Learning To Say No:

To start, this post was inspired by the Beautiful Minimal Millennial. She made a post talking about 3 things she always says “no” to. I decided to asses where I’m at with saying “no” too, since it also happens to be something I’m working on, so that I can say “yes” more to what matters most.

(I think her post was for subscribers only, because I got it via email & I can’t find it on her blog any more, just a heads up.)

Saying no is something that I’ve been working hard on. My husband and I have made the conscious choice to prioritize our health, our relationships, an eco-minimalist lifestyle, & achieving financial independence/becoming debt free.

Whatever it is we are deciding to say yes or no to, it needs to align with one of those goals for us to say yes to it.

When it comes to anything work related, I’m not great at saying no. In my line of business, you have a lot of flexibility in your schedule, but that means there are many events that happen on the evenings, not just during the work day.

If anyone has any tips on how to say no to work stuff when you’re self employed, feel free to help a girl out. 😅

Saying no is hard, particularly if you’re a woman. We’re trained to smile & say yes even if we’re uncomfortable or don’t want to do something. At least, that’s my experience, but I’m ready to change that & have been.

We have drastically improved at saying no to physical items & to things that are less sustainable. For example, I was just at a work insurance conference & denied taking a ton of SWAG, including a goodie bag. The man was very convincing who was trying to give me the goodie bag, kept persisting & asking: “are you sure? There’s some good stuff in here.” But I held my ground, just smiling saying: “No thank you, I don’t need any of that. Thank you though, I appreciate it.” I knew we didn’t need any of it & it would just clutter up our house. Also, my husband this weekend threw out stuff his grandma kept for 10 years and tried to give him. I’ve rejected a couple items from my mom recently as well. So we’re doing very well on the minimalism front. Though, we still have a long way to go.

We have also done a much better job of prioritizing our health & relationships over this summer. My husband just bought a bike & I stole my sister’s that she never uses. We are going to start riding bikes more instead of driving to work. This is good for our health, our wallets, & the earth! Win, win, win. We are probably going to sell my car, if the biking situation works out. My husband has also been spending a lot of time out disc golfing with friends, which is good for his relationships & health. I have been spending a lot more time with my siblings recently than I ever have before, now that they’re getting older I can actually relate to them a bit & talk with them (They’re only 11 & 13). I’ve been reading & writing a ton too, rather than sitting on my phone.

As for becoming financially independent/debt free, we have cut out basically all unnecessary spending, other than a few small things that we have a plan for & we could stop eating out as much as we do, but I think we’ve gotten it down to approximately 2x a week we eat out. My husband manages at a restaurant so he gets a free meal every shift he works & I used to work there too & everyone knows me so they give me a meal or two free a week which is great! It’s seriously almost $100/week in free food if you do the math.

In conclusion, we’re doing well with saying no. I just need to work on saying no with work related things. I want to try and streamline what I’m working on.

As always, thanks for reading, & thanks again to the Beautiful Minimal Millennial.

Are you working on saying no? And if so, what are you working on saying no to?