Creating the "No" list

 This for me was the most difficult. The "No" list for me had two aspects; work and personal.

 The work one was the easiest. It involved me saying "No" to things that I would normally have had to sacrifice something in my personal life for. Saying "Yes" and making accomodations takes a toll on you and after a while you resent that fact that people come to you about things and you are often left questioning "why me all the time ?". For me it took a change in the way I thought. I physically and mentally had to shift and make myself unavailable. It also took some effort and self discipline. What I will say is that I am much better today with this than I was 10 or even 2 years ago. The hardest thing was people in my direct work area getting used to hearing the word "No" come out of my mouth because it was something they were not use to. Normally I would stay up late, stay back at work late or just sacrifice a weekend to do a favor for someone or meet an unexpected timeline. So when the words "No" finally came out of my mouth it was difficult for some people to accept. Over time, all has been forgiven and people now respect my "No" boundary. It did take some retraining both on my part and of others part in my direct area. I am still a go to person but people have learnt to respect that when I am not available I am not available.

The second was my personal life. This is what I struggled with. I thought to be accepted that I had to go with the flow. To accept a crappy comment or to be treated second best due to a fear that I would be rejected. I focussed a lot of time into the area and still do. I still have to catch myself sometimes as I have a tendency to regress which is not healthy. What the word "No" gave me was very defined boundaries. These boundaries were not to be crossed as these were my threshold. These, when crossed and I kept quiet about them left me feeling empty and lonely inside even if I was with someone. I feel that the word "No" was more than that. It gave me confidence again and also let people know that I did matter. Now, I am by no means perfect at saying "No" all the time, but I am better at it and it has allowed me to walk away from unhealthy relationships because the people that did not respect these boundaries were not worth the angst felt because they were not considerate of others......