Saying yes is easy.

Saying no is hard.

And saying maybe will ruin you.

It’s easy to say yes. It soothes anger. It suppresses conflict. It makes people like you.

Saying no is hard, but necessary. Eventually everyone learns. What stops people from being successful? They can’t say no. They fill their schedules with busy work instead of confronting what really needs to be done. They won’t take the small risks their gut tells them to take. They’d rather answer an email or check social media instead. It’s easier to avoid the fear of failure by returning to what’s safe and comfortable. So when they get an “offer”, even though they don’t really want to do it, they don’t say no.

The thing is, though, that people hide their unwillingness to say no, even from themselves. They hide by saying maybe.

Saying maybe will kill you. It will destroy your self-respect. You build self-respect by doing hard things, and saying no is hard. Saying maybe keeps you stuck in indecision, procrastination and fantasy. It prevents you from committing, which prevents you from learning.

Get rid of maybe. End it. Eviscerate it. Replace maybe with the easy answer, yes, or the hard answer, no. Either way, make a choice. Go ahead and make the wrong choice if you have to.

Being wrong is fine. The only thing I admit when I admit to being wrong is that I am more intelligent now than I was before. But not making a decision dooms you to a zombie existence of mere non-death. If you are wrong, at least you are alive and learning. So if you need to, strive to be wrong. Strive to fail. Let the world itself say no to you.

It’s better than maybe.