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.

Living as if

The post it on my desk today reads


"Live as if"


I spend so much time thinking that everything will be great when I've moved house, everything will be great when I've finished my exams, everything will be great when I've finally caught up on sleep, everything will be great when I have the mythical perfect body, everything will be great when..........and when all of these things are done, then I will feel like a million dollars.


The problem with this is that I've been thinking the same thing for years!


Only as soon as I get something from the list, something else gets added to the bottom.


So everything is never great, I never feel a million dollars, and I always feel like I'm waiting for life to start.


But what if I were to get rid of all the whens and start living now. Start living as if I've got everything I want.


Buy myself gorgeous clothes as if I've got the most amazing body that I want.


Buy a pretty new cushion for the lounge as if it's the house of my dreams.


Treat myself as if I already have all the things on my list, as if I am gorgeous, as if I already deserve wonderful things.


I will never have everything that I want, but that doesn't have to stop me being everything I want.


I can stop waiting for life to start, and realise that it already has.

Post it Notes

So I have to admit that this act of kindness is not of my own making, but is shamelessly plundered (but in a nicer way than how pirates would go about it) from the most awesomely awesome Operation Beautiful.



It's such a simple idea, and so beautiful.



And it goes like this.



There are many many people out there, and you may be one of them, and I certainly am, who don't always appreciate how beautiful or how amazing or just generally how fantastic they are.



So, you take a post it note, and write something on it. Things like:



"You're BEAUTIFUL! (Yes, you!)"



"SMILE! You are GORGEOUS!"



"Be good, be sweet, BE YOURSELF"



"Makeup is useless on you, you're beautiful already"



"You are WONDERFUL!"



Basically, as long as it's happy and uplifting and designed to make a special person feel all warm and fuzzy inside then go for it.



And then stick it somewhere. Anywhere. I like to stick them on mirrors in public toilets, also on cash machines, on the little boxes you press to get the green man to turn on so you can cross the road (what are they called?), on postboxes, on the back of toilet doors...



Because I'm a bit of a wimp I tend to only do it when I'm fairly confident no one will see. But I'm working on that.



And then walk off and leave it. And let some other beautiful person find it and be reminded how utterley gorgeous they are.

You are Unique

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

We are constantly bombarded (by tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, friends, family, shops, random strangers, spam email – lets just call them the mob) with the idea that we are not good enough, that there is something wrong with us the way we are.

Don't believe me?

All those articles on dieting are telling you not beautiful the way you are.

All those adverts saying if you eat this one foodstuff for the next month then you’ll drop a dress size are telling you that you need to change to be stunning.

Every time a friend says “ooh I shouldn’t eat that”, they’re giving you the idea that if you do, there is something wrong with you.

Every billboard that displays an impossibly skinny (and most likely airbrushed) model, makes you think that if you don’t look like that then you’re not gorgeous.

I’m sure you can think of hundreds more examples of when the mob implies that you are not fantastic, you are not beautiful, and that you should try to change yourself to fit in with an impossible view of what we should be/look like/do.

But why should we listen? You are YOU. You are unique. There will never be another YOU in the whole of humankind. Ever. And there will never be another Me. Doesn’t that make us fantastic? Doesn’t that make us incredible? Doesn’t that make us absolutely amazingly beautiful?

Don’t waste your time feeling anything but gorgeous. And spread the word: that YOU are beautiful.