Women are notorious for saying yes to things that they have neither the time nor energy for, (or even any interest in.)
- Taking the volunteer position at school when your plate is already full.
- Accepting an invitation to an event when you want a night off at home.
- Taking a promotion at work instead of pursuing another field you’re interested in.
There are hundreds of articles out there trying to convince us to start saying NO to help with our sanity and stress levels, yet we continue to say YES because we’re more worried about letting someone else down than our own well-being.
After all, it’s hard to convince a people-pleaser to look out for their health and happiness when nine times out of ten, they will base their choice on what they think will make someone else happy.
Perhaps we’re thinking of this the wrong way.
What if when you say no, you are making someone else happy?
By saying no, you are giving someone else the opportunity to say yes.
Did you ever stop to think that there’s someone else out there who would love that volunteer position that you just begrudgingly took on and are going to do a half ass job at while neglecting the things you really want to be doing? By saying yes, you just took away their opportunity to say yes. By saying no, you would have given them the chance to say yes to a role they would have been excited about and would have brought 100x more energy to than you will.
Maybe when you said yes to that concert you didn’t really want to go to and spent the whole week complaining about how much the ticket cost, you actually were taking the ticket from someone who loves that band and has been dying to see the sold out show.
When it comes down to it, by giving yourself the permission to say no, you’re not just doing yourself a favor, you’re giving someone else out there the chance to say yes. That should be a pretty compelling argument for all of us people-pleasers.
So the next time someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, do everyone a favor and just say no.
Note: I did not come up with this wisdom all by myself. I recently spent an amazing girls’ weekend at the Strawberry Pines Ranch and Retreat where a dozen writers spent the weekend sharing ideas, advice, laughs and lots of cheese products. This Yes/No idea was shared as advice from a pastor of one of the women at the retreat and another woman had heard something similar on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast, and I SO needed to hear it and thought maybe you did too.
This post is from my “F-It Friday” on my Dusting Off My Parachute Facebook group. Join us there for daily micro-resolutions focused on taking time for, and getting to know yourself. Join us!
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