4 Times Every High-Performance Focused Leader Should Say No and Feel Good About It

As a growth-focused leader, you no doubt have a lot of responsibility. People look to you for guidance. They want to see an example of what it means to live an optimized life of accomplishment and growth.

As you take consistent action to accomplish your goals, your presence naturally creates visibility and attracts others to you. Success is contagious and energetic — it draws other people to want the same characteristics for their life. This exposure brings on the challenge of people wanting a leaders’ time and attention.

If you’re not careful, a lot of your time can be taken up by tasks and outside circumstances that don’t align with your routine and schedule. The goal is to continue to grow as a high-performing leader who accomplishes their goals and impacts all those around you. Optimized growth comes from a place of learning how to say no and feeling good about that decision.

As a growth-focused leader, there are four things you should say no to every time and not feel the human guilt that’s typically associated with saying no. The key to growth is focus and alignment; here’s how to do that. Say no to:

1. Other people’s urgent agendas that don’t fit your routine and schedule.
   Other people’s urgent requests and desires should not drive your schedule or force you to get off track. Everything feels like an emergency in life, but that doesn’t mean it has to be your emergency.

   If allowed, other people’s agendas can take over yours and keep you from having the time and energy you’ll need to accomplish the things on your list. Say no to other people’s urgent requests of your time that don’t fit into your plan. As hard as it can sometimes feel, saying no is the best option for everyone involved.

   

   When there is a request for your time, look at what you currently have going on and be authentically honest about whether or not you can accommodate that request. Don’t give into people’s plans or people-pleaser tendencies. It’s better to offer guidance from a place of abundance than from constantly trying to play catch up.

2. Unsolicited requests of your energy and knowledge.
   You spent years building your knowledge and expertise around your leadership skills. That work has come with many sacrifices, sleepless nights, and giving up on some of the things you may have wanted to spend your time on.

   It takes energy, focus, and commitment to become a successful leader; you must respect what you’ve accomplished by not giving into unsolicited requests of your knowledge and energy.

   Your time is a precious resource, and your energy is a crucial component to manage time effectively. High-performance-focused leaders say no and use their energy on the tasks that help them have a more significant impact.

3. Unfocused tasks and potential time-wasters.
   The reality is that nobody will get more time, so time management comes down to how you are using the time you already have. Learning how to work in focused blocks and avoiding time wasters is one of the keys to progress. Living a high-performance-focused lifestyle happens with intentionality.

   Optimized leaders say no to themselves when they’re tempted to spend time on things that don’t fall in line with their schedule, routine, and the plan they’ve set for each day. Self-discipline is one of the most underutilized strategies for creating growth and leadership.

   

   As a growth-focused leader, it’s your goal to be the CEO of your time. Say no to the tempting but unfocused blocks that threaten to destroy your productivity.

4. Goals that don’t align with your vision and reason for pursuing growth.
   Your goal is to spend your time working on your vision of success and pursuing growth-focused goals. Your image of success can’t be one of society’s or outside circumstances — it has to be a vision you set.

   Your values are the starting point because they dictate what you will accept. It’s then about your vision of success and goals you want to accomplish from a place of self-prioritization.

Optimized leaders don’t chase someone else’s version or vision of success. Leaders spend their time on a clear vision and in line with the values that help them reach significant goals.

It’s a great time to accomplish more, set higher goals, and do the work to achieve them. To optimize your time and respect yourself, you have to learn how to say no to everything that doesn’t align with your vision of where you’re going.

Saying no is healthy. Setting boundaries is a crucial component of success. Be the master of your time and emotions, and evaluate everything that you allow into your life.

Written by Richard Trevino II.