We live in a world where everyone expects us to do certain things.
It doesn’t matter if it’s in business or in personal life, our daily obligations and tasks seem to increase constantly.

Around the clock availability doesn’t help neither. Nowadays, most of us are reachable at any time of the day and in some cases also during the night.
It’s easy to get lost and it can certainly be difficult to decide what is important and what isn’t.

Especially in business we have do deal with bosses, colleagues suppliers and customers.
Most of them eventually are going to ask us for multiple things.
Especially if you are a reliable person, people will try to take advantage of that.
At the end of the day everyone wants their own agenda and goals to work.

People tend to always go the path of least resistance.
If you’re not careful and you say YES all the time, people will make it a habit of only reaching out to you, since it’s the easiest way for them to get what they want.

Focus on your own agenda

If you want to achieve your own goals, you need to focus on what is important to you. Sometimes that won’t involve other people’s agendas and what they’re asking you to do will only hold you back.

It’s important to understand that it is absolutely okay to say NO to people.
Don’t be the person that rejects everything that is being asked from someone but it’s crucial to set strict boundaries.

You have your own agenda and if you don’t prioritize it you’ll never be able to achieve anything in life.
It’s not your job to make everyone around you happy and it is certainly not your obligation to help everyone around you with their problems.

Once you understand that saying NO is fine and you start doing that, people will stop coming to you with everything.
In most cases they would have been able to figure it out themselves anyway, but asking someone else to do it is always the easy way around it.

Learning to say NO and prioritizing on your own goals has many benefits.

Benefits of saying NO

1. Reach your goals

2. Become more effective

3. Increase your value

4. Reduce stress
   

Reach your goals:
The reason people ask us for help is almost always the same. They want to get their own things done. It’s understandable, but the problem with that is that you’re focusing and working on other people’s tasks and therefore you might run the risk of neglecting your own goals and dreams.
If you reduce the amount of favors you’re doing for other people, you’re going to have much more time for your own responsibilities.

Become more effective:
Let’s face it, we all have a lot on our plates.
The more you do and the more things you’re juggling with at the same time, the less effective you’re going to be. Not only are you going to be less effective, the quality of your work will also suffer.
Multitasking may work in same cases but when it comes down to effectiveness, there is nothing better than focusing on one thing at a time with everything that you got.
It’s amazing what you can achieve once you enter the flow state and you start working on one thing at a time with 100% focus.

Increase your value:
Being available all the time is boring. Don’t be the person who gets taken advantage of all the time.
If people know that they can’t come to you with anything, it will automatically increase your value.
Your help will mean much more if you’re not offering it to anyone.

Reduce stress:
Most of us have to deal with stress and sometimes even anxiety at some point in our lives. Even though emotions are created within, most people will be suffering some sort of stress due to other people. It doesn’t matter if it’s phone calls, messages or emails, the more people want something from us, the more we tend to get stressed. It’s important to remember that no one can make us feel anything. It’s classic human manipulation to pressure others, to get what we want.
Don’t allow others to effect your state of mind negatively.
If you have too much on your plate, it’s self-preservation to say no sometimes.
Remember, everybody just wants their own problems to go away. Most people don’t care about what you have got going on. The only thing they care about is to get things their way.

By refusing to do everything for everyone you’re automatically reducing stress, since you’re decreasing the amount of things you have to take care of during the day.
Additionally, you’re limiting the amount of stressful and hectic people you have to deal with.

In conclusion

Learning to say NO is a true superpower. It’s important to keep in mind that it is absolutely okay to do it. Don’t be stupid about it though. One hand washes the other and you never know when you might need someone else’s help too.
You have to be smart about who you’re helping and if that person might be able to assist you with something in the future. Usually the people that come to us constantly asking for help are the ones that won’t be able to help us if we ask them too. Those exact people are the ones that are going to tell you NO, once you need something from them. In some cases it’s a good idea to test that by asking them for a favor once in a while.
Learn to refuse to do certain things and you will not only achieve more and become more productive, you’re also going to reduce stress and improve your mental health.

It’s not your job to make everyone around you happy.

Thank you for reading.