To the people who have a hard time saying no,

I know what you're going through. You may not know what your own reasoning is, but sometimes you are physically unable to let the word "no" slip from your lips when someone asks you if you're able to do something. In fact, if you've told someone "no," it did hurt you to potentially hurt someone else. All you want to do is help and be involved, but sometimes you need to take time for yourself.

I found myself looking at my schedule for the week, and while most of the things are class- or major-related, I can't help but wonder if there were some things on my calendar that I could have declined. Technically, there's only one or two, but that's still a few hours a week that I would have to myself. I know exactly what I do with my two extra hours a day. Other times, I wonder if maybe I am saying "no" enough, but I'm just not managing my time well enough. I feel like I'm trying a lot hard this week at budgeting my time to get to all the things I have committed myself to.

Saying no is hard, I'm going to be so honest with you. When someone asks me if I can do something, even if I want my first response to be no, I find myself trying to talk myself into saying yes. It's so frustrating to me because I was at no, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell the person standing in front of me that I'm not able to do it.

The biggest thing that I struggle with is saying no to the things I really want to do because I won't have the time to commit to it because of the things I said yes to that I was wasn't as enthusiastic about. Right now, I'm trying to decided if I have enough time to join a group and it's such a painful decision because it's been something I've been wanting to do for a long time, but it's something that I want to give a lot of time to. When you say yes to a million other things, you spread yourself thin and may not be able to do something you really, really want to do.

I've gotten better, I have. I've been able to say no to big things that I know will take a lot of time out of my day or week, but I'm still struggling with the little things. Little things like grabbing a coffee with a friend or getting dinner when I should be doing homework.

This probably stems from being a people-pleaser, honestly. But reader, if you're a people-pleaser, aren't you also a people? Can't you please yourself by saying no and giving yourself some extra time to your day? It's something to think about, especially if you find yourself struggling to finish work or if you're tired at your desk or if you just feel spread too thin.

In two weeks, I get six hours put back into my week and that feels like a lifetime. Six hours is a lot of time to use when you have dedicated all that time to someone else. I think the message I want you to have is that if you're a people-pleaser that finds themselves with very little time on their hands, saying no is okay, because you still need to be able to have some time to yourself.

Sincerely,

Someone who feels a little too worn out right now.