DanaAtkin

I’ll be honest here – I tend to be someone who says yes to a lot of invitations and requests. I consider everyone else’s opinion of me and everyone else’s feelings before my own. Then I resent them for making me do something I didn’t really want to do. The key here is of course that I chose to do it but that fact gets hidden under everyone else’s priorities because I hide it there.

Did you know that a lot of people actually appreciate you saying “no” from the get go rather than cancelling at the last minute?

Be clear about what you want. Make a list of all the things you want to achieve, all your short-term gaols, your long term goals and even your day to day stuff you just want to do.  Then, look at each invitation or request and if it doesn’t match up with what you want or if what you want can’t be rescheduled to fit in some spontaneous invitation, then it’s okay to say no. And be honest with your answer too. It’s okay to say “look, to be honest, I really had my heart set on doing ABC today so I’ll have to say thank you for thinking of me, but no thank you”.

This habit of saying yes for everyone else’s sake is not an easy one to change but it can be done. I am still working on this one myself.

As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.