For a long time, I zig-zagged around, saying yes to pretty much every opportunity that lifted it's head, plus pitching a lot of ideas (read, a lot of work) myself.
These yeses and ideas let me to work in a number of sectors and roles, from nonprofits and consulting to academia, and from housekeeping and barista gigs to teaching, gardening, and strategic planning. In each of these settings, I was doing work that mattered, that fulfilled me, and that moved the needle in at least some small way for other people and the planet.
To do all these things required me to put a lot of energy into things that other people thought were important. I knew I had the skills and expertise to help with these things. I thought they were important, too. But, I was doing so many of them, and so many at once, that I couldn't do any of them to my utmost ability.
Worse, there was another list in the back of my mind. That list included major projects that I would pursue "someday." These included:
Write a book connecting scientists to all the amazing (and super helpful) insights of Writing Studies and Rhetoric and Composition scholarship.
Write a book about learning to hunt and love nature (both interests started in my 20s) and social justice work (in my 30s).
Launch an initiative to transform my field and build a comprehensive leadership program for people who want to use science communication to change the world.
Resolve a housing insecurity issue in my family.
Help a loved one retire and take a bucket-list international trip she's dreamt of all her life.
There were intentions, too.
Someday, I'd get back into drawing more regularly.
Someday, I'd learn to draw people, to draw landscapes and cityscapes.
Someday, I'd organize the piles of books and articles and found objects overtaking all flat surfaces in my office.
Someday, I'd submit a pitch to one of my favorite magazines, one I hoped they'd finally accept.
Someday, I'd get a research grant for scicomm.
Someday, I'd finish all the half-started research articles lingering in my archives.
Someday, try pottery again.
Someday, I'd do so many things.
It "helped" to write all this down in the front of my planner every January. It helped even more to consider working on at least one of the big things and some of the small things, prompted by the planner's structure. Then, at least, I couldn't forget them.
But, as my then-undiagnosed-ADHD-brain was wont to do, I’d stop using the planner sometime midsemester…every semester. This slide off the organization wagon happened even though I really appreciated the monthly reflections and weekly mantras and the act of planning and how much more orderly everything felt -- and how much more water I drank! -- when I stuck to the plan.
Reader - we all know that I did none of the things on my priority lists.
Truly. Not one. I didn't even make plans for how to do them, or take actions towards doing any of them.
Instead, I kept doing all the things I'd already said yes to.
UNTIL...
A collaborator morphed into an accountability buddy somewhat organically. Yes, there has been a lot of rah-rah and rooting for each other to charge more and stand firm in our expertise. But, the accountability we hold each other to actually has not been do more, do bigger.
This accountability buddy is actually a no-buddy. While we continue to work closely together on a host of awesome projects, one of our most vital collaborations for the past several years has been serving as the brakes, guardrails, and reality check we both need.
My no-buddy has helped me say no to a lot of things that were or would have been distracting me from making progress on my priorities. And, our process is incredibly simple. Here's what it looks like from my side, if I'm the one who needs help saying no:
Consider an idea, opportunity, offer, request, invitation, etc.
Feel great about the idea of helping someone else in a way I'm good at.
Imagine the networking, potential future consulting/facilitating/training gigs that could come out of whoever I meet at this thing!
Go to put it on the calendar, but get a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Notice I am subconsciously practicing conversations that get me out of it.
Call or text Virginia (my no-buddy and many-things co-founder).
Start to describe the opportunity and why I should do it.
Get about two sentences in and realize all I needed was to hear myself say it out loud to understand that I don't want to/need to/intend to.
We have a good, long belly laugh about doing it again.
We take a moment to appreciate that we are in a career stage where our compulsive, freelancer-always-says-yes conditioning is no longer required.
We celebrate (as a way of reminding ourselves) that we don't have to subject ourselves to crappy travel schedules or lots of work for little pay-off. In particular, we celebrate that we can actually charge what our expertise is worth or stay home and tend the garden, write blog posts, pet our pets, and drink tea (or run something awesome together!).
Together, we hash out a productive way of saying no or negotiating for better terms that might lead me to say yes. (This rarely pans out, but that's fine; I just don't do the thing.)
This might all sound well and good. It might even sound ideal if you're at a similar career stage (steady enough to be able to say no, but experienced enough to be swamped with opportunities and requests for help). But, it might also sound overly idealistic. You might be thinking, nice, so you say no. Where does that get you?
Well, I'll be honest. It got me epic progress on vital, personal and professional priorities. 👇
This is not a brag list. This is a what's-possible list.
This is the progress I've made on things that mattered enough to me to put them on a "lifetime goals" list every January. It took me years of dedicated FOCUS (plus support, sufficient living and working conditions, political stability, etc.) to make this kind of progress. What rocks my world is that I could have done some of these things earlier in my life if I had had the capability and support system necessary to keep my attention on just these things.
Without a no-buddy, I'd have said yes to 141 other activities, positions, tasks, programs, and requests in the past 3 years [1]. All those other things involved externally determined:
deadlines/timing
scopes of work
expectations/perspectives of what success would look like
notions of the value of my expertise/work in that space.
None, not a single one, of those things would have helped me make progress toward the big priority projects I'd been stating for myself for years.
Having a no-buddy helped me achieve lifetime goals. That's priceless.
So, my advice to you is to articulate what your values and goals are, then get realllly clear on what kind of activities/projects/experiences will help you meet those goals. Finally, get yourself a no-buddy and hold firm to your priorities and values (while allowing some honest space for things to come up that you do say yes to in the meantime!) [2].
Bottom line: a lot of folks and self-help gurus and wellness woo-woo tells you to set boundaries, own your values, and so on. That advice isn't wrong [3], but it's not actionable at that abstract level. Having a no-buddy can be a vital aspect of your effort to not just articulate boundaries but hold to them [4]. So, let's close with an observation from Dr. Seuss. 👇
How about you?
What's one tool/habit/mindset/practice that you use to help you decide what to say yes or no to?
NOTES
[1] Yes, I keep track. I use a "no-te" book, as described here: https://www.commnatural.com/post/10-ways-to-say-no.
[2] I also keep track of what I've said yes to, but not in the "no-te" book. I track my time minutely, to (a) understand how long things take me, (b) maximize the time I spend on the aspects of my job I most enjoy, and (c) help me focus. Logging the start and stop of every task, every time I switch tasks, reminds me that I might have only been working on X thing for five minutes, and maybe I'd better just keep working on it a while longer. (This last aspect of time tracking also massively contributed to the priorities progress I detailed in this post.)
[3] I've written a fair bit about articulating boundaries and values (and how to actually put this all into words you can use). Look for my "No for it!" series for both reflections on when/how to say yes and no and detailed and specific tools, including numerous free downloads and worksheets for things like "10 loose scripts for saying no" and how to make a "to-don't" list.
[4] See note 3 above, and especially, see the footnotes in several of those posts. If you need a couple specifically places to start, try the book The No Club (Babcock et al.), Dr. Loleen Berdahl, and Dr. Beronda Montgomery. For a long time, Montgomery's advice has been helping me keep my focus, particularly this gem: "I prioritize work that I can uniquely do" (2019).
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