3 Ways to Say No with Josh Reeves

[00:00:00] What's the hardest word for you to say? For me, it's often that word no. What comes up

[00:00:13] for you when you hear the word no? The first thing for me is sometimes a rejection, sometimes

[00:00:22] a negative connotation. But when I want to talk to you about this evening and the title

[00:00:28] of my message, three ways to say no is that no, properly understood and used can be an

[00:00:36] affirmation. No, properly understood can be as powerful as the word yes. And the first

[00:00:44] way to say no that I want to talk about today is a no to your life, learning to say no at

[00:00:52] times to your life. This is what I mean by that. In the game of life, your yeses are

[00:00:59] your offense and your no's are your defense. So to achieve your goals, you need the momentum

[00:01:08] of your yeses but you also need to have the strong defense of your no's. And as

[00:01:14] anyone who knows sports really well, they know the phrase that defense wins championships.

[00:01:20] And so what are your big life yeses right now? I want to say a big yes to my self-care.

[00:01:27] I want to say a big yes to my creative projects. I want to say a big yes to my health. I

[00:01:35] want to say a big yes to quality time with people that I love. And so that's my offense

[00:01:41] to choose those things over and over again but I also need a strong no and defense

[00:01:47] strategy to protect those yeses. If I want to say yes to self-care, I need to say no

[00:01:56] to overwork. If I want to say yes to greater health and well-being, I need to say no to

[00:02:05] habits that I've gotten into that don't support that. If I want to say yes to more quality

[00:02:11] time with people I love, I need to say no to too much social media scrolling. And so these

[00:02:18] no's become as important as our yeses in achieving the goals of our life. And so take some time

[00:02:27] to write down what your no's are to life and perhaps just magically your life might

[00:02:34] listen to you and not provide you with so many opportunities to need to say no. A second way

[00:02:41] to say no is to yourself in everyday life. And here's the technique that I want to share with you.

[00:02:48] The next time you catch yourself saying no, say yes. The next time you catch yourself saying

[00:02:56] no, say yes. And by that what I mean is the next time you say no to something,

[00:03:02] say to yourself by saying no to this, what am I saying yes to? Mike Marlier, the drummer here at

[00:03:09] Mile High Church, incredible man and beloved by my daughter Nancy June. It just happens to be his

[00:03:16] birthday this past week. So happy birthday, Mike. And when we have our Sunday services,

[00:03:20] the band has to get here really early and they do a rehearsal. And there's always a little

[00:03:26] bit of time when the rehearsal's complete and the first 8am service begins. And so Mike always

[00:03:32] goes out and he gets donuts for the green room. They're these beautiful, colorful, I mean they

[00:03:37] could have a whole field of art these days just for donuts. They look so delicious. And every once

[00:03:43] in a while I walk into the green room and someone says Josh do you want a donut? And my

[00:03:47] response is no. But I am lying through my teeth. I want one of those donuts so bad.

[00:03:54] I want six donuts. I want the pink one. I want the chocolate looking one. I want the vanilla

[00:03:59] looking one. I want the one with no frosting on it. I want all of those donuts. And so I have to

[00:04:05] learn to give an authentic no. And by doing that is this technique. I'm saying no to this

[00:04:13] donut because I'm saying yes to my greater health. And I'm recognizing by saying yes to my

[00:04:19] greater health that as much as I really, really, really want that donut what I really

[00:04:24] want even more is that yes to my health. So I don't have to say no Mike. I don't want a donut

[00:04:31] because I'm saying yes to my greater health but I can say no thanks and in my mind, in my heart

[00:04:38] use that as an opportunity to affirm my yes to celebrate that I've made a good choice

[00:04:44] and in that moment to feel more healthy than I would have if I would have said yes to that

[00:04:49] donut as delicious as I know it would have been. So the first way to say no is to clarify

[00:04:56] to your life where it is that you're saying no. The second is to clarify to yourself

[00:05:04] in your everyday activities and routines what you're saying yes to so that your no

[00:05:08] is filled with affirmation as opposed to hiding or bsing or disaffirming what you really want.

[00:05:17] Finally, the no that's often the most hard for us to give and that's the no to other people.

