We have all seen those posts about saying“Yes” to everything and how that can totally change your life because then you could be more adventurous and fun loving. Well I have decided to play a little bit of devil’s advocate by revealing the wonders of saying no.
Now I know what some of you are thinking “I don’t want people to hate me” or “I don’t want them to think I am mean or that I am rude”. My biggest piece of advice for you is to stop caring what other people think about you. You are not responsible for other people’s happiness. You are responsible for own happiness and piece of mind. It is not your job to hold everyone’s hand and do everything for them. You are not their mother. Don’t ever let someone make you feel like you have to something that you don’t want to do.
Unfortunately, in this world there is a thing called being too nice. It is a sad truth. Even sadder is the fact that there are people who will take advantage of these selfless people. Saying yes to these people will only further their thinking that it is acceptable to act like this when in fact it is absolutely not. By never saying no these people will continue to walk all over you and other people. If you are the type of person that feels like they just can’t say no for whatever reason, I challenge you to try and see the situation from a new perspective. Don’t look at as saying no to this person, but instead look at it as saying yes to yourself.
By saying no to doing things you don’t want to do you are saying yes to your mental health and sanity. A lot of people will through out maybe when ever they feel cornered something the aren’t thrilled about but this really only gets half of the job done. Yeah I know you haven’t promised to do anything it sort feels like a win win situation but this maybe is a crutch that is doing you no favors. You don’t have to feel bad about choosing yourself. There is nothing wrong with putting yourself first for once. And by saying maybe you still aren’t asserting yourself, which is the whole point of saying no in the first place. My favorite quote comes from Paulo Coelho he said, “Don’t say maybe if you want to say no”.
You are saying yes to taking care of yourself. This new form of self-love will do wonders for your standard of living. When you just say yes to things you aren’t really living for yourself, and instead you are falling into that harmful habit of putting other people’s feelings ahead of your own well being. I am not saying that the whole “saying yes to life” kick that’s been going around isn’t a good thing, because I really do think it is, but only if you are saying yes to fun and exciting things that challenge you. This can really help get people out of their shells, but this applies to things like bungee jumping not letting your friend Richard borrow your car for the fifth time this month. Do you see the difference?
You don’t have to say yes to everything to spice up your life a bit. In fact, saying no to things might free you up to achieve some old dreams, or even to discover some new things you never even knew you wanted to do. You never know, maybe learning to say no could be the best thing you’ve ever done.