Saying “no” is in response to a question from someone else. That’s a really important distinction to make here.
When someone else asks you to do something, it is their agenda, not yours.
What’s being asked might be to support a good cause, maybe for charity or for your child’s school, so it’s not completely someone else’s agenda, but similarly it’s also not yours.
We have a finite amount of energy, money, and time. If we say yes to everything else that someone else wants us to do, we are using those precious resources on someone else’s priorities. Not on our own.
I think we say yes to some things because we worry about getting FOMO. Nobody likes to feel like they’ve missed out!
We say yes to others out of duty sometimes, like we “should” help with the fundraising, we should show our face there, and other times out of fear of judgement, that if we don’t say yes it will look bad or we will seem difficult.
We often don’t realise how frequently we’re asked to make plans / pick something up / do someone a favour, so look out for it now and see if you notice it.
Taking the time to actively plan your own future, think about what you want, and how you’d like to spend your time, money and energy is really important. When you can see where you are going, and plan that out, there’s less time to accommodate everyone else’s priorities. If you don’t have a vision board and a set of goals and intentions that’s okay; you don’t need to formalise them, you just need to know where you want to go and who you want to be, so you can use that in your decision making.
The next time someone asks you to do something, ask yourself these questions:
Is this something I already wanted to do but haven’t yet scheduled?
Do I have the time, energy and money to do this without impacting my other priorities?
Do I really want to do this?
If the answers are all yes, then say yes!
If the answer to number one is no, say yes.
If the answer to number two or three is no, say no.
And when I say no, I mean just that. No. You don’t need to apologise, or explain, you can just say no.
If that makes you feel like you’ll come across as rude, soften it as you see fit. “No thanks, but appreciate you thinking of me” is one way to do that without explaining.
Do you have a tendency to say yes to the things that come your way, or are you good at saying no? Let me know in the comments.