After much talk about it, much internal debate and much worry that the world was going to fall apart, I’ve done what was previously unthinkable: I said no.
Then I waited for the fallout.
In the first few days after the big event, I was in a panic. What if the only thing keeping my freelance business afloat was my compulsive desire to please everyone all the time? What if this one “no” was the catalyst event that started a chain reaction of clients branding me as difficult or unwilling? I held my breath for days. But as the days stretched into one week, then two, I started to notice something. Clients kept calling. Work kept coming. The world had not fallen apart. The folks at CFC08 were right. Why didn’t someone tell me this before?
“No” can be an amazingly powerful word. This is why toddlers latch on to it with such force. They realize that with that one simple two-letter word, they have power. I wonder why we forget that as we age?
I simply can’t describe the weight that has been lifted from my shoulders. It will always be my natural inclination to say yes, but now I know from personal experience that when the deadline is unreasonable and the feedback isn’t timely or constructive, there is an alternative.