Did you say no in 2017? Well it’s definitely time to say no in 2018!

If you did, WELL DONE.

If you didn’t, I give you PERMISSION to say no in 2018 ….

How many times have you said yes to something when you know you really should have said no?

Well, I’m challenging you, encouraging you and giving permission to you to start saying no to the things you normally would say yes to, but deep down you should be saying no to. This goes for your practice and your personal life!

If it’s good enough for Warren Buffet, then it’s good enough for us all. He says “the difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything”.

Well, I am not suggesting that we say no to everything, but I’m sure there are many times each and every day that we could be changing our responses for the sake of our own wellbeing and that of our families.

Here is what saying no will do for you:

• Your stress levels will reduce
• You will get more of your work done
• You will start to be more valued
• You will start to value yourself more
• You will make room in your life to say yes to the things you want to do
• You will have more leisure time to exercise, relax, read
• You will get more sleep and a better night’s sleep at that!

For each of us, the reason we say yes is different, but here are a few.

Which one(s) can you relate to?

• We fear that we will upset someone
• We fear that people will think we are rude
• We fear that people will think we are unhelpful
• We fear that people will think we are selfish
• We fear that we will miss out on opportunities.

Let’s drill down into these fears a bit.

The fear that other people will feel upset or feel that we are rude, unhelpful or selfish is actually very mentally exhausting. Realistically this is us, worrying about how we think someone would feel if we said no. I want you to try and remember a situation when you did say no. Were you told you were rude, unhelpful or selfish? Or did you feel proud of yourself? I know I did! Perhaps the person actually didn’t give a second thought for your no response?

As far as missing out on opportunities, I say to the contrary on this. When we so no, we are in fact opening up space for the opportunities we really want to say yes to) As an example I was asked to make comment for a large newspaper a couple of years ago. Now I could have made a comment, however, I would have had to do some research, find some statistics to back up my comment and if it resulted in clients reaching out to me, it wasn’t really the type of work I liked to do. I politely responded that there probably would be someone else out there better suited to comment, however, if they ever needed comment on something about tax or accounting issues affecting small to medium-sized businesses, I would love to comment)

So how do you really want 2018 to play out?

Do you really want to keep feeling stressed, overworked and overstretched?

Or do you want to invest your precious time working with the clients you want to, doing the work you love to do, working with only those charities closest to your heart and socialising with positive and energetic people?

The choice is yours and yours entirely.

Have a fabulous 2018 and don’t forget to start getting used to saying NO more often so you can say YES to the things that really matter and will bring joy and fulfilment into your practice and your life!