Comfortable

14 August, 2023

By EWELINA CHIN

How to Say No to Yourself - Why It's Important

What if you don't really have a problem saying no to colleagues and other people in your life, but do find it difficult saying no to yourself? This is a very common trait among entrepreneurs and people working in professions that are very creative. Often, they have too many ideas swimming around in their heads. Rather than prioritizing them and saying no, they instead say yes to all of them and try to make time in their already busy diary for them.

This results in them putting too much pressure on themselves and many of their endeavours suffering because of this.

Today, I want to teach you how you can easily say not yourself. With this technique, you will be able to create a Perhaps List. Fairly self-explanatory, a Perhaps List is full of potential ideas you may do at some point in the future, but that you haven't committed to doing yet. Whenever a great idea enters your mind, you can add it to your Perhaps List and you don't need to worry that you will forget about it, but you also don't need to feel committed to acting on it. You can wait until you have more time on your hands.

The best way to make use of your Perhaps List is by allocating a set time to review it, either monthly or quarterly. As you review your list and think about the ideas listed in it, you can consider whether you are in a position to pursue it, want to remove it from the list and forget about it, or want to leave it until a later date. Another important word you need to think about when saying no to yourself is -when?'. Always ask yourself if you need to work on a new idea right away or if it can wait...when will you consider following through on it? This is one of those interesting situations where procrastination can be a very positive thing. Procrastination with the right motivation behind it allows you to consider the long-term as well as the short-term when looking at your diary and schedule.

Rather than trying to give yourself the tightest timeframes possible, whenever you add something into your diary, think about when the latest point in time is that you need to complete that task or work by and put that in the calendar as your deadline.