123. Scattered, Exhausted, and Spread Too Thin?

What if the opportunities you're chasing are the very thing holding you back?

When you start gaining momentum in business, opportunities multiply. New clients, partnerships, collaborations, speaking gigs—it all comes your way. And it feels like you should say yes. More is better, right?

Not exactly.

In this episode, Jenn gets honest about the season when she said yes to everything—and ended up scattered, exhausted, and building a business that pulled her in twelve directions at once. She breaks down why growth isn't about accumulating more opportunities, but about choosing the right ones. And she shares the simple three-question filter she now uses before committing to anything.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why saying yes to everything is a trap disguised as ambition
• The hidden "no" inside every "yes" (and why it matters)
• The difference between real growth and just expansion
• Three questions to ask yourself before saying yes to any opportunity
• How to evaluate opportunities against what you actually want
• Why the most successful entrepreneurs are masters of saying no
• Simple scripts for declining gracefully without burning bridges
• How to audit your current commitments and identify what needs to go

This episode is for you if:

• You're busy all the time but don't feel like you're making progress
• You struggle to say no even when you know you should
• You feel scattered, pulled in too many directions
• You've said yes to things and immediately regretted it
• You want to grow strategically instead of just taking whatever comes
• You need permission to protect your capacity

Thanks for listening! 

