No is a complete sentence and so often we forget that. When we don’t want to do something, we can simply smile and say no. We don’t have to explain ourselves, we can just say “No.”
Early on my journey I found developing the ability to say no expanded my ability to say yes and really mean it. My early attempts at saying no were often far from graceful but with practice, even my no came from a place of love.
Love yourself enough to be able to say yes or no.
~ Susan Gregg
I love the quote above, and it brings to mind something I heard a business speaker impart a number of years ago. He offered up some seriously great counsel that has stuck with me ever since. He said that whenever he and his wife needed to make a decision, both individually and together, they would run the following test before committing to anything.
First, they would ask themselves how they felt about the activity in question, whether it be going to dinner with someone, taking a trip, entering into a new business venture, or virtually any activity to which they needed to commit.
Second, they would ask themselves, “how badly do I want to do this? Does it qualify as a hell yes? Does it sound like so much fun I am going to light up? Am I just sooooo excited to do this?”
If the answer is “yes,” it becomes a whooping “hell yes!” Conversely, if the answer to those questions is more in the realm of “well, it could be fun,” or “yeah, I guess,” then your answer should be a resounding “hell no!”
When I heard this, it rang true through my soul and ended up changing the quality of my time, friendships, and direction in life.
Life is so precious and so is our time. If 9/11 didn’t teach us another thing, let us remember this—all those people who lost their lives were just going to work for another day. They never could have expected it to end as it did. Had they known what their timeline on this earth would be, they would have made some different decisions on how they spent their time; I guarantee it. And this obviously applies to all of us as we never know when our time here will end.
That said, I implore you to put incredible value on your time and make those decisions based on whether you want today to be a “hell yes” or a “hell no” kind of day.
