Learn to Say No Even When You Want to Say Yes

Most of you know the power of saying no to things you don’t want to do. Still most of us keep saying yes unwillingly till the point at which we get angry towards ourselves and resentful towards the person whom we said yes. Definitely, we need to learn to say no to unwanted things.

But here I am talking about something different. It relates more to time management and setting your priorities. How many of you say yes to all the interesting projects that come your way and later get overwhelmed by them. How many times you get buried in number of projects and don’t get time to work on your pet project?

It gets difficult to say no when you like the new project and would love to work on it.

And that’s something I am learning now. I have worked on so many projects till now and they won’t stop coming in my way. Earlier I would just say yes to every one asking for help in their project if I find them interesting. I would take it up as a challenge more than as a help to someone. But gradually I realized that because of this habit I have not been able to work on my project with full dedication. Now it is high time to bring in the change.

It is very important to know how much you can handle. It is even more important to set your priorities. Setting your priorities allow you to manage your time efficiently. You get better idea of how much time needs to be allocated to each task. When you are aware of how much time you have already allocated to the projects at hand, you are in better position to decide whether you can take up that new interesting project or not. This also frees you from the guilty feeling of saying no to someone in need as you are fully aware of your limitations.

Learn to help yourself first. You have only 24 hours in a day and you cannot do good to others without doing good to yourself.

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  1. Nicole’s avatar

    Well, yes, I sympathize. Problem is to know how much you can handle before you feel overwhelmed. And setting priorities is not easy either, as a new project will often seem more fun than an ongoing project that seems stuck (The Dip talks about that…).