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Transcript

The Trap Of Shiny Opportunities

Every Yes Costs Something

Expansion Without Intention

Redefining Growth: Better Not Bigger

Depth Over Breadth And Capacity

A Simple Framework For Decisions

Protecting Space With A Clear No

Scripts For Kind, Clean Nos

Audit Your Commitments Now

Make Every Yes Meaningful

Vision As Your Ultimate Filter

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody, and I am happy to see you here this week for this week's episode. I am going to start right off the bat today with a little bit of a confession. Today's episode is about learning to say no and not just saying yes to everything. And I can tell you, I have a lot of experience in this area. I am someone who is very used to saying yes to all the things around me, all the people around me. So if there's a new opportunity, I am saying yes to it. There's a new client that wants to work with me, yes, of course. If there's a speaking engagement I'm invited to do, I say yes to it. If somebody wants to collaborate with me, I immediately want to say yes, and I want to do all the things. And it goes into my personal life also. If someone asks me to go do something, yes, let's go to dinner. Yes, let's go see this movie. Yes, yes, yes, all the things I want to do. And we just don't always have the bandwidth to do that. And sometimes, I don't know about you guys, but do you find ever like there's things that sound interest interesting, but you never would have considered it before? So it's not like you would even feel like you're missing out on it, but you're still gonna say yes to it because all of a sudden it's in front of you and you don't know how to say no. And for a long time, I thought that this was the smart way to do things. I thought I'm just taking hold of opportunities. I am seizing the moment. I am taking the chances that are presented to me. This is how I'm going to maximize my impact, maximize my potential. And I thought that more opportunities meant more success, meant that I was more successful. But what I really found was that I was just more scattered and exhausted than anything else because doing a lot of things okay is great. But what if we just did a few things and we did them with excellence and we did them with um giving 100% to the things that we're choosing? So when you're building a business, it's it's not uncommon for that business to pull you in 12 directions at once, and that's what I was doing. So today, what I really want to talk about is something that to me felt counterintuitive. And that is why saying no is actually one of the most important growth strategies that you can develop in business. So, what happens, what's happening is there's a total epidemic of people who say yes to everything. And what happens here is that when you start your business, right, maybe as you start to gain momentum, you attract opportunities. And the better you become at what you do, the more things are going to come your way. So there's going to be new clients, there's going to be offers, you know, to partner with people and to speak and all these things, shiny new projects, right? Shiny object syndrome. And there's a trap there because we definitely think that because an opportunity exists, we are supposed to take it. And we think that saying no means that somehow we're missing out on something because we think more is better, right? It's just how we're conditioned. We always tend to fall in that lane, like more, more, more, because that means things are better. It means things are more successful, all of that. But every single time you say yes, there is a cost there. So every opportunity that you say yes to is taking away from the capacity that you have to spend on something else. Every single thing that you add is attention that you're subtracting from other things that may need your attention. So I have watched people grow in this way, right? Because you get that momentum going, new opportunities present themselves, we say yes to everything, and then what happens? You grow, grow, grow, and you grow yourself right into a chaotic mess. And we think we're scaling in this moment. You scale by saying yes to everything, but then you're drowning in commitments that you can't fulfill at all. Never mind, fill in a meaningful way. So what happens here is that you're spread so thin that nothing is getting your best effort. And basically, what this is, is growth, but it's growth without focus. And growth without focus is not growth, it's expansion. And expansion without intention is really complex. So basically, you're just expanding, expanding, expanding without a vision of where that expansion should take you. So you're creating more um chaos, more complexity, and you're not creating any more value, that's for sure, because you're spread so ridiculously thin by this epidemic of saying yes. So, what I want you to be able to internalize here is that this needs to be your mantra. Every yes is a no to something else. Every single time you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to something else. So when you decide to say yes to a client project, and I'm not saying you shouldn't say yes to things, but we have to do it with intention, right? Saying yes to that client project means that you're saying no to the time that you should be spending doing some more planning around your strategy. If that works for you, great, but you have to make sure that it lives in the capacity that you are committed to. So if you're gonna say yes to a speaking engagement, what are you saying no to? Are you saying no to um potentially rest that you needed that week? Are you saying no to time with your family? Every single thing. So when you say yes to partnering with a new person, maybe that means you're saying no to the focus that you were going to spend on your own thing that week, that day, whatever. So the problem here is that the yes is visible, it's exciting. And saying no makes us feel invisible and like we don't count, like we're not adding the value that we need to add to be relevant. So we think that we're irrelevant if we're saying no to things. So what we'd focus on is what we're gigging, and we ignore what we're giving up. So even though you may know at the heart of it that every yes is a no to something else, you're willing to ignore that no over here because the yes makes you feel so much more important. But the things that you're giving up, they really do matter. And sometimes they matter more than what you're gaining with that opportunity. So every single time something new comes along and is inviting you to pay attention to it and to say yes to it, I want you to ask yourself, what am I saying no to if I say yes to this? What will I not be able to do because I'm doing this instead? Sometimes the answer is nothing important. So great, then you just go ahead and you say yes and you go have a great time. But sometimes the answer is I'm saying no to my family, I'm saying no to taking care of my health, I'm saying no to deep work that needs to be done to actually move my business forward. I'm saying no to space that I need, whether that space is to think strategically, to work