No....No. No!

There is so much power in saying “No” especially seeing that most of us barely utter the sentence. Yes, that one word can be all we need to say — no other elaboration, just those two little letters. “Can you loan me $5 to get some food?” Nope. “Will you give me a ride to the other side of town?” No. “Would you mind waking up at 3am to help me stalk my girlfriend?” Yes (ha! making sure you’re still paying attention!).


People will ask you for every ounce of who you are or what you have to satiate themselves (or at least attempt to). And I’m not here trying to tell you that you need to be a callous asshole to anyone asking a favour of you — instead I”m trying to remind  you that your resources are precious and so are you. Help those you want to help, or can but know your limits. If you’re making minimum wage (which is $5.25 in the Bahamas) and have your own responsibilities to take care of (utilities, mortgage, rent, family, etc) you can’t possibly go out with your drinking buddies every night, give cash to the homeless person near your work place every other day or donate a percentage of your pay to your church weekly! It isn’t feasible or fiscally responsible.


In the same vein if you have a project that is near and dear to you it would be just about criminal for you to neglect working on it so that you can seem like the top performer at work, give everyone you know a ride from point A-B (some times to C-D-E-B) and expect yourself to get what you want!


Saying “No” is your power to choose not to allow everyone to constantly take from you. It allows you to chase after what you want rather than being the “Yesman” (or woman) who everyone walks all over to get what they want. Don’t allow yourself to be used all the time, yes it is rewarding to help those who need it but you still need to be conscious of what you need. “No” is just the key to the first door of achieving your goals so please feel free to use it.