Why Is Our First Answer No?

Part One of my three-part series: Lean Toward Yes

I know people whose first response to almost anything new is no.

Would you like to go somewhere?

No.

Want to try this restaurant?

No.

How about taking a class?

No.

What if we took a trip?

Absolutely not.

Sometimes you haven’t even finished explaining the idea and you can see it happening.

The forehead wrinkles.

The nose scrunches.

The head starts shaking.

Their entire body appears to be preparing a legal defense against whatever outrageous proposal you’re about to make.

And then there are other people.

Their first reaction is:

Yes.

Maybe.

Why not?

Tell me more.

Could be fun.

I’m one of those people.

Not recklessly. Not blindly. And certainly not because every yes I’ve ever uttered turned into a wonderful decision.

Good heavens, no.

I’ve had some yeses that later caused me to wonder whether I’d temporarily misplaced my common sense.

But after enough years of living, I’ve realized something:

Very few of the best things in my life began with no.

Why Does No Feel So Comfortable?

There are excellent reasons to say no.

Sometimes we don’t have the money.

Sometimes we don’t have the time.

Sometimes we don’t have the energy.

Sometimes our instincts are telling us something important.

And sometimes no is the healthiest word we can possibly say.

That’s not the kind of no I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the automatic no.

The fearful no.

The I’ve-never-done-that-before no.

The what-will-people-think no.

The I-might-not-be-good-at-it no.

And especially as we get older:

The I’m-too-old-for-that no.

That one bothers me.

Because sometimes what we’re calling practicality is really fear wearing sensible shoes.

Human beings naturally like familiarity.

Familiarity gives us predictability, and predictability feels safe.

We know the restaurant.

We know the route.

We know the people.

We know what we’re good at.

We know where the bathroom is—which, frankly, becomes increasingly valuable information as the years go by.

But there’s a problem.

If we’re not careful, comfort can slowly make our world smaller.

Same places.

Same routines.

Same people.

Same conversations.

Same answer.

No.

And eventually life becomes incredibly predictable.

Comfortable?

Perhaps.

But comfortable and fully alive are not necessarily the same thing.

What If We Changed the Question?

When something unfamiliar appears, most of us immediately start calculating what could go wrong.

What if I don’t like it?

What if I waste money?

What if I’m embarrassed?

What if I fail?

What if nobody else wants to do it?

What if I’m the oldest person there?

What if I look ridiculous?

Those aren’t unreasonable questions.

But they’re incomplete.

Because there’s another question we rarely give equal time:

What if it goes right?

What if you love it?

What if you’re surprisingly good at it?

What if you meet someone wonderful?

What if you discover something about yourself?

What if it changes the direction of your life?

What if it becomes one of the stories you tell for the next twenty years?

We tend to calculate the risk of doing something without calculating the risk of not doing it.

And no carries risk, too.

It just doesn’t announce itself immediately.

My Life Has Required a Lot of Yes

If you’ve read my books, you already know my life hasn’t followed one tidy trajectory.

There have been beginnings.

Endings.

Reinventions.

Unexpected turns.

Things I certainly didn’t anticipate doing when I was younger.

And eventually, books.

Bloom Again: A Memoir of Reinvention.

Then:

Now What? A Practical Guide to Starting Again Without Starting Over.

Those books exist because somewhere along the way I kept saying:

Okay.

I’ll try.

I’ll learn.

I’ll figure it out.

Yes.

And I’m still doing it.

I’m still writing.

Still learning.

Still experimenting.

Still wondering what’s around the next corner.

I don’t want the final chapters of my life to consist entirely of rereading the earlier ones.

I want new material.

And new material requires occasionally stepping into something before we know exactly how it’s going to turn out.

So Here’s My Challenge

Between now and Wednesday, pay attention to your automatic responses.

You don’t have to change anything yet.

Just notice.

When someone suggests something new, what happens inside you?

Does curiosity arrive first?

Or does resistance?

Do you think:

That sounds interesting.

Or:

Here are seventeen reasons that won’t work.

And here’s the bigger question:

Is your no protecting you from something genuinely wrong for you—or merely protecting you from being uncomfortable?

Those are two very different things.

Because sometimes discomfort is simply what possibility feels like before we recognize it.

On Wednesday, I want to take this conversation somewhere deeper.

Researchers have spent decades studying regret, and they’ve discovered something fascinating about the difference between the things we did and the things we didn’t do.

And as we grow older, that difference becomes particularly important.

Because eventually we discover something about all those things we planned to do “someday.”

Someday has an expiration date.

I’ll see you Wednesday.

Julie Bolejack, MBA| Author | The Bloom Again Collection

If someone forwarded this to you, I’d love to have you join us. Subscribe to my newsletter and find my books, podcast, essays and more at JulieBolejack.com.

And before Wednesday, notice just one thing:

How often do you say no before you’ve really considered saying yes?