The Confidence to Say "No"

At the end of June this year, I was exhausted. 

Not incredibly uncommon, I know - after all, I'm a music teacher and performer, and May and June are full of performance opportunities for my students (and for me)! The school year is winding down and students are more easily distracted, so it's a bit harder work to teach them than usual. And of course it didn't help that we were in the beginning stages of planning an out-of-state move and a ton of travel over the summer.

But to be honest, while all of those things exacerbated the problem, the main reason I was so exhausted was that I hadn't really had a full, planned-for day off since January. There was the occasional day when all my students on a given day would cancel and I'd suddenly have no teaching work to do, but there was always a webpage to update, a blog post to write, social media content to post, schedules and accounts to update, etc etc etc. So I would usually take some of that unexpected "free time" to catch up with some of those administrative jobs.

The image on the right is a bit of an exaggeration... it's not as though I was really working 18-hour days, 7 days a week. In fact, there were some days that I only had a couple or three hours of work to do in the entire day. But the fact that I didn't have any scheduled days off was seriously stressful, even though some of those days weren't very full. I still needed to have some days when I could, without any guilt, NOT ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING!

So what went wrong?

Well, mostly, I was too "hungry" to say NO. When we moved to Portland, for various reasons (some things that should have been under our control, but many that weren't) we were flat broke. Like down to our last $500 broke. I had a couple of days scheduled at a local music school, but they'd only been able to schedule me a couple of lessons a day to start with. Adam had an arranging contract, but the client was in Canada, (so in Canadian Dollars, which weren't worth all that much) and he wasn't going to get paid until the whole thing was done. We needed to work. We needed ALL the work.

It was inconceivable for us to say "no" to any offer. We figured that, eventually, "time off" would somehow take care of itself: we would discover that there would be some random day of the week that no-one would want to book us, and that would be our day off. Except it doesn't work that way. I wound up with no students booked on Tuesdays, so I decided that Tuesday would be a day off. Then I got into a band that rehearsed every Tuesday, for four hours, about an hour's drive out of town. Suddenly, I had a 6 hour commitment on my "day off," and it sure didn't feel like a day off anymore!

And there was the time I had no students booked on Fridays. Ok, great! A day off! So when one potential student contacted me and asked for a time on Friday. It was a student who was willing to come to my home studio, and "it's only an hour," and I thought I'd be able to accept the student, and maybe, some time later, move them to another, fuller day. Except once I was teaching one student, when another wanted to move their lesson to Friday, I said yes. And then someone else wanted to book on Friday, and I said yes again. 

And suddenly I had no days off. And when, in January, we had 10 snow-days (read: unexpected days off with no income, right after Christmas with all those expenses), we needed to fill our schedules as much as we could to make up for that lost income. No wonder I was exhausted!

New Town, New Leaf

When we moved to Tucson this summer, we were a little better prepared. We had a little bit of savings built up, leads on a few different jobs, and a few students who liked us well enough that they wanted to continue taking lessons on Skype. Which gave us the amazing, wonderful freedom to be able to start saying "No."

It turns out that there are lots of people in Tucson who want music lessons for themselves and their kids. (Not entirely a surprise - in fact, it's what we were banking on: the fact that our jobs are pretty portable.)

We got several offers from different music schools, and we decided to start by offering each of them 1 day, that they could try to fill with students for us. It's about a month later now, and each of those days is about half full. I think that's great - our student load is growing at a manageable rate, and there's still room for improvement. I'm teaching 3 days a week at 3 different schools, and on 2 other days, I have at least one Skype student or private lesson at home. And (here's the super-sweet part) I have two days off. Occasionally one of the schools will ask if I can "substitute teach" on one of my days off, and usually I'll say yes. Each of these days tends to be fairly lucrative, and I think of it like when my Dad used to occasionally go into the office on a weekend to finish a project. An exception, not the rule.

Last week, I got a call from one of the schools I work at, asking if I could add another day. It fell on one of my "days off". It was really tempting, since we're running a little low in our savings account, I wanted to please the boss, and I also kept thinking about those poor kids who just want to take music lessons. Could I disappoint them?

Yes. I could. The school will find someone to teach those lessons, the kids will have a teacher, and the school can continue to fill the day I'm already working for them. I don't want to sacrifice a day off, and I don't have to. I said "No" and I don't regret it. It feels empowering and like a giant relief!

Why it's so hard to say No

There have been many articles and studies about why we find it difficult to say no. Like this one, and this one, and this one. Some people say it's even more difficult when you're a woman. Having never been a man, I'm not sure, but it is certainly difficult for me. 

• I don't like disappointing people
• I'm afraid they'll be mad at me if I say no
• I feel like I need the income that another "job" provides
• I worry that I'll miss out on a great opportunity
• In the case of teaching, I do really enjoy it, and I want to have all the students!

There are dozens of reasons we resist saying no. We don't even really need to read about them, except that it makes us aware that other people feel the same way. However:

• I really do need (and deserve) time for myself, and time all to myself (as a fairly introverted person in a very outwardly focused career, I need that time to recharge)
• The time I spend doing unpaid administrative work for my business is still work, and needs to "count" towards my calculations of the hours I put in. (It's hard to give oneself "credit" for unpaid work - ask any parent!)
• Putting myself in a position where I'm physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted shortchanges everyone. (If I take on too much work, I don't do any of it well enough.)
• While someone may be momentarily irritated or inconvenienced when I say "no" to more work, they won't be as upset as I think they will be. (There's always another name on the list of people to call, and someone else will appreciate that work instead of resenting it.)

Simple, but not Easy

I still struggle with saying "no" and I don't suspect that is going to change anytime soon. I may always couch my "no" with the proviso that I will happily come in for a week to "cover you while you find someone" (hoping that they won't ask me to). 

I fantasize about the day when I can just calmly and pleasantly say "No" without any further explanation, and without being haunted by guilt, fear, or worry. I'm not there yet. But every time I make the decision to do what's right for me, protect the value of my time and give myself permission to be idle from time to time, it gets easier to do it the next time.

Sorry, no, I can't work this weekend. (I'm planning a pajama day)