❌ One of the things I learned late in life is how to say no to certain things.
I believe this lesson has to be learned the hard way in order to really understand how to prioritize and realize what is truly important in your life.
Early in my career, I was a ‘yes’ person. A person that over-booked weekends with plans of driving us from one place and booking ourselves to the next event over 100km away – in the same day!
⏱Sometimes I would schedule us so tight, we had a strict time limit on how long we would spend somewhere in order to make it to the next commitment.
At the time, I felt like superwoman — making an appearance and hardly missing any events for friends, family, and colleagues. We would just show up. It was my duty as a friend, niece, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, colleague to make an appearance.
After a while though, that’s all it felt like to both sides was “an appearance”.
🏃♀ And who did I think I was? Who gave me permission to just show up and “make an appearance”?
I realized later on that these drop-ins that I “graced” everyone with were pointless and quite frankly self-serving.
How could I possibly have the present mind to celebrate special moments in the lives of my favourite people by constantly checking the time? Sometimes even hedging my bets on who to engage in a conversation based on how long the conversation would last!
All with the end goal in mind to attend each event… to check it off the list. To tell myself at the end of the day I was a good daughter, I was a great friend and a supportive colleague.
❌ Quite the opposite.
I actually didn’t get to create the fondest of memories or have the belly laughs or share intimate moments with the people I loved because I was rushed, preoccupied and stuck in my own head.
Because this ‘Overbooking Syndrome’ was truly an ‘Over-Capacitating’ habit.
I had to make changes.
Changes that required saying no.
Changes that led to unfortunate disappointments as I had never really said no and thus created a false expectation that was now backfiring on me.
🥰 And for these experiences, I am grateful. Because I’ve unlearned how to say yes too much and learned to say no, just enough.
🌟Moral of the story:
Trying to be everything (or everywhere) for everyone else, will leave you missing out on truly experiencing any of it.
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Does any of this story relate to how you felt this past weekend? Or maybe how you feel in your everyday life?
Perhaps you get over-booker and feel torn between commitments? Do you catch yourself constantly watching the clock to stay ‘on schedule’?
Consider a mindset shift — that may be uncomfortable at first to say ‘no’ to things — but will ultimately help you respect your own time and ability to truly be present.
