What's the hardest word for you to say?
For me,
It's often that word,
No.
What comes up for you when you hear the word,
No?
The first thing for me is sometimes a rejection,
Sometimes a negative connotation,
But when I want to talk to you about this evening,
And the title of my message,
Three Ways to Say No,
Is that no properly understood and used can be an affirmation.
No properly understood can be as powerful as the word yes.
And the first way to say no that I want to talk about today is a no to your life,
Learning to say no at times to your life.
This is what I mean by that.
In the game of life,
Your yeses are your offense,
And your nos are your defense.
So to achieve your goals,
You need the momentum of your yeses,
But you also need to have the strong defense of your nos.
And as anyone who knows sports really well,
They know the phrase that defense wins championships.
And so what are your big life yeses right now?
I want to say a big yes to my self-care.
I want to say a big yes to my creative projects.
I want to say a big yes to my health.
I want to say a big yes to quality time with people that I love.
And so that's my offense,
To choose those things over and over again.
But I also need a strong no and defense strategy to protect those yeses.
If I want to say yes to self-care,
I need to say no to overwork.
If I want to say yes to greater health and well-being,
I need to say no to habits that I've gotten into that don't support that.
If I want to say yes to more quality time with people I love,
I need to say no to too much social media scrolling.
And so these no's become as important as our yeses in achieving the goals of our life.
And so take some time to write down what your no's are to life.
And perhaps just magically,
Your life might listen to you and not provide you with so many opportunities to need to say no.
A second way to say no is to yourself in everyday life.
And here's the technique that I want to share with you.
The next time you catch yourself saying no,
Say yes.
The next time you catch yourself saying no,
Say yes.
And by that what I mean is the next time you say no to something,
Say to yourself,
By saying no to this,
What am I saying yes to?
Mike Marlier,
The drummer here at Mile High Church,
Incredible man and beloved by my daughter Nancy June.
It just happens to be his birthday this past week,
So happy birthday Mike.
And when we have our Sunday services,
The band has to get here really early and they do a rehearsal.
And there's always a little bit of time when the rehearsal is complete and the first 8 a.
M.
Service begins.
And so Mike always goes out and he gets donuts for the green room.
They're these beautiful,
Colorful,
I mean they could have a whole field of art these days just for donuts.
They look so delicious.
And every once in a while I walk into the green room and someone says,
Josh do you want a donut?
And my response is no.
But I am lying through my teeth.
I want one of those donuts so bad,
I want 6 donuts.
I want the pink one,
I want the chocolate looking one,
I want the vanilla looking one,
I want the one with no frosting on it.
I want all of those donuts.
And so I have to learn to give an authentic no.
And by doing that is this technique.
I'm saying no to this donut because I'm saying yes to my greater health.
And I'm recognizing by saying yes to my greater health that as much as I really,
Really,
Really want that donut,
What I really want even more is that yes to my health.
So I don't have to say,
No Mike,
I don't want a donut because I'm saying yes to my greater health.
But I can say,
No thanks,
And in my mind,
In my heart,
Use that as an opportunity to affirm my yes,
To celebrate that I've made a good choice,
And in that moment to feel more healthy than I would have if I would have said yes to that donut as delicious as I know it would have been.
So the first way to say no is to clarify to your life where it is that you're saying no.
The second is to clarify to yourself in your everyday activities and routines what you're saying yes to so that your no is filled with affirmation as opposed to hiding or BSing or disaffirming what you really want.
Finally,
The no that's often the most hard for us to give,
And that's the no to other people.
And there's no easy technique for saying no to other people,
But what I want to invite you into today is a deeper level of authenticity by learning to say no to people and to tell them honestly why.
I don't know about you,
But have you ever been in that circumstance where you've said yes to someone,
They've asked you to do them a favor,
And you've said yes at the sacrifice of your self-care,
At the sacrifice of your peace of mind,
At the sacrifice of getting other work done,
And you're in the middle of watching the child or picking up the thing from Home Depot or reading these papers or whatever it may be,
And all of a sudden,
You feel depleted.
All of a sudden,
You go,
Oh,
I wish I would have said no to that.
All of a sudden,
You start building this resentment,
And as opposed to having a momentum that's leading you to fulfilling your yeses,
You're stuck in this inactive place of filling someone else's priorities list.
I love something Greg McCown said.
He wrote a book called Essentialism.
He said if you don't prioritize your life,
Someone else will.
They don't mean to prioritize it for you,
But if you let them,
They will have you doing their task,
Or many people will be having you doing many tasks that take you away from what you really want to be accomplishing.
I love a story,
And it's out of this book Essentialism,
And it's about Stephen Covey,
The great author of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
He's taking his adult daughter on a date in San Francisco.
It's a Friday night,
And they're just getting out onto the street.
They're walking on the sidewalk,
And Steve runs into a potential business partner.
It's someone they're working on a big contract with,
And this business partner is kind of a bigwig,
And he says to them,
Look,
I am treating you two tonight to a night on the town,
The finest food,
The finest establishments.
We're going to have a wonderful time,
And Stephen looks them in the eye and says,
No,
Thank you.
Tonight is about a really special time with my daughter.
It's our daddy-daughter date,
And it's actually Stephen's daughter who's telling this story,
And she shares that in that moment,
I knew that my father loved me,
But I felt attached to him for all time.
That no that he gave to this business person let me know how important I was to him and how important that quality time of going to a dinner and a movie,
Their tradition was.
Now what I love about that story is that Covey is honest with the person.
Sometimes when we say no to people,
We hide the reason.
We make up an excuse.
We may even lie to ourselves,
And so I invite you to say I would like to help you,
But the answer is no because I'm saying yes to my self-care.
The answer is no because helping you with that doesn't give me peace of mind,
Or sometimes when it's in our relationships with our partner or even with a child,
We can say I would like to say yes to that,
But right now I need to take care of this other thing for me.
Can we compromise?
Can we find another time so that I can help support your needs as well?
One of my creative affirmations this year is as I take care of my own needs,
Others' needs are met.
As I take care of my own needs,
Others' needs are met.
I think it's a bit magical,
But the first thing that I do is if someone asks me for something,
Sometimes I still say yes.
Sometimes I still give in,
But I at least ask myself,
Are you meeting your own needs,
Josh,
And can you take that time to get that run in or to work on that creative project before you serve this other person's needs,
And that's really helpful,
And it's also the bigger,
More spiritual context of as I'm taking care of this need,
As I'm taking this extra five minutes in meditation,
As I'm taking this run,
As I'm enjoying some music,
What I know is the people I love and care for have the power within them to meet their own needs,
And that by me actually taking care of myself,
It allows me to be a greater blessing to them in the long run.
I invite you to consider that that is true for you too.
So clarify what you want to say no to to your life.
When you say no,
In your own mind,
Affirm what you're saying yes to,
And lastly,
Say no honestly.
Share what it is that you are saying yes to to the person who's asking you a favor,
And guess what?
They may not only respect you more,
But be inspired to do the same thing.
Thanks for your time tonight.
