day 15::the art of saying no

half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough. ~josh billings

it’s only taken me 46 1/2 years but i have finally figured something out – i cannot do everything.

trust me…no one was more surprised than me to learn this.

i have a special gift for making things harder than they need to be.  and most of the time, it is due to my inability to say no.  it sounds so simple….but it’s not easy.

it’s hard to say no to things i love do – baking, gardening, crafting, photography – they all bring me so much happiness.  but between my ‘real’ job and my home, my family…sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day.  and on those occasions where i do try to do everything?   well i just end up making everyone i love miserable…including myself.

why is saying no hard for me?  i think sometimes it’s because i have these ridiculous unrealistic, self-imposed ideas of the way things should be.  perfectionist tendencies that unconsciously drive me to do way more than is necessary.  sometimes it’s the fear of missing out.  and then my own personal kryptonite…fear of letting others down.

so what is a perfectionist, overachiever to do?  well i think a good place to start is by giving myself a break…there is no shame in taking the easy way out from time to time.  there is also {gulp} no shame in asking for help.   and finally, God help me, i could try to delegate a little more or pay someone else to do the things i don’t enjoy doing.

i can do all this through him who gives me strength. ~phil 4:13

i wish i had some awesome insight to share or nice, tidy bow with which to wrap up this blog post.  clearly i still have a lot of work to do in this regard.  however my hope is that in learning to say no to things that are driven by fear, it will create time and space for the things that bring me joy and inspire me.

so if you’ll excuse me, i’m going to start looking for a housekeeper.

thank you so much for joining me on my 31 day writing challenge. to see all of the posts in this series, please click here. and if you would like to receive future posts via email, you can subscribe here.