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The power of saying “NO!”: A Superpower
While becoming more proficient at coding and learning new frameworks definitely helps, there are some key superpowers which can make you stand out even more as a distinguished engineer. These help you not only to avoid burnout but also have long term continued success.
In this article, we will take a look at the “power of saying NO!” superpower — having the flexibility and willingness to stand by what is important and speak your mind at any given time in that regard.
To expand on this, here are the key benefits that you unlock by practicing this superpower:
- Increased focus
A study reported via BBC a few years back shared an eye-opening stat.
The average focus time of a human is now 8-seconds, down from 12-seconds, over a mere span of 15 years & is shorter than that of a goldfish!!!
With such a short attention span, finding ways to stay focused on the task at hand is more important than ever.
If one simply continues to have a people-pleasing attitude by being “always available” to work at anything that is thrown to them, they will end up doing actually less. This might seem confusing but in reality, they will be spreading too thin across multiple things at once while completing or getting done with any one thing in its entirety.
The key point here is to have a questioning attitude. The questioning has to be both internal and external.
- Internal — asking whether you are compromising something more important and urgent at hand/ in progress by simply trying to stay in someone’s good books? asking whether this is something you can delegate to someone else?
- External — asking whether this is the top most priority? It might be a top priority to the person asking but is it truly important & urgent for the business, project, team etc.? asking details around what is being asked from you and why specifically only you?
