Saying Yes is easier than you think
/
I'm tired of the word No.
Maybe it dates back to when I was a kid and my parents used it. There was a resounding No to the mere mention of family game nights, and they would flip-flop for hours over a sleepover invitation. The answer would usually be No but you had to wait for it.
I'm mostly over it.
No matter the reason, I think people use the word No entirely too much.
The excuses attached to the word really set me off:
[box type="none"]I'm too busy.
I can't because of...(insert obligation here).[/box]
Really? I hope you can't because you don't want to, because any other reason is a cop-out.
Admit it. Most of us use the word No to make ourselves the victim of our own lives.
I'm pretty sure that everyone reading this post is not a victim of their own lives—only by choice.
I caught myself twice this week playing victim.
I love photography and my favorite subject matter is barns. The more dilapidated the better. I've been wanting to take a road trip lately along country roads outside of Washington, DC and haven't done it.
When telling a friend about my desire, I caught myself saying I hadn't gone because I didn't have a car.
The fact that I've been a Zipcar member for years escaped me. Isn't that the whole reason I became a member in the first place?
The second example is downright embarrassing. Here goes.
I like toast. I used to have a toaster oven and left it in Manhattan with my ex. Ever since, as I put bread in the oven to get-warm-but-never-crisp, I sigh, sometimes even out loud, that I never did get that toaster oven back.
When I heard my pity party for one this week, I finally snapped out of it.
Go get a toaster oven already and get on with it.
Please, please stop denying yourself the things you want.
Whether it's by using the word No or piling on the obligations or making an excuse that not even you would believe if you heard someone else say it.
The only thing standing in the way of you getting what you want is YOU.
Right now, can we all commit to saying Yes more often?
It's pretty simple, really.
Let's reserve No for what we truly do not want to do. Everything else, I mean everything, gets to be Yes from here on out.
How, you may ask? (And yes this doesn't count anything that would land you in jail.) One of these options should do it:
- Let yourself say Yes. It's shocking how easily what you want happens when you say and act like you actually want it.
- Find a way to say Yes. There is a way to get what you want in the way that you want it. It just may require creativity.
For that second option, consider when you're asked to go somewhere. You want to go, you want to say yes, but... No buts.
Finding a way to make it work means you might need to tweak the plan, or make room in your life. It definitely means that you need to want to make this work.
Say Yes. It will change your life.
Let me know how that goes.