![\"ghandi\"](\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ghandi-300x199.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cA \u2018no\u2019 uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a \u2018yes\u2019 merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.\u201d So said Mahatma Gandhi, and we all know how his conviction played out on the world stage. But what is less well known is how this same discipline played out privately with his own grandson, Arun Gandhi.<\/p>\n
Arun grew up in South Africa. When he was a young boy, he was beaten up twice: once for being too white and once for being too black. Still angry, Arun was sent to spend time with his grandfather. In an interview with Arun, he told me that his grandfather was in demand from many important people, yet he still prioritized his grandson, spending an hour a day for 18 months just\u00a0listening<\/em>\u00a0to Arun. It proved to be a turning point in Arun\u2019s life.<\/p>\n I had the opportunity to apply Gandhi\u2019s example of prioritization to my own life, hours before one of my daughters was born. I felt pressure to go to a client meeting the next day. But on this occasion, I knew what to do. It was clearly a time to be there for my wife and child. So, when asked to attend the meeting, I said with all the conviction I could muster\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n To my shame, while my wife lay in the hospital with my hours-old baby, I went to the meeting. Afterward, my manager said, \u201cThe client will respect you for making the decision to be here.\u201d But the look on the clients\u2019 faces mirrored how I felt.\u00a0What was I doing there?!<\/em>\u00a0I had not lived true to Gandhi\u2019s saying. I had said \u201cyes\u201d to please.<\/p>\n As it turned out, exactly\u00a0nothing<\/em>\u00a0came of the client meeting. And even if the client\u00a0had<\/em> respected my choice, and key business opportunities\u00a0had<\/em>\u00a0resulted, I would still have struck a fool\u2019s bargain. My wife supported me and trusted me to make the right choice under the circumstances, and I had opted to deprioritize her and my child.<\/p>\n Why did I do it? I have two confessions:<\/p>\n First, I allowed social awkwardness to trump making the right decision.<\/em>\u00a0I wasn\u2019t\u00a0forced<\/em>\u00a0to attend the meeting. Instead, I was so anxious to please that even awkward silent pauses on the phone were too much for me. In order to stop the social pain, I said \u201cyes\u201d when I knew the answer should be \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n Second, I believed that \u201cI\u00a0had\u00a0to make this work.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Logically, I knew I had a choice, but emotionally, I felt that I had no choice. That one corrupted assumption psychologically removed many of the actual choices available to me.<\/p>\n What can you do to avoid the mistake of saying \u201cyes\u201d when you know the answer should be \u201cno\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n First, separate the decision from the relationship.<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes these seem so interconnected, we forget there are two different questions we need to answer. By deliberately dividing these questions, we can make a more conscious choice. Answer the question, \u201cWhat is the right decision?\u201d and\u00a0then<\/em>\u00a0\u201cHow can I communicate this as kindly as possible?\u201d<\/p>\n Second, watch your language.\u00a0<\/strong>Every time we say, \u201cI\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to take this call\u201d or \u201cI\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to send this piece of work off\u201d or \u201cI\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to go to this client meeting,\u201d we are assuming that previous commitments are nonnegotiable. Every time you use the phrase \u201cI have to\u201d over the next week, stop and replace it with \u201cI choose to.\u201d It can feel a little odd at first \u2014 and in some cases it can even be gut-wrenching (if we are choosing the wrong priority). But ultimately, using this language reminds us that we are making choices, which enables us to make adifferent<\/em>\u00a0choice.<\/p>\n Third, avoid working for or with people who don\u2019t respect your priorities.<\/strong>\u00a0It may sound simplistic, but this is a truly liberating rule! There are people who share your values and as a result make it natural to live your priorities. It may take a while to find an employment situation like this, but you can set your course to that destination immediately.<\/p>\n Saying \u201cyes\u201d when we should be saying \u201cno\u201d can seem like a small thing in the moment. But over time, such compromises can create a life of regrets. Indeed, an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware, who cared for people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, recorded the most often-discussed regrets. At the top of the list: \u201cI wish I\u2019d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.\u201d<\/p>\n I have a vision of people everywhere having the courage to live a life true to themselves instead of the life others expect of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To harness the courage we need to get on the right path, it pays to reflect on how short life really is, and what we want to accomplish in the little time we have left. As poet Mary Oliver wrote: \u201cTell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d<\/p>\n I challenge you to be wiser than I was on the day of my daughter\u2019s birth. I have great confidence in the good that can come from such a decision.<\/p>\n Years from now when you are on your death bed you may still have regrets. But seeking the way of the Essentialist is unlikely to be one of them. What would you trade then to be back here now for one chance\u2014this chance\u2014to be true to yourself? On\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0day what will you hope you decided to do on\u00a0this<\/em>\u00a0one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cA \u2018no\u2019 uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a \u2018yes\u2019 merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.\u201d So said Mahatma Gandhi, and we all know how his conviction played out on the world stage. But what is less well known is how this same discipline played out privately with his own… If You Don’t Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[348,353,352,159,351,350,349],"class_list":["post-760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate-communications","tag-career","tag-career-management","tag-greg-mckeown","tag-management","tag-people-management","tag-time-management","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1417,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions\/1417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}