Learn to Say NO

It takes courage to say “no.”

In many ways, I love to say “yes.” I love to say “yes” when someone has an idea they want to try at work. I love to say “yes” to my kids. I get a lot of ideas, and I find it difficult to say no to any of them. I love the idea of saying “yes” to my life.

But often I say yes to the wrong things too. The commitments I didn’t really want to make but felt I had to. The favour someone asks when I really don’t have time but I care about the relationship. The thing that will sabotage the progress I have made.

What if courage looked like saying “no?” What if the most courageous thing I could do today is to decide exactly what is important to me, exactly what I want my life to look like, and said no to anything that doesn’t align with that?

I wonder how different my life would look? I wonder how different it would feel?

Saying no isn’t easy. So today, I will take tiny steps and commit to saying no to at least one thing that doesn’t align with what I value, what matters most to me or what I know I want for my life.