“Learn the art of saying ‘NO’. Don’t lie. Don’t make excuses. Don’t over explain yourself. Just simply decline!” 

This is something I have learnt pretty late in life. I attribute this to one of the several things I learnt living in Sweden and watching the Swedes way of life 🇸🇪

In India, being surrounded with numerous relatives, friends and acquaintances, it used to be my nature to say ‘Yes’ to invitations, meet up, assignments and the like just to please people as it’s considered very rude to say ‘No’ 😅

Learning not to live to please everyone has not only been one of the greatest life lessons I have figured, it has also liberated me to live life on my own happy terms!

Today, I say ‘yes’ only to those things that strike a chord in my heart and to things that I can fit in my schedule without over burdening myself or affecting our family time and my me-time. My ‘yes’s are no longer to please people to be in their good books. I am also mastering the art of very politely saying ‘No’!

I realized, by making conscious yes/no decisions, we are investing due value and respect to time, relationships, our potential and things that really matter. In the process not only are we enriched and empowered, we save ourselves from a lot of unwanted stress!

We should cultivate the ability to say NO to activities for which we have no time, no talent, and which we have no interest or real concern. If we learn to say NO to many things, then we will be able to say YES to the things that matter most!