​A Good No Makes Room for the Right Yes

For years, I thought saying yes was the right thing to do. Yes to extra projects. Yes to meetings that could’ve been emails. Yes to last-minute requests because, well, I was capable and I cared. And Lord help me, if someone said, “You’re just so good at this,” that yes was out of my mouth before I even prayed about it.

When I was the science director for a big school district, I said yes all the time. I loved that job. I loved the teachers, the kids, the mission. I poured my heart into that work, and for a while, I thrived on it. But the more yeses I gave, the less of me there was to go around. I was stretched so thin I felt like a rubber band about to snap. And spoiler alert: I did snap.

Not in a big, dramatic way. No shouting, no storming out. Just me, sitting in my car in the school parking lot, staring at yet another overflowing to-do list, feeling completely empty. I had given so much that there was nothing left of me. And right there, in the middle of that quiet little meltdown, my husband said something that changed everything.

"What if we did something different? What if we worked together? What if we stopped pouring everything into someone else’s mission and started saying yes to something bigger—something ours?”

That moment was my turning point. Saying no to the life I had built wasn’t easy, but suddenly, it wasn’t as scary either—because I had a better yes waiting on the other side. That yes led us to one of the greatest decisions we’ve ever made: our work with the National Parks. That yes gave us a new purpose, a mission that fuels us instead of drains us. That yes wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t finally learned to say no.

See, we like to believe we have an unlimited supply of time, energy, and patience. But we don’t. Every yes costs something. And when we spend all our yeses on things we could do instead of what we’re called to do, we run ourselves into the ground.

Saying no isn’t a rejection—it’s a boundary. It’s making sure that when the right yes comes along—the one that fuels your purpose, the one that brings joy instead of exhaustion—you actually have the capacity to say it.

So if you’re out here handing out yeses like free samples at Costco, I want you to hear me: It is okay to say no. It is okay to leave some room in your life. It is okay to set that boundary, to protect your peace, to stop being the person who saves the day at the expense of your own well-being.

Because trust me, the world will not fall apart if you say no. But you just might fall apart if you don’t.

And friend, I don’t want that for you.