in a focused way. You're saying no to sustainability, essentially. And that's when the shiny opportunity suddenly looks a lot less attractive, right? So here's another question that I want you to sit with. Is this opportunity actually growth for you? Or is it just quote unquote more? Because again, we see more as being better. More clients does not necessarily mean growth for you if you're not able to serve those clients well. More revenue is not growth for you if it just comes with more headaches and doesn't come with any profit. So when you think about more, really be intentional about deciding when is more actually better and when is more actually harmful, because more visibility doesn't matter. It's not necessarily growth if it's not going to convert to anything really meaningful. Real growth is about getting better, not bigger, better. It is about building capacity, strengthening your foundation, deepening your expertise, improving your systems. Those are all things that are meaningful when it comes to growth. And you know what? They're not flashy, they're not shiny, they're not putting you out in the spotlight all the time. So we don't necessarily think of them as growth because they're happening so much behind the scenes. And we want to see growth up front. But sometimes real growth looks like saying no to those good opportunities so that you can say a full yes to a great opportunity later. You'll actually have the capacity to say yes to something amazing. Um when you have to choose, right? Because we need to be able to make conscious choices, intentional choices, and growth is when we have to choose depth over breadth. Right? We think going wide is good. It gives us, it puts us in front of more people, gives us the visibility that we're craving. But what we really need to focus on is the depth. We have to go deeper so that as great things come our way, we are just ready to say yes, and we are able to sustain that because real growth needs to be sustainable. Real growth creates space, doesn't fill space. Think about that, right? Because when you say yes to every single thing, all you're doing is filling all the holes around you because those holes they make you uncomfortable. When you say yes to something that's real growth, that expands the space around you. It invites more space for more growth. That's how you know that it's actually working in your favor. So when you're trying to build something that is profitable, that is peaceful and also profitable and sustainable, you cannot take advantage of every opportunity, even though it goes against your. I actually was just reading last night, um, I'm rereading the E myth. If you haven't read it, it's like an entrepreneurial Bible. It's been around forever. I read it for the first time in 2014, I believe, and I'm rereading it now, just as part of my um growth for this year. I'm trying to revisit some concepts that I really enjoy and I like to use as part of my teachings. But in that book, anyway, I'm I don't want to get off track here, but they speak about the entrepreneurial seizure. And that's what this is, right? When you say yes to every opportunity, it's having an entrepreneurial seizure. So we have to get really good at knowing which opportunities are right for us. And this way we have the discipline to pass on the rest of them. Okay. So how do you decide what you're going to say yes to and what you're going to say no to? Of course, I'm going to give you a framework. So I want you to think about some questions that you'll ask yourself. And I do practice this, okay? So one of the first things, my word for this year is alignment. So this is a question I actually ask myself pretty much before I do anything, not just in my business. So this comes into play when I'm thinking about getting up in the morning, what I'm putting in my body, who I'm speaking to during the day, the decisions I make for my business, all of it come down to this question is does this align with where I'm trying to go? That's something you really want to pay attention, pay attention to because I don't want you to think about where you could go. It is so when there's an opportunity in front of you, it's not about, ooh, I never thought about this before. Where could this take me? No, no, no, no, no. That's how we get lost. Okay. I want you to think of the opportunities and say, oh, here's where I'm going, right? Because if we're working together, we know where we're going. That's number one. You need to know where you're going, or you're never going to get there. So don't think about where you could go. Think about here's where I'm going, where I've already decided I'm going. Does this serve my existing vision? Or is it just trying to bring me towards a different vision, which is going to make things foggy and muddy and fuzzy, and then I'm going to be fragmented and scattered. If you haven't already defined what you want, you need to do that because you have no way to evaluate your opportunities. How can you make any choices if you don't know if they're aligned with where you're going? Everything looks good to you when you have nothing to compare it to. So I need you to be able to ask yourself, is this aligned with where I'm going? Which lends itself to, do you know where the hell you're going? And if you don't, we need to talk. So, second question: whatever the opportunity is that you're considering right now, do you have the capacity to do it well? And I want you to be able to define what do it well actually means. This is not about, can I squeeze it in? Not about like, what do I have to sacrifice in order to make this work? But do you actually have the time? Do you actually have the energy? Do you actually have the resources to execute this at a level that's going to make you proud? Is that how you want to be doing things? Don't we want to put our head on the pillow at night and be proud of the way that we're operating in our business? So is this something that you have the capacity to do that and be proud at the end of the day? Saying yes to something and doing it poorly is always worse than just saying no. Because not only are you going to disappoint yourself, you're going to disappoint potential clients, you're going to disappoint the people around you, you're going to damage your reputation, and you are going to be freaking exhausted in that process. Who wants that? Nobody wants that. Because we want to say yes. So ask yourself, does it align? Ask yourself, do you have the capacity to do it well so that you're proud of yourself at the end of the day? And then ask yourself, what is my gut telling me? Sometimes an opportunity can check all of the boxes, but something just feels off, right? You need to pay attention to that too. Our intuition exists for a reason. If it's picking up on something that your conscious mind hasn't articulated to you yet, you want to tune into that. I want you to be able to enthusiastically say yes and not like yes, but something feels a little bit off. So ask yourself all of those questions. That's what I do. I ask myself all of those questions. And if I can't say yes to all of them, I say no to the opportunity, or at least I say not right now. Right? Not every