When “Hell Yes!” Isn’t Enough

A friend posted this fantastic article this week called, “How I knew when saying yes was hurting my productivity and worse.” As I read it, I was struck by two things: this sounds easy and it’s really not that easy. And before I take a contrary stand to some of the article’s message, it’s really a good evaluation tool for our work. It causes us to take a step back and ask the important question – should I be doing this?

Now on to my thoughts of why this article may not send the right message. The essence of the article is when you are asked to do something, you should evaluate if that something makes you want to shout, “Hell yes!” or not. If not, then you say no. While I agree overall this is a great way to stop doing stupid things that waste your time and that drain you, I still find the concept easy to buy into and hard to implement. In addition, I understand the spirit of the message, but I think it may inadvertently eliminate values we need in life.

Again, I understand the overall spirit of the message – stop doing things you hate to do. If your gut reaction is to cringe when a client calls, then it’s time to cut the client free. Seems easy enough, but why don’t we still say yes when our gut says no?

For me, there’s a few things that keep me saying yes. 1) The relationship is more important to me than the work. I say yes because I value the people who are calling. 2) Sometimes I say yes, because I want that person to like me. 3) Sometimes I say yes because I see the hope and promise of what could be for the other person, even if the work to get there will be ugly. 4) Sometimes I say yes because there’s the promise of bigger projects resulting from the work currently offered.

The key to saying yes is to understand why you are saying yes and evaluating if that’s the right yes. If I’m saying yes because I want someone to like me, that’s the wrong thing to say yes to. If I am saying yes because I value the relationship or I see opportunity for that person, even if it means I don’t enjoy on my part, I’m in.

When I’m tempted to say no because my “Hell Yes!” is missing, I need to evaluate why I’m saying yes. Sometimes the yes isn’t about me, and that’s the value we risk losing if we only say yes when it meets our needs. Life isn’t completely about me (oh I wish it were!). Oftentimes life is more about serving the other person. Helping them with something you’re gifted with.

Don’t lose sight of the value behind serving others. It can looks as simple as I did the office dishes today because it needed to be done. Did I say, “Hell yes!” when I walked in the kitchen – no. But it had to be done and it freed up someone else to do the work they needed to do. The reality of life is we have to say yes to things that are less than glamourous if we will fully succeed.

Our perseverance in the less than glamorous things makes the world go round. And not only do we need to do the less than glamorous things, we have to do the hard things. If we didn’t have others willing to do the hard things, we wouldn’t have a lot of things we take for granted – freedoms, privileges and voting rights. I’m guessing many of our soldiers and public servants didn’t yell, “Hell yes!” all the time, nor should we.

Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.