“I need to get my laptop fixed. Could you help? I’m sure it’s easy for you to fix it.”
“Sure”, I reply.
I leave my work to go and help them. The whole day goes by.
—
“Hey I need to go to ………. Could you please drop me there?”
“Umm, Ok”, I answer.
I really don’t want to drop them anywhere. When I realize it, it’s too late. I always face difficulty turing my own people down. I can’t do it.
I always accept their request, whatever it is. I have been doing this for a long time. It’s very hard to say ‘NO’ to my own people.
Mostly because it would make them feel bad and I don’t want them to feel bad because of me. They expected me to do something for them, and they are my own people – friends, family and acquaintance.
I am always afraid that I’ll lose relationship with them if I don’t accept their request time and again. I think not helping my own people when they need me is rude.
If I was free and had no works to complete, then accepting their request makes sense. But if I have works to complete, then it doesn’t make sense.
Today, I have to go somewhere because I couldn’t say ‘NO’. And I’m sure it’s going to take whole day. It’s planned already.
I feel really bad that I couldn’t say ‘NO’.
I have been stuck in this situation many times. It’s happening too often now. I went out for others this whole month. I haven’t even touched programming this February. I don’t have enough time for myself and to work on my goals.
So now, I’m thinking of pissing my own people off. I’ll say ‘NO’ very often. Almost every time. Even if it means risking my relationship with the person.
I plan to make today the last day I’m going out for others — or through their request. I’m only going out if I have some specific purpose laid out for myself.
Either I can have my life goal or have my relationship. For the latter, I need to keep pleasing people by accepting their request every time. But for me to achieve something, I need to keep pissing them off by rejecting their request.
I will reject every request even if it favors me. I won’t go out for no reason or to please them.
I’ve felt that I tend to take my goals seriously every time I write it on my blog. So, this is going to be one of my ethics: Say ‘NO’ often, mostly to your own people.
If I won’t say ‘NO’ then I can’t improve myself over time. I can’t work on my goals. I can’t achieve what I want. I can’t move forward.
And another ethics that comes along with it is to not regret the decision. Maybe they’ll get pissed off and never talk to me again. I should be prepared for that as well. I understand relationship is important. But I’m not in any position to sacrifice my life goal to feed my relation.
Say NO often. You’ll thank me later.
I agree with most of what you have written except this part. You shouldn’t say yes if it is a hindrance to you, but I guess I don’t understand why you would say no even if it favors you.
It’s a trap. I accept their request with initial thought that it’ll favor me. But in the long run, I tend to be wasting time favoring them.
For example: When someone calls me to meet up, I go to meet them thinking that I’d get to take break from my work and strengthen our relationship. It favors me. But in the long run, it’s doing more harm than good.
However, this kind of favors both of us.
Let’s say it favors me directly. Still, I’d resist accepting their offer. It’s because if I can stop myself from accepting their offer when it favors me, there’s high chance that I’ll be strong enough to not accept their offer when it favors them.
Some people might think that I only accept their offers when it favors me, and not them. It’s kind of a greedy mindset to live in. Taking and not giving back.
So, if I’ll be able to resist the offer when it favors me, it’ll be easy for me to reject their offer when it favors them. And they’ll not take my rejection seriously since I rejected their offer when they favored me as well.
Makes sense?