Yes vs No-We need both

The new year has me reflecting on a lot of goals/resolutions people set. I feel like I’m dismantling them. Part of this is because I’ve never really excelled at goals. In fact, I distinctly remember in the sixth grade this man came into our class (I think it was through health class, tbh) and he spoke to us about goal setting, goal achieving, and his own personal goals. His goals included things like retiring at age 40, which at the time seemed crazy but now seems like the best thing ever. Anyways, as part of this goal setting “module” we had to set our own goals and work to achieve a habit, and document it, etc. Even at the age of 11, I wrote this to be a cookie cutter, blasé way of setting goals. Do something for 30 minutes every day/or do something for 12 mins every day for 30 days and eventually its a habit. Go you. You can now retire at 40.

Not quite, but I definitely did not believe in it nor did I really give it a shot. (And as I think about it, my tone definitely indicates I’m still skeptical. And in turn I’ve made quite a lot of things difficult for myself, especially when it comes to goals.) I mean, we’ve all read interviews/profiles/bios/”habits of successful people.” They must have similar things to say because there are things that work and things that don’t work. And then when you read the next tier of books/assessment pieces, they tend to say things about their virtues, their belief system, being strategic in where they put their time and effort. Its not necessarily a one size fits all, but similar underlying strategies translate across the board.

One thing that sticks out to me (and sorry I’m finally getting to my real point/ the title) is a lot of these people, and subsequently many others come goal-setting time, focus on saying yes and/or no. But their use of yes and no tends to vary. Some will give advice such as “say yes to everything-just say yes.” Others adopt a wisdom gained through experience response of “over time, I learned to say no.”

But here is my question. What exactly do they say yes to things, and what prompts them to say no? This is where I struggle. How do I strategically utilize both terms to assure that I am reaching my goals, ensuring success, and not totally turning everything down-or taking on everything and producing sub par results? How do I balance what keeps me energized but also the things that are simply beneficial, whether I like it or not? I would also like to know how do you accept that you have to things you don’t necessarily like, but they help you in the long run? To tie things back to yes and no, its all well and fine to want to say one or the other more-but feeling the pressure to use the words can lead to rash decisions; decisions you may not actually want. This 100% has happened to me.

I’m sure the straight shot answer to a lot of this is it all comes down to knowing yourself, clearly defining your goals, and doing whatever it is you can/need to to get there. If there are extra time and resources to take on more, then go for it. If not, if it could possibly help keep it on the back burner for another time, or exchange it for something else if it seems more useful. The timing of saying yes and no also plays into this strategy, I believe. I’m convinced many have that “it” factor–they can just SENSE when the time is right. Others have to be more calculated. I fall in this weird category where I’m all over the place, which is really annoying because in my head, my rationale is I should just be able to FIGURE it out. Either I’m impulsive AF and then immediately regret it, or I take TOO MUCH DAMN TIME and then either a choice never gets made, I miss deadline, or I rush anyways. Neither these are healthy nor really leave me feeling like I’ve accomplished anything. In fact, it actually brings on a lot of anxiety and me repeatedly saying “I am distraught”, with minimal action taking place.

I’ve noticed that these “successful” individuals are decisive. If Indecisiveness was a diagnosis, I would be a contender as the case that gets it into the DSM. But for the determined, “maybe” does not seem to fall into their vocabulary frequently, if at all. For me, indecisiveness is deep rooted. Its my default  for reasons I do not fully comprehend. Sure, we can list the obvious, but then I have also have to figure out how I got to this point and how to break the cycle.

So here’s where all this information I’ve been collecting about myself comes into play. I have to clearly define my goals, and go about setting up those steps. This will in turn help me figure out when to say yes and no. Not knowing what I want is a big crux of the matters here. Then from there, I can reassess to see what is helping me and what is not, but I think clarity to make more decisions will result from that single decision-where to go from here?

So instead of always “saying yes” or overtime “learning to say no”, I’m here to strategically utilize both in my vocabulary in a decisive manner full of conviction.

How have you found success in saying yes and no? Share your strategies in the comments!