[00:05:24] And there's no easy technique for saying no to other people but what I want to invite you

[00:05:29] into today is a deeper level of authenticity by learning to say no to people and to tell

[00:05:36] them honestly why. I don't know about you but have you ever been in that circumstance where you've

[00:05:42] said yes to someone they've asked you to do them a favor and you've said yes at the sacrifice of

[00:05:48] your self-care, at the sacrifice of your peace of mind, at the sacrifice of getting other work done

[00:05:54] and you're in the middle of watching the child or picking up the thing from Home Depot or

[00:06:00] reading these papers or whatever it may be and all of a sudden you feel depleted. All of a sudden

[00:06:07] you go oh I wish I would have said no to that. All of a sudden you start building this resentment

[00:06:12] and as opposed to having a momentum that's leading you to fulfilling your yeses, you're stuck

[00:06:18] in this inactive place of filling someone else's priorities list. And I love something

[00:06:25] Greg McCown said, he wrote a book called Essentialism. He said if you don't prioritize your life,

[00:06:31] someone else will. They don't mean to prioritize it for you but if you let them, they will have

[00:06:37] you doing their task or many people will be having you doing many tasks that take you away

[00:06:43] from what you really want to be accomplishing. So I love a story and it's out of this book

[00:06:49] Essentialism and it's about Stephen Covey, the great author of these seven habits of highly effective

[00:06:57] people. And he's taking his adult daughter on a date in San Francisco. It's a Friday night

[00:07:04] and they're just getting out onto the street. They're walking on the sidewalk

[00:07:08] and Steve runs into a potential business partner. It's someone they're working on

[00:07:13] a big contract with and this business partner is kind of a big wig and they say

[00:07:17] he says to them, look I am treating you two tonight to a night on the town. The finest food,

[00:07:24] the finest establishments, we're going to have a wonderful time and Stephen looks him in the

[00:07:29] eye and says no thank you. Tonight is about a really special time with my daughter. It's our

[00:07:36] daddy daughter date and it's actually Stephen's daughter who's telling this story and she shares

[00:07:42] that in that moment I knew that my father loved me but I felt attached to him for all time.

[00:07:48] That know that he gave to this business person let me know how important I was to him and how

[00:07:55] important that quality time of going to a dinner and a movie their tradition was.

[00:08:01] Now what I love about that story is that Covey is honest with the person.

[00:08:06] Sometimes when we say no to people, we hide the reason. We make up an excuse.

[00:08:11] We may even lie to ourselves and so I invite you to say I would like to help you but the answer is no

[00:08:17] because I'm saying yes to my self-care. The answer is no because helping you with that

[00:08:24] doesn't give me peace of mind or sometimes when it's in our relationships with our partner or

[00:08:29] even with a child we can say I would like to say yes to that but right now I need to take

[00:08:34] care of this other thing for me. Can we compromise? Can we find another time so that I can help support

[00:08:42] your needs as well? One of my creative affirmations this year is as I take care of my own needs

[00:08:50] others needs are met. As I take care of my own needs others needs are met. I think it's a bit

[00:08:57] magical but the first thing that I do is if someone asks me for something sometimes I still

[00:09:02] say yes. Sometimes I still give in but I at least ask myself are you meeting your own needs Josh

[00:09:10] and can you take that time to get that run in or to work on that creative project before you

[00:09:16] serve this other person's needs and that's really helpful and it's also the bigger more spiritual

[00:09:21] context of as I'm taking care of this need, as I'm taking this extra five minutes in meditation,

[00:09:28] as I'm taking this run, as I'm enjoying some music what I know is the people I love and care for

[00:09:35] have the power within them to meet their own needs and that by me actually taking care of myself

[00:09:42] it allows me to be a greater blessing to them in the long run. I invite you to consider that

[00:09:47] that is true for you too. So clarify what you want to say no to to your life when you

[00:09:54] say no in your own mind affirm what you're saying yes to and lastly say no honestly share what it is

[00:10:02] that you are saying yes to to the person who's asking you a favor and guess what they may not

[00:10:07] only respect you more but be inspired to do the same thing. Thanks for your time tonight.