If we’re being honest,
“Sorry, I don’t have time”
essentially means:
“Something else is more important to me.”
Yet I hear so many of my coaching clients, supervisees and fellow human beings make excuses as if their choices were fixed by something external.
And I get it. Pushing the responsibility for a choice away from us makes it less likely that the person we just said ‘no’ to will be offended or angry at us. After all, it wasn’t up to me. I had to say no.
In my ideal world, we could simply express our values and priorities, and other people would respect our choices and how we choose to navigate our life and career. Everybody would understand that we are all different and that someone else’s choice not to do what I want right now, doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t like me, that we can’t be friends, or that it’ll be impossible to continue working together.
It would be fine to say that on Fridays I prioritize spending time with my family over anything else.
But unfortunately we don’t live in that world (yet), and so I often sit with clients thinking about how they could effectively ring-fence some time in their calendar without fear of repercussions or creating any sort of backlash.
Most recently I sat with a client who’s pregnant and thinking about what narrative to create to explain that she won’t be working over the next few months. What gets me is that “I’m currently working with a very demanding client who has booked all my time over the next 12 weeks” seems to be a safer version of the truth than “I’m having a baby and choose not to do any work for the next 3 month”.
Similarly, there’s much less likely to be pushback if you were to state that every Friday you’re having an executive board meeting that you “can’t get out of” instead of disclosing that the board consists only of two members, with the other being 8 years old and related to you, and that you could get out of this engagement if you wanted to, but it’s too important to you to make that choice.
I also find that clients often struggle to respect their own boundaries. If it’s a work meeting, they’re rock solid and never late. Family and friends tend to be handled with more flexibility and even a commitment to upholding clear boundaries isn’t enough.
So who’s your most important client? I invite you to consider all the possible stakeholders in your life – including family, friends, politics, the planet, and – yes – also clients at work, who are indeed important clients.
I won’t judge who you choose. That’s up to you. But I do encourage you to choose consciously, and to honour your choices enough to align your actions with it. Otherwise you breed inauthenticity.
Once you’re clear on your priorities in any given context, it still doesn’t necessarily make it easier to say no. And again, I do get it:
“I would if I could, but I really can’t, sorry!” makes someone else feel important.
“Something or someone else is more important than you, to me” is more real but doesn’t flatter the ego quite the same, and may cause friction or doubt in the other
So we often lie; or we might frame the truth in a way that we’re not lying, but are not saying the truth either, in an effort to maintain good relationships…
which we wouldn’t have to if we genuinely not just had respect for, but would be embracing the fact that others live their lives in accordance to different sets of values.
I do, and I often find myself struggling to get angry at people for making choices I don’t agree with. Even choices that impact me badly tend to make sense from their perspective. I find myself not fighting as hard as I otherwise would have against decisions I don’t agree with. A strength overdone? Sometimes I wish I was a bit more ignorant. It would make me communicate more clearly and more powerfully, I reckon.
But then I do like having a balanced perspective, even if it makes life less comfortable, choices more complex, and requiring more courage.
Not sure who needed to hear this today. If it’s you, I’d love to hear about it!
With Love
Yannick
