The Importance of No

There are times in one’s life when one has to be ruthless, focused, competitive, and primed for success. In such scenarios, the most critical factor is not the things you do, but the things you decide not to do. Prioritizing a few things and saying no to everything else is the most difficult thing.

Why is no important?

• Time - The only thing common between you and the richest man on the planet is that both of you have 24 hours in the day. What you decide to focus on determines the trajectory of your life. This means you need to delegate or say no to every other activity.

• Focus - The key breakthroughs in history have come, when the mind is constantly engaged in the task at hand, consciously and subconsciously. Multi-tasking robs us of thinking about the task subconsciously. Saying no helps us focus and decide what is important.

• Prioritization - If you know that you can only work on 2 things in a day and have to say no to all others, it gets you to ruthlessly prioritize.

To achieve anything in life, you need to give up on something else. Pleasure, free time, leisure, family time etc. There is always a tradeoff in life. What we prioritize comes at the cost of something else. I am yet to see an individual who has had it all. The important thing is to be true to yourself and know what matters to you the most. After that say no to everything else which is not important. One, would have to make peace with the fact that we will not have the things we said no to.

Be ruthless, be true to yourself, know what you want, say no to everything else.