I’m a people pleaser, for sure. I’ll do just about anything for someone if I think it will make him or her happy, no matter the personal cost. It wasn’t until I got to college I realized I had become a complete pushover, and I knew I needed to make a change before I qualified as spineless. I’m talking earthworm-level lack of a backbone. There’s a great scene in the ever-fabulous movie "27 Dresses" where James Marsden’s character (how adorable is James Marsden?) is attempting to teach Katherine Heigl’s character how to say "No" to people. I related to this on a deeply personal level. It was me to the core.

I had made the resolution to start saying “No” more year after year and was never able to follow through and, instead, became even more of a human doormat. I decided to add a new word to my vocabulary: No.

Eventually, something clicked, and I decided to, essentially, “do me.” I stopped agreeing to do things I really didn’t want to do. I told boys I wasn’t interested, broke it off with someone I had been seeing and stood up for myself more.

When all of this fell into place, a few amazing things happened.

My independence grew.

Once I started saying "no," I realized how much power I truly had. I know it may sound silly, but since I had always put all of the decisions in someone else’s hands, I wasn’t allowing myself to fully take control of my life. Once I finally started to realize the ability I had to do whatever I wanted with my life, there was no stopping me. I went abroad and traveled the world, met new people, got a tattoo (sorry, Mom) and fell in love with my newfound independence.

So did my self-confidence.

Falling in love with my independence also helped me fall in love with myself. I had spent so much time living for other people and letting them decide what I did or how I lived my life, that I forgot my self-worth. I realized just saying "no" to someone didn’t make me a bad person. I didn’t always have to be “Hannah, the really nice girl” who always said "yes" to everyone. There was a whole other person inside of me who was independent and unpredictable and had been lying dormant for years.

My relationships grew stronger.

Instead of being upset like I thought they would be, people were grateful for my honesty. They appreciated that even though I was saying "no" to them, I was being true to myself. Even though they didn’t always love the fact I wasn’t agreeing to every single thing they said or wanted to do, they respected me for my choices.

I figured out what I really wanted.

I had always said although I didn’t know what I wanted, I knew what I didn’t want, and that was enough. Once I started saying "no" to other people, what I didn’t want became clearer than ever before, but so did what I want. I want to see the world. I want to help people. I want to write and paint and eat weird food. I want to live an adventurous life full of saying "no" to the things I don’t want to do and "yes" to everything else.

Ordinarily, they tell you if you want things to start happening in your life, you need to stop saying "no" and say "yes" to life. However, you can’t say "yes" to life if you’re also saying "yes" to everyone else in the world and not living for yourself.

I won’t lie; I still often struggle with saying "no" and upsetting people. It’s always hard to stand up for yourself, especially when you think it would probably just be easier to roll over and give in. Additionally, there’s nothing wrong with saying "yes" and giving a little, just to be nice. It’s when this starts to become a pattern, and you lose track of who you are and what your own needs are, that it becomes a problem.