Are you burned out? The answer is simple. There is one word that can make the most significant impact on gaining back control of your time. In the words of my girl Meghan Trainor: “My name is No. My sign is No. My Number is No. You need to let it go.” I’m pretty sure what Meghan is talking about is saying No to a dude. What I’m talking about is saying No to way too many commitments. I think this topic is always important, but even more so going into the holiday months where Halloween festivities that begin in mid-October flow quickly into Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years back to back.
Being over-scheduled may not be your problem. You may thrive on it, get joy from it even. Two of the people closest to me do. My mom never met a plan she didn’t like. I mean, that woman can go, go, go. I’m exhausted just thinking about going shopping with her or taking on her schedule, even for a day. My best friend Shelly is the same. She thrives when staying busy and wants to get the most out of every minute. She’ll extend a vacation an extra day to have the opportunity to see one more friend or have one more shopping day, even if it means getting home, throwing in a load of laundry, and re-packing to leave the next day again. God bless you if that’s you too.
Then there are the people like me who can’t have plans Friday AND Saturday night, or it sends them into a tailspin. If I’ve been to Trader Joe’s, Vons, and Costco, that’s it. My day is done. I must go home and not leave the house again for the remainder of the day. I’m not saying I just sloth around on the sofa eating bonbons after that; I simply don’t want to be obligated to go anywhere else.
What I am trying to implement in my life is to simply say No to things in advance. I’m worried about making someone feel unimportant to me by saying No, or I think at the moment that I can do it all. Then the time comes, and I scramble to get something off my schedule to keep my sanity. Sometimes that something is flaking on a friend last minute, which is way worse than taking a good look at my schedule and saying No in the first place. Sometimes it’s my self-care that suffers- something needs to go, so I don’t go to the exercise class that I had already put on my calendar.
When I am with my friends, that time spent fills me up so much. I want to make time for that. This leads me to the crux of the topic. We must find a way to say No to the things that are not all that important to you that you feel unnecessarily obligated to so you can say yes to the truly important things. Protect your time like a mama bear protects her cubs.
I follow a woman named Marie Forlio who has some very sage advice on this topic. One thing she said that resonated with me was how to say No gracefully so that people don’t feel hurt or offended. Maybe your friend who’s inviting you to a cookie party is really important to you. Still, you’re already pretty busy that week, and while you could go, you’d honestly rather spend one on one time with her. Say No to the cookie party and plan a wine or coffee date for another time. Maybe it’s a volunteer request. Tell them you are so honored they thought of you, but your schedule is full, and you feel you wouldn’t do the job as well as they deserve it to be done. It’s all in the delivery. Check out Marie’s video on the topic here. She even gives tips on saying No to your boss which can be extraordinarily difficult for women .
Do you have a hard time saying No? Does that lead to schedule overload and burnout? Have you found any methods of saying No that work for you that our readers can learn from? Tell me in the comments below.
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Cindy Curley 