The Positive Power of “No”
Posted on October 31, 2023 by Ryan Carlin, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
I was over ruled by my boss with the phrase, well if you can’t be generous maybe we should find someone else better suited.
“Ryan, we need you to take on the management of the hospitality services for the institute in addition to your work as head of finance, accounting, marketing, communication, recruiting, human resources, and business development.”
It was the beginning of the same old story of how my help was needed to manage yet another division of our mission head quarters in Rome Italy.
Once again I pointed out that I really couldn’t manage yet another division adequately but as usual I was over ruled by my boss with the phrase, well if you can’t be generous maybe we should find someone else better suited.
And once again I caved in and took on the management of yet another division of the company. Nights became shorter, exercise fell by the way side, keeping up with my personal needs were further sacrificed, and my anxiety and depression just grew worse.”
Sadly, that was how I spent about 17 years of my life until I read the book Boundaries by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend. In their deeply insightful work they guide the reader to reconsider what are healthy boundaries for one to set around one’s time and energies and, for me, revealed to me the groundbreaking idea that maybe other people were not being reasonable in their expectations of me.
It did not happen overnight, but in reading Boundaries as well as Your Perfect Right by Dr Robert Alberti and Dr Michael Emmons I realized that I had the right as a human being to be master of myself, I had the right to say no and to have that no respected. Now, in order to gain the respect of that no I had to make some major life changes including leaving my career with the company that had been my home since 2006. But in taking responsibility for my own life and deciding how far was far enough I acquired a wonderful positive power, the ability to make my own decisions and say yes and no, not from obligation, but from desire.
I encourage anyone who feels like their life is out of control to shoot me a message at ryancarlin1324@gmail.com and together we can further discuss this very important power that we all need to claim over our lives, the power to say “no”.
