Things happen when you say No

Good post over on Lifehacker about priorities, etc. This excerpt stood out to me, especially considering the crazy pace of our summer...

One effect of having priorities is how often you have to say no. It's one of the smallest words in the English language, yet many people have trouble saying it. The problem is that if you can't say no, you can't have priorities. The universe is a large place, but your "priority one" list should be very small. That small list means there are thousands of good ideas that must be denied to focus your energy on the ones you've chosen to pursue. If you continually say yes to ideas that do not match your priorities, you are saying yes to failure. If you want to change your priorities, that's one thing, but if you are constantly changing them then they were never priorities at all. You did not think deeply enough about them if, emotionally, they are easy to change every few hours. So a fundamental law is this: if you can't say no, if you can't protect your priorities, you can't make things happen.

For parents the ability to say no is essential to avoid the family becoming over-extended. Likewise, it is an enormous gift to give your children the ability to say no to themselves and others.

Try this. At the next family dinner tell the kids you want them to "tell yourself no at least one time tomorrow" and report back on how it went at the next dinner...you'll be amazed at what they come up with!