The Best Yes by Lysa Terkeurst is about decision making and time management. While these aren’t issues, I generally struggle with, I did feel challenged as to whether I make the best decisions, or just the most convenient ones.
Lysa’s target audience is women who find it difficult to say, “no” when asked to help, visit, or fulfil a request. Often women feel that if they have a gap in their schedule, they have no reason to say, “no”. So they say, “yes” and become overwhelmed and swamped with all their commitments. Lysa’s most helpful comments were around the question, have I got the emotional energy to deal with this request? This is something we often don’t think about and becomes increasingly important as we get older and have less energy.
One of Lysa’ strategies is to think about the long-term consequences of say “yes” to something or someone. While it might be a minor decision, such as watching a new TV show, or indulging in a new food delicacy, that isn’t a problem in a one-off situation, but are we creating a precedent that is going to be hard to break in the long-term?
The book gives practical examples from Lysa’s life of decisions she has had to make, both big and small, which serve as good illustrations, and back up the teaching she is presenting.
Overall a worthwhile read.
