From the course: Success Habits

Saying no—is it selfish?

From the course: Success Habits

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Saying no—is it selfish?

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- There's not enough time in life to do everything, so to be successful at something, you will somehow need to get enough time to work on that project. And by far the best way to do that, in fact, a vital success habit, is saying no. Say no to things that don't contribute to your goals. Of course, this can't be a 100% rule, that you say no to everything that doesn't fit with your one obsessive dream. You'll have to compromise a certain amount. With friends and relatives, and bosses, and people who need your help. But if you can get a bit better at saying no, it'll give you a significant amount of extra time, and certainly if you're bad at saying no, you'll struggle to get anything done for yourself. The rest of the world will steal away bits of your time for all sorts of good reasons, and you'll end up with no time left for yourself. There are variations on just saying a blunt no. Like negotiating to do it later, or to spend less time on it. Or trading one thing for another. But in the end, it comes down to having the habit of always thinking, is this the best use of my time. Or do I really want to do this, or can I say no to this. We often say yes to things without thinking, especially if they're way off in the future. And then, when the date comes around, we think, ugh, why did I agree to this? So a good tip is to ask yourself, if it was tomorrow, would I agree to it? But is it selfish to say no to things that you don't want to do? Do I have to be selfish to be successful? Focused, yes, but not selfish. I'll cover this fully in a separate section, but I think that in order to be successful, you actually have to help other people. You have to be offering something that makes their lives better, partly because that's the only reason they'll pay you for it, but also because I think that's how the universe works. But in order to have the time to do that good work, you'll have to say no to all sorts of distractions, to everything that doesn't fit in your plan, in fact. Some of these will be fun and tempting, some will upset other people if you say no, and some will be quite deserving causes, but you just don't have enough time to do everything. Focusing on your key objectives means saying no to a whole lot of other stuff. But if you look at the actual process of saying no, whether it's selfish or not, remember that most people aren't as interested in you as you think. If you don't go to their party, they probably won't even notice, I'm sorry to have to tell you. So if you don't really want to go, then don't. And if it frees up a lot of your time, and it only makes their party 1% less great, then that's a fair exchange, I don't think it's selfish. If you could make a five minute appearance that would make the party 300% more brilliant, and you said no, then that would be selfish. It's about comparing the price you have to pay with the benefit to them. And if the price exceeds the benefit, then it's fine to say no, and you absolutely should. So, are you good at saying no? What have you recently agreed to that you know you shouldn't have? And what could you have said instead, how could you have worded it? And what's coming up that you are going to say no to.

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