There are so many people out there that encourage you to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way. They tell you that saying no might ruin chances of growth and opportunity. However, they fail to tell you what happens and how you feel when you constantly say yes. They don’t tell you how tired and worn out you may feel. They don’t tell you how you might not be putting your full potential into what you are doing because you’re so busy with other activities. I know so many people who end up feeling this way because they are terrified of saying no. Some of you are afraid of disappointing people when they ask you to do something. Don’t let the fear of upsetting somebody be the reason you spread yourself too thin. I used to be this person, heck I still am sometimes. Lately though I have been reminded of how precious my time and energy is, and that I would rather save my time and energy for things that I find important rather than something I agreed to do just because I was afraid to say no. Saying yes may be great at times, but you need to learn how to say no without feeling guilty about it.

Why do we struggle with saying no? In the book, “The Power of a Positive No” by William Ury, he explains that we say yes to everything to protect our relationships with others. We would rather say yes to something we hate than to disappoint our friends, family, or coworkers. But on the other hand, we also say yes to complete strangers too… Why do we do that? It is probably so that we look like better people to them. We want people to think highly of us. That is why we say yes to people we don’t even know. That’s crazy! You don’t know them, you might never even see them again, but we are still worried about how they might view us! Nobody will think negatively of you for saying no. If a random stranger thinks less of you for saying no, then good thing you never have to see them again! If somebody you know well gets upset that you said no, then who cares. You said no out of your own good, you need to protect your time and energy and they should respect that.

Imagine; you have a job and are also a college student or have a family (whichever pertains to you). Your boss at work is constantly asking you to work over-time and you are constantly saying yes to her requests. After a while, she is going to get used to you saying yes all the time and just expect you to work whenever she needs you to. While you are working all these extra hours, it is getting in the way of your schoolwork/family. You aren’t able to spend as much time in your other activities and you are lacking in other aspects of your life. You are allowing your family/ grades to struggle because you are unable to say no to your boss. Like I previously said, your time and energy are precious. You need to know when to say no to protect these things because time especially, is something you won’t get back. You have to prioritize the aspects in your life and know what to put first. If your education is more important then you can’t let other things get in the way of your working hard in school. If your family is your #1 priority, then you cannot let things farther down your list get in the way of spending quality time with your family.

Personally, I am very involved in school. I am active in many different organizations on top of going to class. It took a long time for me to get comfortable saying no to things. Just like I stated before, I was scared that people would think less of me and I didn’t want to disappoint them. After a while I would get exhausted and crabby because of how much I was saying yes to. I had meetings after meetings all day and it was horrible! I was letting it effect my relationships and own mental health. One day I finally decided that it wasn’t worth making other people happy if it was ruining my own attitude. I decided to take control of my own life and make everyone else know that my time and energy was precious, and I wasn’t going to waste it on anything that didn’t matter. Nothing is worth exhausting yourself over, and that is something that took me a long time to understand.

Being able to stand up for yourself and say no is something we all must be able to do. You must have a balance between saying yes and no to have a healthy /happy life. If you are still interested in learning how to get over the fear of saying no, check out these books:

“The Power of a Positive No” William Ury

“The Art of Saying NO: How To Stand Your Ground, Reclaim Your Time And Energy, And Refuse To Be Taken For Granted (Without Feeling Guilty!)” Damon Zahariades

“Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No to Take Control of Your Life” Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend