In a world of stacked to-do lists, pressure to be a thousand places at one time, and FOMO (fear of missing out)-dominated weekends, saying yes too often is practically ingrained in all of us.
It feels so natural to fire back an instantaneous “yes!” text or email since saying “…no” can feel a bit weird, or rude even. But in all honesty, we’re not doing ourselves any favors with all this incessant yessing.
Sure, saying no can be uncomfortable at first
It can make us feel awkward to say no. But in reality, it really isn’t that awkward.
Besides, isn’t saying yes to something when our gut is screaming “heck no!!” more of an uncomfortable feeling for us to deal with?
When you get that “eh” feeling about something it’s important to listen to your intuition, and if it doesn’t feel right, then you have every right to make a decisive NO.
The more you learn to say no to things you don’t want to do, the more you’ll start to get used to it and be a rockstar and literally only doing the things you want to.
We think we’re going to hurt people’s feelings
Whether subconscious or not, we often say yes to things we’d rather not do out of a desire to please others. We don’t want to disappoint them or seem mean, and sometimes saying yes is easier—in the short-term. But long-term, it can leave you stressed out, overbooked, and unhappy now that you have to do something you don’t want to.
Plus, sometimes (a lot of times) when we say yes to things we don’t want to do, there’s a big chance that we’ll end up making up an excuse to cancel later on. Whereas if we just said no in the moment, it would have made things easier and far less wishy-washy on our part.
No one said “no” has to sound mean. A simple “no thank you” or “thanks for asking but I can’t” will do.
Saying yes too much throws away our energy
By saying yes, we are ultimately deciding that other people’s priorities take precedence over our own.
Maybe you’ve been wanting to start that new gym class or online course but you keep pushing it off because you can’t seem to find any time. If you take a look at your schedule, you’ll probably find that somewhere along the way you committed to a bunch of things that you, in all honesty, didn’t really want to do.
I’m not saying to say no all of the time, because then you may be missing out on some awesome (and sometimes unexpected) opportunities to have a great time. Rather, I’m saying it’s ok to be selective about the energy you surround yourself with, as well how much of your own energy you give away.
Saying no makes more room for the things you love. It opens up space for the people and things that are truly important to you.
Use your energy wisely, loves!
Saying no is a form of self-care
Doing only what feels right for you and what is in alignment with who you are is you looking out for yourself.
Say it’s 5pm on a Wednesday. You just got finished with a crazy day at work. You’ve been very tired and stressed out this entire week and were planning on going to a yoga class at 6:30pm and get to bed early. Your friend, who is having boy troubles, texts you asking to meet up for a drink (or two) at 7:30pm and to have a fun night together. You don’t really want to do that so you ignore her text for a while until she texts you again saying “we never go out anymore and I can really use a drink!”
The guilt starts sinking in and you start questioning if you’re going to be a terrible friend who seems boring and uncaring if you say no. Here you are starting to worry about how you’re going to be perceived instead of thinking of yourself.
You start thinking “even though I’ve been in this exact situation before and know I’ll wind up exhausted and feeling like crap for three days, this time I’ll be fine.”
Truth is, saying yes when you really just want to go to yoga and get some good shut-eye is going to leave you feeling disempowered and falsely-obligated all because of this constant, habitual people-pleasing.
People-pleasing is far too tempting. We all want to be liked. And that’s the reason why we say yes so much, to be honest. We don’t want to hurt anyone and a lot of us prefer to avoid conflict as much as possible.
You see, as grown women, we have a pretty good idea of what’s beneficial for us. We don’t always do it, but we know deep down what’s best. We also know that any real friend is not going to hate us—or even be majorly hurt— by a declined invite every now and then. If you’re friend gets mad about that, then you need a new friend (because you know, self-care).
Can you say no and still call yourself a supportive friend? Can you still say no to weekend activities and have a meaningful/cool life? The answer to that is HECK YES! In fact, doing what you feel called to do and what is in alignment with your truth will only make you the best version of yourself.
Saying yes to things we don’t want to do makes us live unauthentically.
Listen, if it’s not a heck yes, then it’s a heck no.
