It’s been a year since I started embracing saying “no” more than I say “yes”.

It was always kind, it was always for a good reason, it was always gentle – but it was a “no”.

Saying “no” can lead to abundance

It’s taken me a long time to get here. To understand that “no” doesn’t mean that you’re living smaller or that you’ll get less, but rather, that it can mean more — “no” can lead to abundance.

As a people pleaser, I’ve always said “yes” to most things.

When I was single, I rarely turned down a date — even if I knew that he was not Mr. Right (or flat out knew he was definitely Mr. Wrong). That’s my personal life. But in business, it was happening, too.

I was a YES QUEEN, not be confused with a #YASSSKWEEN!

I subscribed to the inspirational quotes about saying “yes” to opportunities and experiences. I said “yes” to so many opportunities and experiences!

Until I had to start saying “no”.

It started in the nutrition arm of The Well Necessities. I reached the level of success where I was turning away potential business (aka, money). It was surreal. It felt … something — a feeling I still can’t articulate.

I spent the first few years of my career being afraid to lose a potential client. For financial reasons, but also because because I want to help people. But the truth is, saying “yes” to every client who knocks on this door is a disservice to the client. I’m not the best fit for everyone (and that’s okay!!).

And while I resisted what my gut told me, I knew immediately who would excel with my help, and who could be better off with another expert.

I slowly realized the truth: by saying “no” to the potential client that wasn’t the ideal fit means that (plot twist coming up!!!) I’m actually saying “yes” and showing up better for the client that needed me most and that I knew I could help.

You can learn more about how I started showing up for my ideal client here.

Saying “no” keeps me true to myself

As an “influencer” – yes, I roll my eyes a little at that, too, though I try to ‘influence’ responsibly and deeply respect those that do it as a living and responsibly – I receive requests from brands every 1.24 minutes. Strike that – I don’t receive the requests, my operations manager does. I had to remove my contact info from my Instagram bio and put in hers, so she could vet them (my operations manager is really good at saying “no”, including to me 🤣hi Amaya my best friend and life saver who I met at grand jury duty a year and a half ago, who I cannot live without).

To be clear, it’s not that I’m too good to read these emails myself, or that I feel I’m too good for the products they want to send me for free – it’s that most of them look like this:

“Hi LiLi! Your amazing! We love your brand and think your audience will love our new weight loss tea! We’re not your average weight loss tea. Our weight loss tea tastes like peaches! Who doesn’t love peaches and being skinny!?”

or

“I hope this email finds you well. We see your website is not getting the traffic it deserves with your high-quality content.  Lucky for you, we are a renouned SEO firm that can get you more reach.  We await your response so we can help you!”

And then there are brands that think they’re the right fit because they’ve been sort of paying attention to what I preach, but it’s just not quite right. Like this:

“Hi LiLi,

I love that avocado toast pic you posted! We are the marketing team for the new paleo bread called “YOU WON’T BELIEVE I’M NOT BREAD!” and we’d love to work with you. Our bread is made with only cassava, coconut, and organic oat flour and it tastes DE—LICIOUS. We’d love for you to try our bread, and then discuss an ongoing paid partnership!”

The ‘this could maybe work’ emails are about 1 in every 25. And while I could, of course, work with YOU WON’T BELIEVE I’M NOT BREAD, the question is, do I want to? 

This was a question I forgot to ask myself for a long time.

Yes, I could rationalize that this product is a fit for my audience.

I like bread. I even like fake bread. I like free things and free bread too!

And I really like the idea of getting paid to show people that I eat bread and they should too!

Sounds like a win-win-win-win.

But here’s the problem:

It wasn’t bread. It was fake bread, which is why YOU WON’T BELIEVE I’M NOT BREAD wasn’t the right fit for my brand. It didn’t speak to what I preach and could send the wrong message to my audience, many of which are afraid of real bread.

More importantly, by saying “yes” to every brand that’s an “almost” / “I could probably justify it”, I’m saying “no” to more important things. I’m saying “no” to my business goals. I’m saying “no” to my personal goals. I’m saying “no” to you.

Why?

Because the time given to bolster a product and advertise on their behalf is taking energy away from everything else —

… like tapping into my creative brain which is responsible for new content

… like creating new online courses, or sharing the current course with new people

… like hosting webinars on relevant topics and answering questions

… like interacting with you on IG

… like saying “YES” to a brand that sets my heart on fire and I KNOW you will love too

And that’s a bunch of bullshit.

“YES” is not the key to abundance. “No” is. 

But here’s the caveat, because I know there are some of you reading this who already say no a lot:

Don’t say “no” for no reason, or because you’re scared, or because it’s out of your comfort zone.

Say “no” because you’re in tune with what you stand for, what you believe in, because you understand that “NO” will give you time to invest in the brands you want to support, or your own brand. 

If you don’t run a business and none of this applies to you, think about how it can apply to you.

Think about the lunches and dinners you say “yes” to even though the women there are toxic to you (fun fact: you don’t need to stay friends with people who no longer serve you).

Think about the dates you go on because you’re scared you’ll miss an opportunity to find Mr. or Mrs. Right.

As scary as it is to say “no”, these are opportunities to focus on yourself, to choose yourself. Maybe that means simply choosing who you want to spend your time with, or maybe it means carving out time to be alone.  You get to choose what serves you best.

Learning to say “no” is scary at first (what if they hate me?, what if they don’t want to work with me in the future?, what-if-what-if-what-if?) but once you pull that Band-Aid off by saying “no” the first time, it’s the start of the future you actually want.

Saying “no” is how you step into YOUR own power.

P.S. Saying “yes” too much left me overwhelmed, crazed, and lost. It’s better to be really good at what you do than to try to do everything and end up doing it all at a mediocre level. You were not born to be mediocre.

Now, tell me, will you say YES or NO to more things in the future? (lemme know in the comments!)