Saying no in order to say yes may seem like an oxymoron; however, it is anything but. Saying no in order to say yes is something that can become very beneficial to us once we learn exactly what it means and the opportunity cost it entails.
Every day, we all are bombarded with things that we are told that we should say yes to. According to Forbes.com and Red Crow Marketing Inc., the average American sees 4,000 – 10,000 advertisements per day. This is taking into account the number of social media, television, billboards, signs, fliers, magazines, and other subliminal messages that you don’t even know that you are getting throughout the day. (Side note: Did you know that McDonald’s strategically chose their red and yellow colors because when the human eye sees those two particular colors together, your brain sends signals to your stomach to start feeling hungry? Yeah! That was not a random color choice, and it wasn’t just a simple choice of red and yellow. It is a specific shade of red and a specific shade of yellow combined together in a very specific way.)
So, if you take into account the number of advertisements that you see throughout the day, chances are you’re going to see something that you, eh-hem… “need” that you never knew that you needed or even existed until you saw that clever advertisement or subliminal message. With the average person being awake 16 hours during the day, that comes out to 960 awake minutes. This means that on average one will see approximately 7.3 advertisements per minute throughout the day!
With all these advertisements surrounding us every minute of the day, we need to practice our ability to say no. Not having the ability to say no means that we’re taking advantage of all these things that we’re being told that we need in order to make us happy. News flash! No thing will make you happy! Some things can enhance the quality of your life, but if you aren’t happy beforehand, you’re not going to suddenly be happy afterward. It’s not going to fulfill its promise. It’s just getting in the way of you actually living the life that you love to live and probably enhancing your amount of debt or lack of margin.
A while back, I wrote an article called 7 Quick Boundaries That Will Change Your Life Starting Today: and my first step was about saying no. Below are the few things I said about it:
“1. Learn the word NO, and stick with it. I know it may be hard to believe, but learning how to say no actually allows me to say YES. When I practice saying no then I find that I am able to pick and choose what fills my time – not allowing others to fill my time for me. I quickly realized that learning to say no allows opportunities for me to say yes to the things I love: spending one-on-one time with my husband and kids, a weekend with my family with no outside interruptions, taking walks; yes to writing, podcasting, meditating; yes to margin in my bank account and the peace of mind to living without debt. Learning to say no is extremely vital to setting boundaries, and in my opinion, the most important boundary that I set for myself.”
Learning to say the word no and sticking with it is super important for an emotionally healthy lifestyle. We need to feel the freedom to say no and be honest with those around us. If something doesn’t line up with our morals and values, we need to welcome our ability to say no in those situations. No is not a bad word, but I believe that society has turned it into one.
Here at TOL Podcast, we believe that we were not meant to live a life of anguish or misery. We believe that God desires for us to live our life in full: full of love, hope, grace, intention, laughter, and freedom – freedom like you’ve never known or experienced before; that’s why sometimes we need to say the word no – because saying no ultimately allows us to say yes to living a life in fullness!
