16 Mar How to Say No to Just About Anything

“The difference between successful people and HIGHLY successful people
is that highly successful people say NO to almost everything.”
-Warren Buffett

Improving your life often means not adding to it, but taking away from it. As the Principle of Limited Focus taught us in Week 1 of VIP Bootcamp, being selective and doing LESS is the key to accomplishing MORE.

What you DON’T DO is every bit as important as what you DO – maybe more important. Because every activity, every crisis, every opportunity competes for your limited time and your limited energy. What you choose to FOCUS your limited resources on will determine every outcome of your life.

So, you not only need to guard your focus diligently, you need to create a mental and emotional fortress around it. Refuse to sacrifice the important to the unimportant. Define important things in your life and keep everything else out! Literally, determine what you’re NOT going to focus on and block those things out of your life!

Only be saying NO to almost everything are we able to say YES to the right things. And if we want to be 12-category smart, we should be running our entire lives according to this principle.

But this can be a very challenging thing to do, because most of us are addicted to saying YES. Whether we want to help people, we’re afraid of being rude, or we feel we’ll miss out on the opportunity being presented, there always seems to be a reason to say yes. It takes DISCIPLINE to say no. And it takes practice.

But it really doesn’t have to be so complicated!

Below, Missy Butcher shares the simple yet powerful insight she learned from a dear friend, who gave her a valuable key to saying “No” to just about anything…

My dear friend, Devers Brandon, gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten on this subject years ago. Advice that I have turned into habit in my own life. I am forever grateful to my dear Devers.

My question to her was very simple – I just wanted to know how to say ‘no’ in a nice way when asked to attend a dinner party, event, social gathering, or ANYTHING we weren’t interested in doing.

Well, it turns out her advice to me was just as simple…

Ok, are you ready for some seriously profound stuff?

Here it is…

She told me simply, to just say, “no thank you”.

Sounds easy, right? Well, the true magic formula here, is the way you say it – the conviction and confidence and NON GUILT behind your words. You say it with loving kindness and determined confidence because this is who you are and what you do. Have the expectation that they will completely understand and, well… Go away, or at least not ask again. 🙂

Don’t offer an explanation, unless one is asked for. And then be COMPLETELY HONEST, short and to the point (again with the same intentions behind your words)…

Here are some basic and simple examples to help get you started if you are pressed for an explanation:

• My husband and I have decided that it’s more important right now for us to spend this evening with our children while they are still little.
• This is just not something we do – I’ve actually used this one and it works wonders!
• Right now I’m focused on being very conscious of how I spend my time to make sure my life is balanced – maybe a bit too much info, but you get the idea here.
• We’ve decided to opt out for personal reasons.

Whatever your reason is – be honest and just say it. But only if pressed and keep it short and sweet.

Remember, a simple confident ‘no thanks, but I hope you have a wonderful time’ usually does the trick.

You will be amazed at how people react – it’s almost like showing someone your Lifebook for the first time. You can see it on their face… As soon as you tell them, ‘no thanks’ in your open, honest, confident and purposeful way… they glaze over, seem to go inward and start to question the idea themselves.

Sad truth is that most people just aren’t very conscious about the things they do.

Lucky for all of us – we are Lifebookers and ‘live consciously’ is what we do!

It might feel a little uncomfortable the first time or two you try it, but you’ll get used to it and you will LOVE the outcome… I promise.

Hope this was helpful…

🙂 ~M~