no has to be no forever. We just want to be protecting our space. So it's saying not right this moment. This is not the right time for this. Saying no is freedom. Every no, the same way every yes is costing you something else, every no protects your space. Every no protects a potential yes that's coming in the future. When you say no to the wrong opportunity, you are preserving your capacity, your energy for the right opportunity. When you decline the thing that is not aligned with you, you are keeping space for something that is aligned. I want you to have a peaceful, profitable business. And you're not going to get there by taking every opportunity. You have to be someone that becomes masterful at saying no when something is not in alignment. And in order to do that, you really need to know what you want, right? Let's get back to that. How do you know where you're going? How do you know what you want? And if you don't know that, how can you know what's going to serve that vision? And that's what being an entrepreneur is really all about. We want to have big visions. We really do, big dreams, big visions. But we have to be able to see clearly what that vision is, what that vision looks like in our lives. That's what we want. That's where we're going. And once we can really see that really clearly, that's what gives us the discipline to let go of everything else. And I don't want you to confuse that with playing small because it really is being smart about how you spend your time. Not everything you do has to be big and wild and out in the open. Sometimes preserving your energy and staying smaller a little bit so that you can do the things that are on your plate really, really well. That's really smart. It's not playing small. Okay. So how do you even say no? Because that we haven't even approached that topic, right? We're talking about how to decide what to say yes to. But when you do want to say no to something, how do you do it? Because that's what really a lot of us are struggling with. I know that saying no can feel super uncomfortable. So the first thing is you don't have to be harsh about it. You don't have to overexplain ever. You don't have to lie. Oh my God, how many of you out there are lying about why you're declining? It comes like second nature. It's amazing to me. Like if somebody can't, you know, needs to say no to going to dinner or needs to say no to a meeting, you're making shit up on the spot. I've heard you. You know, like it's so crazy to me. Like you don't have to say, oh, I'm so sorry, I can't have a doctor's appointment that day. No, you don't owe anybody an explanation. So all you need to do in this situation is simply say, thank you so much for thinking of me for this opportunity. It's not the right fit right now. Maybe it's not focusing on what I'm focusing on right now, but I really appreciate you reaching out to me. Let someone know you're flattered. Right? I have told people often, I am so flattered that you thought of me for this. Unfortunately, right now it does not fit into my schedule. I'm not going to be able to focus on it the way I really want to focus on it. So I have to decline. Thank you so much, though. You know, like just we we we assume the guilt before we even say the no, which makes us want to overexplain and just, yeah, it doesn't work. So letting people know that what they're offering you sounds interesting, but might not be aligned with what you're doing right now, that's not insulting. Let them know. I hope you find the perfect person to do this for you, but I'm not gonna be able to commit to it right now. Be clean, be kind, be clear. To be clear is to be kind. There does not have to be any drama there. The more you practice saying no, the easier it gets. Also, that's like a little bonus for you. The first few times, they're gonna suck because you're so used to being a people pleaser, you're so used to saying yes when you really mean no, that it might also feel, I don't know, um, like a going against you. You might feel like this is not the way it's supposed to be, but it is the way it's supposed to be. After a while, it will become more automatic because you'll become so good at protecting your time, protecting your space, protecting your capacity that you develop this filter. And the things that used to really be tempting, they don't even register with you anymore. You become really good at just being like, no, thank you. This doesn't fit into my schedule right now. It's okay. It's not insulting to the other person. So, what I really want you to do is focus on this this week. Why don't you take a look at the commitments that you have currently? Look at everything that you've said yes to that is taking up your time and energy. So that's your clients, your projects, partnerships, all the obligations, the dinner parties, the meetings, your kids' events, everything that you have going on. And for each one, ask yourself if this opportunity came to me today, knowing what I know now, would I have said yes? And be honest with yourself. If the answer is no, you've identified something that deserves a conversation. Maybe it's time to wind it down. Maybe it's time to renegotiate that contract, maybe it's time to delegate, hand it off to someone else. And then the next time an opportunity comes your way, use those questions. Does it align? Do I have the capacity? What is my gut telling me? Practice saying no. It does get easier, I really promise. And every single No makes your yes more powerful. Because think about that for a second. When you stop saying yes to everything, it makes the things that you do say yes to so much more meaningful. Because they're not just things that are being piled on top of you. They're things that you're specifically and strategically choosing to put on your plate. And that changes everything in how you approach it. So growth is not about saying yes to more opportunities, right? Let's that's where we want to live. We want to live in a place where we know that growth is about going deep and being proud of the work that we're doing there. It is not about just collecting opportunities. It's about saying yes to the right opportunities. And every single time you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. So make sure you're choosing that wisely. The most powerful word in business is not yes, it is no. And when you deploy that word strategically, it is that is when it's in service of what you're trying to build. And remember, none of this can be done until you actually see that. I need you to be able to see the vision of what it is you're building. Why are you building it? How are you getting there? And then you filter all of those opportunities through that. Is saying yes to this opportunity going to get me closer to that vision? That's the only way that you're going to get there in one piece sustainably. So I hope this information was really valuable to you. I hope you're able to go out there this week and use this information to create your day in the best way possible, create the business that you deserve. And until next time, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and I will see you here next week. Thank you so much for joining me.