YOUR RIGHT OF REFUSAL
I spend a lot of time working with individuals, teams, and organizations to help clarify the winning choices their very best requires them to make, and the winning behaviors it requires them to exhibit. In the important areas of life and performance - including wherever it is that you really want to win - I think there’s value in stopping to consider a simple but powerful question: in this situation, what would a champion do? That question helps each of us create more clarity around the choices and behaviors that define those who win, and it helps move us another step closer to becoming those kinds of people for ourselves.
But when it comes to the choices our very best requires us to make and the behaviors it requires us to exhibit, there’s another question that’s just as important: in this situation, we need to ask ourselves just as often, what wouldn’t a champion do? That question helps to create some clarity, too, by highlighting that there are certain choices those we consider champions refuse to make, and certain behaviors they refuse to exhibit, primarily because they recognize that under no circumstances do those decisions move them closer to the success they say they’re after.
Take, for instance, the challenges and adversity that are a part of any meaningful pursuit. If what you’re after is important, then it’s worth accepting that at some point, struggle and hardship will be part of the experience. If challenge and adversity don’t exist, then how meaningful, really, can that achievement be? When those moments of testing inevitably come, what do champions do? There are of course a number of possible answers, but I bet we could agree on some of them. In their moments of testing, champions dig in and get tough. They respond to challenge and adversity with resilience and intention. They press on and find a way to get the job done.
But in those moments of testing, there are also certain things I think we can all agree that champions refuse to do. This is one of the clearest and most obvious ways the champions set themselves apart, because they things they refuse to do are typically the most comfortable and most convenient options. When challenge and adversity arise, champions refuse to pout or whine or complain. They refuse to blame others and they refuse to play the victim. They refuse to give up or give in. Champions recognize that while those are the comfortable and convenient options, under no circumstances do those choices move them closer to the success they say they’re after.
I’d encourage you to take a minute today to consider what big, important things you say you want to accomplish, either personally or professionally. Zoom in on the day ahead, and then consider those two powerful questions that can help you clarify not only what choices winning requires you to make, but which choices winning requires you to refuse to make. In your situation, what would a champion do? And just as importantly, in your situation, what wouldn’t they do? In your pursuit of success, that’s a great place to start.
Once you’ve done that, I’d encourage you to connect to the key concept of this conversation. That is the power you’ve been given to make each of these choices for yourself. It’s important to recognize that you and you alone have the power to decide what you’ll do, but it’s just as important to recognize that you and you alone have the power to decide what you won’t do. You might call that your right of refusal. It’s the right you’ve been given to say, in any situation or circumstance, that you’re simply not going to do something - even if it’s the comfortable or convenient option - that you know will move you further from the success you say you’re after. Sometimes it’s not what you do, but what you refuse to do that matters most.
