A potential pitfall of following your YES is that you may start to think your YESES are obvious to everyone since they are now so obvious to you. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred this is not the case.

When your YES feels obvious to you, always clarify. Don’t take for granted it is as clear for everyone else as it is for you and then get frustrated when others don’t act or respond in the way you expected.

I’m not talking about being Captain Obvious and declaring things like: the sky is blue, water is wet or when a package of nuts has a warning on it stating that this product may contain nuts. That is not what we are talking about here.

There are two potential outcomes from stating what seems obvious when it comes to your YES, and they are both positive.

Usually it reveals what you thought was obvious was not clear to the other party. When this is the case you can now clarify and set both of you up to win.

Occasionally stating what you think is obvious will confirm that indeed it was clear to them as well. No harm done. Now you know for certain you are on the same page which provides peace of mind for everyone.

So you win either way, but our nature is to suppose: “That’s so obvious I don’t have to express it. Everybody knows that.” No they don’t!

You’ll be surprised how many times the other person will respond something like: “What? I had no idea. I’m glad you told me, now it makes perfect sense.”

For some reason we tend to assume when we learn things that feel obvious to us that we must be the last one to know, and expressing it would be a waste of everyone’s time. It isn’t!

At one point in my dating life I was seeing a woman named Susan. I was falling in love with her, but I didn’t think she felt the same way about me. Her words and actions led me to believe that she was just interested in having fun but nothing more.

I thought it was obvious how I felt, and since I was convinced she did not feel the same way I said to her, “I don’t feel the way you do about our relationship, so I think we should part ways.” She said, “If that’s how you feel, then I guess we’re done,” and she left.

Several weeks later I saw Susan at an event our mutual friends were hosting and at one point in the evening we found ourselves alone. She said to me, “I cried every day for a month after we broke up. I was so in love with you.” I was dumbstruck.

When I said to her, “I don’t feel the way you do ...” what she heard was “I don’t love you.” The truth was I did love her and I thought she didn’t love me.

Turns out I was wrong in my assumption that how she felt was obvious to me. And in thinking how I felt was obvious to her I was wrong again. I asked why she hadn’t called or reached out in any way and she said I was so clear I didn’t feel like she did that she thought reaching out would just lead to more pain.

Obvious is not obvious was a brutal lesson for me to learn.

Next time you think to yourself “Oh this YES is so obvious.” Do yourself and everyone else a favor by clarifying to make sure it is as obvious to them as it is to you. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.