trusting yourself to say no
or, focusing on intentional yeses
For most of my life, I’ve been a chronic “yes” person. For over a decade, it worked. While I was consistently double-booked with work and social engagements and had at least two jobs, I saw my career grow and friendships blossom. Some may think this sounds horrible, but I honestly really enjoyed that time of my life - transparently, that’s how I’ve built the life I dreamed of. This is not a letter meant to deter you from saying yes- it’s learning how to listen and trust when your body, your intuition, is telling you no.
Here’s the truth - I almost always said yes because I was scared that the opportunities I wanted would disappear indefinitely if I said no. And even if I didn’t want that initial opportunity, chances are that I’d want future ones. If a new friend invites you out three times, and you decline all invitations, it’s unlikely they’ll invite you a fourth time.
However, there’s nothing like running your own business to teach you lessons that you have yet to learn: my reflex to almost indiscriminately say yes was actually going to run my business, and me, into the ground.
I now see that saying yes to things that are not exciting, educational, or honestly, a good fit for my expertise, hurts me in the long run.
(there are always exceptions!)
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been using Claude to help make sense of my Human Design chart1. Through this, I discovered that my decision-making process is “Sacral.” Per Claude, “the Sacral authority is pre-verbal and instinctive, communicates through sounds, sensations, and immediate physical responses, knows instantly whether something is energizing or depleting for you, is designed to respond to external stimuli rather than to initiate.” While some of this rings true, I also have a process I rely on when weighing whether to say “no” or “yes.”
Here is my short decision making framework:
What does saying yes to this opportunity bring into my life? Learning? Financial gain? Deeper relationships? Etc.
What do I have to decline if I say yes to this opportunity? There are always tradeoffs and if you can, it’s better to think about this ahead of time.
Do I connect with the people I would work with/be around? This is a very important consideration for me.
How does this decision feel in my body? For me, no matter what, it’s typically some sort of anxiety. However, I need to go a step deeper to understand why I’m feeling anxious (or whatever emotion is coming up). Is it because this would be doing something new and I’m a little scared to not be perfect at something the first go around? Or, is the anxiety telling me to investigate deeper, do more due diligence? And in general, I always sleep on more impactful career decisions.
I’ve had to remind myself to return to this framework, because the recent Scorpio full moon on May 12 (we are still feeling the effects) has really illuminated areas in which younger Natalie would have pushed through and said yes2, but my current inner self is almost begging me to say no.
It’s an exercise in trust, that by saying no to an opportunity that doesn’t feel right, I’ll be able to give a wholehearted yes to something more aligned further down the line. Even if I can’t see it just yet. Excitingly, I see this process of realignment beginning to happen in my career, which, as you may have guessed, means that I need to say “no” more to work. If you are in a place of transition, I encourage you to join me in being more ~analytically intuitive~ when agreeing to opportunities.
We can all develop our trust muscle and make it a little stronger every day.
I believe in you. Andiamo.
If you are early in your career and ambitious, I would recommend you recognize that there will be times when you cannot, and should not, push back - even if it’s work that you aren’t initially excited by. At this point in your life, there isn't an option to decline opportunities - or at least a larger cost to it. The more you say yes, the more opportunities you will have and the more you’ll learn where your intuition guides you. At least, this is what I’ve found to be true. I do work for myself now, so there is a different level of control over the projects I accept or decline now than when I worked in a corporate setting. However, the idea of giving intentional yeses vs. saying yes to everything is applicable across your entire life.