The Power of saying NO to yourself 

I’ve been held back writing freely for our Eximo blog. I desperately wanted to write a post about which pianos are best to buy. We get this question a lot. It’s not a topic that majorly excited me so I’ve let it sitting on my to do list for weeks and kept prioritising other more seemingly urgent tasks.

Yesterday, I listened to a podcast that explored the power of saying NO. This was not a new concept to me. Saying NO to one thing is always a powerful YES to another thing. What do you want to say YES to that you haven’t in a long time because other things or other people have required your time and attention more?

To chase after your deepest desires, you may have to say NO to some people and things that aren’t helping you ultimately achieve your own dreams.  

Whilst I have lived pretty aware of the fact that choosing to say NO can be a freer way of living, right now I am not accountable to anyone else other than my fiancé, my cats and my own dreams. Only recently did I tell my husband to be how I always tend to just about get a grip on all my tasks and then find myself already getting onto my next project and not getting a breather. I’m not the sort of person that dwells on ideas for a long time. I see the cliff, start running and jump right into the unknown.  

Saying this out loud made me realise that what I need to learn is say NO to myself. I have no boss tellingme what to do. Lockdown meant that there were no temptations to even think about having a social live beyond the screen. Really, anything I would put on my to do list is what I personally say YES to.

After a year of very little energy and well-being struggling to fight Long Covid, I had fallen into a pattern of using every minute I felt well to be productive and do the things that were most urgent just to keep my head above water. Now that there is a little spare energy going around, I want to be mindful of what I say yes to which may require saying NO to the stream of constant ideas floating around my head.

Saying NO to writing about which pianos are best has enabled me to think about the ‘Create.ive You Life’ blog, how I want to empower our students and website visitors and not just write blogs for the hits they may get. I don’t want to promise that our blog will be super regular from now on, but I certainly want to say yes to these moments of inspiration and share them with you on here. What do you need to say NO to in order to say YES to what/who really matters to you?