Have you ever been invited somewhere or asked to take action on something and responded with a ‘maybe’?

What does that mean?

Sometimes I think it’s a great way to ride the fence.

When I have said ‘maybe’ in the past this is what I meant: I really don’t want to give it much thought and besides what if something else better comes along? Or what if I simply don’t feel like it when I wake up that morning?

Yuck. Where is the integrity in that? What confidence am I building in those who took the time to invite me?

What confidence am I building in myself?

In addition, the times when I have replied maybe have invariably taken up a lot of my mental energy. Why? Because maybe keeps me in the land of in-between and that means I go back and forth multiple times deciding and un-deciding to do something.

Maybe is a time-waster.

This was a text conversation with my 16 ½-year-old daughter who replied to me with a ‘maybe’:

Once she gave it a moment of her time it didn’t take her long to decide on heck yes (and I would have been OK with heck no too!)

This freed up her time to enjoy the rest of her evening and, as usual, she had a lot of fun during the morning event I had invited her to and she was glad she committed.  

Challenge this week:

Keep things simple and respond with a yes, no, or an “I will get back to you with a yes or no answer by X date/time” and see how much simpler your life gets!

Once you decide then commit. Own it!

Giving a definitive answer allows you to move forward and frees up your time and energy for the next hell yes task!