Saying No

My little project at the moment can be summed up like this:


SAY YES WHEN YOU MEAN YES AND NO WHEN YOU MEAN NO


You know what I'm talking about.


I keep saying yes, yes to everything regardless of how busy I am, yes I will help out, yes I will write that for you, yes I will come visit, yes I will bake you a cake, yes yes yes yes yes....


And then someone suggests doing something that I really want to do, but I'm embarrassed to put myself forwards so no one knows I'm interested, and I effectively end up saying no...


I've decided it's time to start taking better care of myself and my own needs.


I started thinking about why I do this, why I commit to attempting to fit a million things into one day because I just can't say no, and end up missing out on what I want to do because I'm too embarrassed to say yes.


I'm afraid that I'm being selfish. And I'm afraid that I'll be letting people down.


I think that by saying no when someone asks me for a favour, that I'm being selfish as I'm thinking of myself first, and that I'll be causing them a lot of problems.

And I think that by saying yes to something that I really want to do, just for me, I'm being selfish because I should put others first.


It's not that I don't think that putting others first is good, but surely it's not good if it happens at the expense of my sanity? And if it happens at the expense of doing a job properly - if I'm trying to cram many things into a day, then it's impossible to devote as much time to each as it takes to do it properly.


It's time to stop running myself ragged saying yes to every little request that comes along, and to develop enough respect for myself to know when to turn someone down. And to know that their world won't fall apart because I've said no.


And it's time to begin respecting myself enough to know that I can have some me time, doing something that I love either with other people or on my own, and that I deserve it.