Have you ever had the thought “I’m always so busy but there’s always more to do!” You’re soooo not alone. Achieving balance is one of the most common aspirations I hear clients express. Of course, a big part of achieving balance is learning how much we can manage and still find balance.
If we say yes to everything, it’s impossible to maintain peace and still have time for the people and activities we love.
When we say yes to too many work demands, we may neglect our personal life. Likewise, saying yes to too many social requests may lead to flaking on the friends and family we most enjoy being around.
When we find ourselves feeling constantly overwhelmed and depleted, we are not saying no enough so that we can say yes to the right engagements.
Most of us understand the importance of saying no, yet it seems we have an epidemic of overcommitment.
Once when I was talking to a friend about how to manage time, she commented that it always seemed like I said yes to things so easily. I smiled and said, “it’s because I know what I want to say no to.”
The first step to learning how to say no is learning what we truly desire. That makes our job pretty simple: we need to start listening to our desires. Yep, you read correctly, the key is to love yourself enough to listen to your desires and stop ignoring or pushing them down!
Are you willing to take your desires seriously?
In our next newsletter we will explore how to listen to your desires and get acquainted with the process of self inquiry. And once you’ve defined meaningful goals, you become free to say no more often.
