In our society, people do not like it when you say no, some people can even considered it as a bad thing, there are some people who feel so entitled to the point that they don't expect you to turn to down whenever they ask for help, especially oir family members and close friends, while in actual sense saying no is a plus for us . It automatically put us first sometimes as we often tend to care for others more than we care for our selves.
I was once in this situation where I formerly faced difficulties in the inability to refuse in the working place. I was one of those individuals who would gladly accept additional tasks at work and take a lot of additional responsibilities all the time. I can't count the number of times I have fill in for people who have a lot of excuses for not coming to work, my supervisor must times will not come I will have to work double and still get little money as salary. I realized that in order not to let my colleagues down or seem lazy, I would agree to everything and then couldn’t properly do any of it, sometimes I had to work on weekends just to make sure everything is okay and at the end I will be the one that is so tired and don't even have time for myself.
after some time I come to my senses that basically agreeing to everything does not make me happy, on the contrary, this leads to exhaustion. I began being as polite as possible when declining this type of requests due to my reasons and giving suggestions where applicable. Because I don't want my senior colleague to see as a bad person I had to always come up with excuses and reasons why I can't grant their wish.
For instance, when my boss said that she wanted me to take up yet another project so I can work it over the weekend, I will just softly said no tell her that I going to be busy during the weekend doing many projects and that I did not want to give a poor performance. Instead, I recommended handing the task to someone who was more available at the time to take it on so I can also rest and have fun during the weekend and other days.
Having the right Knowledge of how not to take every single request people give to us is something very helpful in avoiding compromising situations and free time to do what is most dear and valuable. It has enabled me to make better choices with regards to time and space and produced enhanced work-life separation. Daring to say no does not mean you are being mean,or you don't have a kind heart to help others, it just that when you show too much kindness people seem to take advantage if it, instead sometimes it is the best way to empower yourself and make use of our time wisely.
