LESSON ON SAYING: "NO THANKS"

I'm reading this great book called YOU ARE YOUR CHOICES, by Alexandra Stoddard.

The following is a delightful piece of common sense that might help you - especially if you're the kind of person who always says YES to every single request, working project and social invitation and then realise that you've taken on way more than you can handle. You have good intentions, but in the end, you just end up running yourself into the ground, feeling flat about everything around you and wishing you were in bed. An excerpt from the book:

Chapter 3: Be Responsible - Say No
We forget that saying "No!" is a choice. There are great benefits to saying NO. We have to get over the embarrassment of being honest with others because we're afraid to hurt their feelings. No one will ever know our circumstances or why we make the choices we do. Frankly, in most cases, it's none of their business. It's our life and we have to answer to ourselves, choice by choice.

Once I said yes to some people who wanted to show me blueprints and photographs of their house. This led to them showing me a folder of images of the things they liked. That was a mistake and an hour of my life I'll never get back. A crisp NO wastes no one's time, energy or money.

Learn to say NO. If you don't say NO right up front, you end up becoming reluctantly involved. Then you have to back off painfully and awkwardly.

Saying NO leads to the life you most want to live. Whether you say no to something because you don't care about it, because it's a conflict of interest, or because you don't actually enjoy the people involved, just learn to say NO.