The Internal Leadership Series

Every Yes Is an Investment Decision

I used to think about saying yes primarily in terms of whether I had the time.

Could I fit it in? Was there space in the diary? Could I move something around?

Increasingly, I think that's only part of the decision.

Because when we say yes to something, we're rarely committing only our time. We're also deciding where some of our attention and energy will go, and sometimes where our Natural Talents, emotional capacity and headspace will be invested too.

That makes a yes much more than a diary decision.

Every yes is an investment decision.

This doesn't mean we should become reluctant to say yes. Some of the best things in my life have started with a yes. Opportunities, relationships, experiences, responsibilities and challenges that have asked something of me and given something valuable in return.

The point isn't to say no more often.

It's to become more conscious of what we're saying yes to.

Over the last few weeks, I've been exploring the idea that there is only 100% of us. We can become more effective in how we use our time and learn ways to manage our energy, but ultimately every investment still draws from something finite.

So when something new asks for a share of us, something else is affected.

Sometimes that's obvious. We agree to attend something on Thursday evening, so we can't be somewhere else at the same time.

Often it is much less visible.

We say yes to taking responsibility for something and it occupies our thinking for the next three weeks. We agree to help someone and find ourselves worrying about their problem long after we've done what we can. We take on an opportunity because it sounds interesting, then discover that the attention it requires is taken away from something we already decided mattered.

None of those choices has to be wrong for there to be a cost.

That's the reality of having only 100%.

And I think recognising that can change the question we ask when something new appears.

Rather than simply asking, Can I do this?, we can ask:

Is this where I choose to invest myself?

Sometimes the answer will be an immediate yes.

The investment matters enough that we're willing to give it what it asks. We may even consciously choose to reduce our investment somewhere else to make room for it.

Other times, the answer is less comfortable.

We might want to say yes, but recognise that there isn't enough of our 100% available to give the commitment what it deserves.

That can be difficult to accept, particularly when the thing in front of us is worthwhile.

I think we sometimes assume that if something matters, we should find a way to make room for it. Yet there will always be more worthwhile people, opportunities, responsibilities and experiences than we have capacity to invest in.

We cannot be 100% everywhere.

There is something important in accepting that.

It means saying no doesn't necessarily require us to decide that something isn't worthwhile. We don't need to diminish its importance in order to justify not investing ourselves in it.

It can matter and still not be where we choose to put our 100% right now.

That also applies to ourselves.

One of the easiest investments to negotiate away is the one we make in our own wellbeing, thinking, development or recovery. It can feel more flexible than the commitments we've made to other people, so when something new needs room, our own share is often the easiest place to take it from.

For a while, that may work.

But our 100% includes us too.

Protecting some of it for ourselves isn't separate from the contribution we make elsewhere. It affects the quality of attention, energy and capability we have available to bring to everything else.

This is why I've deliberately called this month's tool Investing for Impact rather than something about managing capacity.

I'm not interested in finding ways to squeeze more from ourselves.

I'm interested in how we become more intentional about where we put what we already have.

And that feels like an appropriate place to finish this Internal Leadership Series.

Over the last six months, I've written about seeing ourselves more clearly, understanding our Natural Talents, recognising what belongs to us, questioning the expectations and stories that shape us and noticing the choices available to us.

None of that work is an end in itself.

Awareness creates choice.

And eventually choice asks us to decide what we're going to do with it.

For me, that's where investing for impact sits.

Once I can see what is happening internally, recognise what belongs to me and understand that I have choices, I can become more deliberate about where I place myself.

Not perfectly.

Priorities will change. Circumstances will change. There will be times when life decides where a significant part of our 100% needs to go and times when we make an investment that doesn't create what we hoped it would.

Self-leadership doesn't give us a perfect allocation.

It gives us the opportunity to keep noticing and choosing.

That's why one of the questions in Investing for Impact is deliberately simple:

Is this where I choose to invest myself?

It's a question we can ask before taking something new on, when an existing commitment starts asking more of us, or when we realise that something important is receiving less than we want to give it.

Sometimes the answer will be yes.

Sometimes it will be no.

Sometimes it will be yes, but only if something else receives less.

The value is in recognising that a choice is being made.

Leadership always happens twice, first internally and then externally.

The external impact people experience is shaped, in part, by hundreds of internal decisions about what receives our attention, energy, capability and care.

There is only 100% of you.

The aim was never to find another 20%.

It's to become increasingly intentional about where you invest the 100% you already have.