30 days: Change your habits, Change your life

Action Step:
Which of the tips will you try first?

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24
Say “NO” to them and
“YES” to yourself
I don’t know the key to success, but the key
to failure is trying to please everybody.
—BILL COSBY
Here is another one of these small exercises that improved my life a
lot: When I stopped wanting to please others and started being
myself, a lot of it came with the word “No”. Every time you say “No”
when you mean “No”, you are actually saying “Yes” to yourself!
Before learning to say “No”, I often went out with my friends,
although I didn’t want to or went to events I didn’t enjoy. The result
was, I was there physically but mentally, I was in another place and
honestly, I was not the best company. When I decided that a “Yes” is
a “Yes” and a “No” is a “No”, I felt much better. I went out less with
my friends and telling them “NO” was hard at the beginning, but the
result was that when I was with my friends, I was fully there.
In my work life, the impact was even bigger. When I started
working in Spain, I wanted to be a good colleague and said “yes” to
every favor I was asked of. Guess what happened! I ended up being
totally overwhelmed at work, because I was asked a lot of favors—
usually work nobody else wanted to do. It took me a while to put my
foot down, but finally, I said “Enough!” From then on, my first answer
to all questions for favors was “NO! Sorry. Can’t do it. Very busy at
the moment!” By starting to say “No” often, I improved my work life a
lot and actually freed up a lot of time. But make sure you say “NO”
without feeling guilty! You can explain to the person in question that

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it’s not anything personal against them, but for your own well-being. I
could still do my colleagues a favor, but only if I had enough time and
decided to. Suddenly, I was in the driver’s seat. If I was up for it, I
would mention to the colleague in question that I’m only doing a
favor and in no case do I want to end up doing the job. Selfish? Yes!
But keep in mind who the most important person in your life is.
That’s right! YOU are the most important person in your life! You
have to be well! Only if you are well yourself, can you be well toward
others and from this level, you can contribute to others, but first be
well yourself. You can always buy some time and say “maybe” at
first, until you come to a definite decision. Life gets a lot easier if you
start saying “No”!