When people call or email me, it annoys me.
There, I said it.
It is not personally directed towards anyone.
It is all people.
“Want to grab coffee?”
“Let’s meet for a play date!”
“Let’s schedule time to chat on the phone.”
“Have a minute? Would love your help/thoughts/insights…”
“Did you get the email I sent you last week?”
All perfectly lovely and wonderful invitations that should make me fill up with joy and gratitude.
Instead, they feel like another to-do in my already growing and overwhelming list of things.
This will not be an inspirational post as I don’t feel particularly inspired this week.
I feel drained.
I often wonder, “Am I the only one that feels like this?”, “What is going on in other people’s lives that they have so much free time?”
And then the inner judge pops in and makes me feel incredibly guilty because I have an email inbox full of emails that I have not yet responded to.
I have made a choice to focus on three things in my life right now:
My family (both immediate & extended)
My business
Myself
Those three things alone take up more time than I have to give.
I am sure that I am a classic case of a “mompreneur” or “working mom”. (Although, I believe being a stay-at-home mom is harder…but I digress)
I am also sure (as my husband often, sometimes too often, reminds me) that I never quite learned the skill of saying No.
No.
No.
NO.
Ahh, that felt good.
“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.” -Stephen Covey
I’ve talked about it before but every decision that we make is either walking towards fear or towards love.
If I keep peeling back the layers of my fear, it goes something like this:
You can’t handle very much.
I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
I don’t want to miss out.
What if people stop inviting me?
I want to be liked.
As vulnerable as it is to be it out there, that’s it. As you pull back the onion layers at the base of every fear is the deep need to be liked and accepted.
It’s not something I think about on a daily basis. And actually, I would probably initially say that wasn’t true.
But why do I continually find myself in these same predicaments over and over again?
What can’t I with confidence and ease just say, “No.”…”No thank you.”?
“Say, ‘You know what? Not being able to disappoint people is costing me big time and I’ve got to get good at it. I have to practice and I’ve got to start somewhere. Guess what? I’ve chosen you.’” – Cheryl Richardson
I want to take the easy way out and just hit “select all” on my email inbox and then press “delete”.
Declare email bankruptcy.
But instead, I am taking control and responsibility and most importantly…creating boundaries.
Article by Suzannah Scully
http://suzannahscully.com