The Power Of “No” In Your Career

To be honest, I’ve said “yes” too many times in my career. Some yeses have given me opportunities and blessings, while some have ended in resentment, regret, and burnout. Those regretful yeses left me feeling like an empty vessel of a person. Of a designer. Of an employee.

My impulsive trigger for saying yes, or rather, my difficulty in saying no roots back to my childhood. Growing up as an Asian American raised by immigrant parents, career was everything, and acclimating to any given environment I was in was a part of survival.

I watched my parents and my older sister do it and then it became second nature for me to do it.

It became second nature to mold, adapt, and fit.

It’s part of why I may consider myself a people-pleaser and why these tendencies have transcended into my career and work habits.

It took me five years in the work field for me to even begin getting comfortable with saying no, to set boundaries for myself, and to voice what may be “unpopular” opinions. I wouldn’t even say I’m fully comfortable now. It’s still a foreign experience every time.

But the experience of being able to vouch for me and my ideas hits much better.

Part 1: Saying “no” as a UX practitioner

As a UX designer, I’ve come to grow a muscle for the negotiation of my time, resources, needs, and more. It’s quite a common topic up for discussion amongst stakeholders.

Across both large and small companies, UX and development resources tend to be scarce and limited. Oftentimes, in the best interest of the business, your cross-functional partners are finding the most time-efficient and cost-efficient way to solve a problem. Whether or not this comes at the cost of your time and resources.

They may have a clear idea in their mind for what is considered a time-efficient solution for a problem. Perhaps they’ve assessed that solving this problem will cost 2–3 business days or that this solution is low-risk. When it comes to UX, you as the UX practitioner need to set the precedent and set the expectations.

After properly assessing the LOE (level of effort) and bandwidth, this could mean adjusting what the stakeholders had originally expected and having a discussion about what and how this impacts the project.

Part 2: Crucial lessons I learned from the power of saying “no”.

If you don’t make the decision, someone will make it for you.

In standard business fashion, things move fast and things will move regardless if you’re on board or not. Don’t let someone else estimate your capacity and turnaround time for you.

Own what is yours and take the lead on it. Set the precedent for your time and your resources. They are valuable and your colleagues and cross-functional partners will respect them if they value what you have to give.

“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

-Warren Buffett

When you say no, you set expectations and boundaries.

Setting boundaries help protect you from overcommitting yourself and also allows you to be more productive when you know what you can handle on a given day or week. Setting boundaries means having clarity about where you stand with not only that specific project but other projects that you may be balancing simultaneously.

Over time, by being constructive and confident about setting boundaries and expectations on projects, you grow a sense of authority for yourself and people will learn how to best work and collaborate with you. Your colleagues will also learn to trust you to get the job done in the way that you see fit.

“What you don’t do determines what you can do.”

-Tim Ferriss

Saying no can help you develop self-confidence.

If you’re not confident, then it’s likely that other people are going to take advantage of your lack of self-assurance and try to manipulate or control the situation. It’s usually not malicious intent, as everyone shares a common goal in a project and just it to be successful.

Oftentimes in the work setting, people who are trying to take advantage of you aren’t even aware of that and you just need to vocalize your opinions with confidence.

When you get better at saying no or voicing your opinions, you’ll realize it’s not as scary as it sounds and you get better at trusting yourself more. Thus, it gets easier to advocate for yourself.

Saying no isn’t as scary as it sounds.

I used to overthink the repercussions of “no”. I would completely exacerbate the scenario to a point where I thought it would be the end of the world, that I would lose my job, or that my colleagues wouldn’t want to ever work with me anymore.

Isn’t it crazy what lengths are minds will go to when it comes to fear?

All it took to change all my fears was a choice to just be brave and say it one day. This happened during one of my work projects where the timeline allotted for design work was just seemingly unrealistic.

I had a productive conversation with the product manager about what a more realistic UX timeline was given my capacity. I made the case for myself and just like that, the PM was understanding!

This also applied to situations when I didn’t necessarily agree with a particular idea or approach and I eventually got better at constructively delivering my thoughts. To my fear’s surprise, people received my opinions thoughtfully, and in fact, many of those outcomes changes as a result of voicing my opinions.

You’re only as powerful as your willingness to say no.

The power of saying no is one of the most important skills you can develop in your career. Compelling opportunities, exciting ideas, and potentially worthwhile requests will always come by in a workplace, but at the end of the day, you are the professional that can speak on behalf of your expertise and detail what is feasible in that given time.

No one wants a yes-man/woman. You were hired for your opinion therefore your opinion is valued.

If every idea was met with a yes, we’d be seeing a lot of bad ideas in the world, wouldn’t we?

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