I had an early game this morning, then spent the afternoon doing yard work, which is why this post is going up later than usual. Around lunchtime, I could feel the old instinct kick in: apologize for being behind schedule, rush to catch up, say yes to whatever gets asked of me the rest of the day to make up for lost time. I’m getting better at catching that instinct before it runs the show, but it’s still there, every time.
In ten days, on July 29th, I’m back on campus for the year. Most of the teachers I know are in the same boat right now, closing out the last stretch of summer and feeling the calendar fill back up before the first bell even rings. And every year around this time, I have the same conversation with myself: I am not good at saying one word. No.
I’m a recovering people pleaser. I’ll own that plainly. Somebody asks me to help with something, and my first instinct isn’t to check my calendar, it’s to say yes before I’ve even finished hearing the request. Some of that is genuine care for people. Some of it, if I’m honest, is ego: I like being the guy who can be counted on, the guy who never lets anybody down. Both of those things can be true at once, and both of them will run you into the ground if you don’t put a boundary around them.
Healthy boundaries are what keep my people-pleasing propensities in check, and they’re what keep my ego in check too. When you’re building out your schedule for the year, the priority has to run in that order: schedule your top priorities first, and let everything else fall off the to-do list on its own. Not the other way around, where you schedule everyone else’s priorities first and hope your own fit in the leftover space.
Here’s the deeper problem underneath the people-pleasing, and it’s one I’ve had to sit with. Extrinsic motivation fails you like an early morning fog. You might start off strong, right after a storm or first thing in the morning, thick and covering everything. But once the sun starts to shine, that fog breaks up and slowly dissipates, waiting for the next storm or the next morning to spark it back to life. Our relationship with God can work the exact same way if we let it. We’re on fire after a spiritual retreat, or after a powerful sermon or podcast that hit us right where we needed it. But if that’s the only fuel, if we’re only extrinsically motivated, pulled along by the outside world telling us we did good, needing that validation to feel anchored, it fades. And we end up waiting for the next time we need to pull God back off the shelf.
Being able to say no to a colleague or an administrator is a release valve for a kind of stress most of us are carrying without naming it.
I’m not saying never do anything extra. We need to step in and help our community, and there are seasons that call for exactly that. What I am saying is don’t say yes to everything. You’ll end up burnt out, and burnout doesn’t stay contained to you. Your students and athletes suffer for it. Your family life suffers for it. Nobody actually wins when you say yes out of fear instead of conviction.
So here’s what’s actually worked for me when I need to say no.
Buy time. “Let me check my schedule and get back to you by the end of the day.” That’s it. That one sentence gives you room to evaluate where you actually stand against your to-do list instead of answering from panic, and it gives you the ability to help on your terms instead of theirs. Just make sure you actually follow up. Buying time only works if you honor the time you bought.
No, but… “I really don’t have that on my plate this year, but I’d be glad to share what worked for me last year with whoever takes over that role.” You’re not slamming a door. You’re just not walking through this particular one yourself, while still leaving something useful behind you.
Be firm and confident. “I appreciate you thinking of me. It’s just not going to work in my schedule.” Say it plainly, without over-explaining or apologizing four times on the way out. Over-explaining is usually just the people-pleaser in you trying to earn permission to say a word you’re already allowed to say.
Now, all of that said, there are things every one of us has to eat the frog on. Brian Tracy’s line has stuck with me for years: the best time to eat the frog is first thing in the morning, and you’ve got to be able to get it done and move on without a lot of groaning about it. Some yeses aren’t optional. They’re just the job.
This fall will be my eleventh year at Sharptop, and for the eleventh straight year, I’ll be sleeping in the same cabin as our ninth and tenth graders. There are teachers on that same retreat staying in dorm-style rooms, two to a room, with their own bathroom. I don’t get that option, and I’ve made peace with it, because as an on-campus coach, being in that cabin is part of what tones down the late-night shenanigans that happen on an all-school retreat. I know going in that I’ll get less sleep than I’d like. I drink a ton of water and load up on vitamin C and just accept it as one of the frogs I eat every year. But some of the best relationship-building moments I get all year happen in that cabin, with guys who aren’t even in my dugout. I wouldn’t trade it, even on the nights I want to.
That’s the difference worth naming. A frog you eat on purpose, because it serves something you actually believe in, is not the same thing as a yes you hand out because you’re afraid of disappointing someone. One builds you. The other just drains you slowly enough that you don’t notice until you’re empty.
“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10, ESV)
That verse doesn’t let me off the hook easily. It draws a hard line between the yeses that come from conviction and the ones that come from needing to be liked, and it names exactly which one actually holds up over time.
One more piece of this that I don’t take for granted: having leadership above you that values you as a person makes all of this sustainable. When I switched departments, my new administrator made something clear early on. We live in the neighborhood of our school, but there’s no HOA telling us what to do with our own house, meaning if someone asks or tells you to take on something, it gets cleared with him first before you say yes. My AD runs the same play. We’re a small school with a lot of community coaches filling out our staff, and for those of us who are on-campus head coaches, he’s genuinely good about making sure we have what we actually need and aren’t getting tasked with mundane things just because we’re available. At the same time, there are moments it’s on us to step into the empty space ourselves, to show that athletics is in lockstep with the academic side of the building, not running its own separate program. That’s not a contradiction. That’s what it looks like when a leader protects your time on the things that don’t matter, so you have the capacity to show up fully on the things that do.
This week, do this. Look at your calendar for the fall and find one commitment sitting on it that you said yes to out of fear instead of conviction. Practice one of the three scripts on it this week: buy time, no but, or firm and confident. Then find your one frog, the obligation you know you’re keeping not because you have to, but because it actually serves something you believe in, and decide right now you’ll eat it without the groaning.
Ten days out from campus, that’s where I’m putting my own energy. Not into saying yes to everything asked of me between now and the first bell. Into protecting the few things that are actually mine to carry, so I’ve got something left to give once the year actually starts.
Greater Together — Coach O
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