“Most of the people I know, and coach, are recovering people-pleasers…”

New York Times Best Selling Author, Michael Hyatt said this to me in our recent conversation.

 

In fact, I’m a recovering people-pleaser myself.

In my first professional job, I working between 80-90 hours a week. Part of that was because the job was a bad fit. Part of that was because there was a huge expectation to work a ton of hours. And part of that was that I said “yes” to everything my boss asked me to do.

Absolutely everything.

Saying “yes” to every project - to every request.

“Yes, sir, I can make that happen!”

“Yes, I can get that extra presentation done.”

Saying “yes” to all that took a bad situation and turned it into a totally intolerable situation.

 

Saying “yes” to too many things can hold you back from career happiness. At first, you may be excited that you’re the person that everyone can depend on.

But then it changes.

People start asking you to do more and more because “______ always finds a way to get it done.” In fact, it gets to the point that the people make you their first stop.

This can cause resentment, stress, and fatigue - none of which produce career happiness. But you also find it difficult - or impossible - to stop saying “yes.”

 

Saying “no” is exactly what we talk about in today’s episode with Michael Hyatt. Michael is a best-selling author (multiple times over) and was previously the CEO of a publishing company before starting his own company.

Michael is also a self-admitted, recovering people-pleaser. As such, throughout past few decades, he has had to learn to say “no” gracefully. In other words, he had to protect his own time and priorities. At one point, he said it this way:

“The way that you can give people a really firm ‘No’ is to have a really firm ‘yes’ on the other side of it.”

Also, he gives specific examples of how he can say “no” to a request, but still present a solution for the person. And people thank him for saying “no.”

Listen to this episode to hear the whole conversation, including:

• Why it’s so hard for you to say “No” to people...and what to do about it
• How to get back hours of free time each week
• The connection between having a vision and conquering daily distractions
• Using elimination, automation, and delegation to crush even more tasks on your to-do list
• Why you need more than one routine to run your day
• The most important things you can do to be more focused and more productive

Also, as an added bonus, Michael shares the best advice on how to stay happily married for 40 years.