Learn to Say No: Increase the Power of How You Spend Your Time
Most people want to say yes in their work life and their personal life. However, saying yes just to please someone can be detrimental to you. Certain people will take advantage of a person who likes to please and say yes. Often, they will use this to give you part of their workload or responsibilities to make their life easy. Conversely saying yes will just make your life more stressful and lead to emotional problems and even ill health.
One of the very best ways to manage your time is to learn to say no. Saying no is a great way to control how you spend your time and take your power back. Most of us don’t know how to say no because our parents taught us not to say no. Many two-year-olds love saying no, but they are quickly taught that the word no is very unacceptable. But it’s time to take back the power of no and earn more time in your day for doing what you want to do.
Here are some advantages:
- Reduce Your Stress – One of the worst things about overscheduling your time is the stress that it will cause. Learning to say no will automatically reduce your stress, even if the first few times you say no will be a little stressful. The freedom you experience will soon overshadow the fear of saying no.
- Be Perceived as More Professional – No one person can do everything. If you already have something scheduled and can’t do something, it is to be expected of a professional person. Just say that your calendar is full.
- Improve at Tasks You Really to Want to Do – If you’re not spending time doing stuff you hate doing, you’ll get to spend more time doing things you want to do. That means you’ll get more practice and become better at the things you already like doing.
- You Get to Spend Time Doing What You Want to Do – No one wants to spend time doing things they dislike doing, but they tend to say yes due to the lessons their mom taught them. If you really want to spend more time writing or helping your clients solve their problems, say no to doing things you don’t want to do and recommend someone else.
- People Will Respect You More – Even good people lose respect for those who act like doormats. You probably don’t want to appear as a doormat; you’re just trying to be helpful. But even nice people will take advantage of those who say yes all the time. That’s why you’ll notice it’s always the same three people doing all the work in any group. The yes people.
- Saying No Allows You to Say Yes – This may sound counter-intuitive but it’s true. If you learn to say no to things that don’t advance your business or life in any measurable way, you’ll have more time to say yes to things that do.
You Won’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew – People who say yes to everything tend to do most things less efficiently and incompletely. They don’t mean to, but they get too much on their plate and end up not being able to do the tasks they agreed to do to the best of their ability. If you say no, you can avoid this problem.