Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1198 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
How To Say No - Ask Gramps


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge.  Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy.  Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1198 of our Trek and time for our Philosophy Friday series.  Each Friday, we will ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life, and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy.  As we continue on this trek called life, sometimes we have questions about life, so our Friday trek is a time where we can ‘Ask Gramps.’   Gramps will answer questions that you would like to ask your dad or granddad, but for whatever reason, this is not possible.  No matter how old we are, I know that all of us would like the opportunity to ask dad or gramps questions about life in many areas.

We may mix it up a bit on our Friday episodes, but will strive to keep them down to earth and enjoyable.   If you have any questions that you would like to ask Gramps, please email them to guthrie@wisdom-trek.com

So the question for this week is:

Hey Gramps, “I find it a challenge to say no to people, and often, I end up with too many commitments than I’m comfortable with. However, if I say no, I worry about them being unhappy or offended. Why do I feel this way? How can I learn to say no and not end up feeling bad about it or not offending the other person?” 
How to Say No
There will always be endless request on your time from other people and organizations.  This advice is not from a selfish perspective, but to help maintain a proper perspective and balance by realizing that you cannot serve others if you are completely drained yourself because you never say no.  Do you hate saying no? Are you always saying yes to others at the expense of yourself?

I’ll admit it — I even find it very hard to say no. Whenever someone approached me for something, be it to pick my brain or assist them on a personal project, I would say yes. Part of it was because I didn’t want to leave others in the lurch. Part of it was because I didn’t want to disappoint people. Another part was because I was afraid that the other person would be unhappy if I said no.

Over time though, I realized that saying yes came with its consequences. Because if I kept saying yes to everyone, I would have little time for the things that are my High Payoff Activities. My days would be filled with things that others wanted from me, with little to no time for things of my own. I would become a slave to Other Peoples Agendas.   Saying yes when you should be saying no will catch up to you and you will have to regularly sacrifice your sleep just so that you can be there for everyone, and it won’t be long before you become burnt out.In an ideal world, we want to say yes to everyone, sure. But as you can see from the above scenario, saying “yes” to everyone isn’t the way to go. You need to say no in order to

Set boundaries. When you don’t draw a line between your needs and others’ needs, people will assume that you should give by default. When you say no, you start to set boundaries and protect your personal space.
Have time for your High Payoff Activities.  These are the most important tasks and goals in your life, such as finding your passion, starting your business, and building your relationships with your loved ones. Saying no is about protecting your High Payoff Activities and making sure that you have time for the activities that w...