How to say “no” to fiercely uphold your goals

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

This is in response to the WordPress prompt above.

Avoidance of saying “no”

People often shy away from saying “no” to things things that would interfere with their goals. This is because most people want others to think that they are nice and caring, rather than selfish and uncaring. They believe that saying “no” to others puts them in a bad light. As such, the deception of niceness engulfs them and they rather say “yes” whereas they truly want to say “no”.

Saying “yes” and abandoning our goals

The problem that arises is that we end up saying “yes” even to things that would interfere with our goals. We agree to help that neighbour carry out an errand. However, this is at the expense of doing something equally important at that particular time, which would have moved us closer to our goals.

We agree to loan money to a friend, who may not repay the loan. Meanwhile, we are just short of reaching the amount needed for something very important that we have been saving for for a long time. The list can go on and on… We end up becoming people pleasers and we lose our authentic selves.

Fiercely upholding our goals

I think that it is important to say “no” often to things that would interfere with our goals. By so doing, we remain authentic to ourselves and we move closer to achieving our goals. We should fiercely uphold our goals and strive to achieve our purpose in life!

Exceptions

On the other hand, there are situations whereby we may make exceptions to this. We may make exceptions where lives are at stake or for the purpose of serving the common good. Where a friend requests for money from you to avoid an eviction and homelessness, it is imperative to help that friend if you can. This is despite the fact that you may have been saving up for something important, which would help you to achieve your goals. Although giving out this money would inevitably delay the process, it is the right thing to do.

Also, where somebody’s life and safety is at stake, that supersedes all. On a recent leisure trip by car with a friend to see a waterfall in my country as part of domestic tourism and adventure, my friend and I came across an injured man. A car had just hit him and he had fallen off his motorbike. Although not fatally injured, he was bleeding out of his leg. Unfortunately, there was no ambulance available and the car of the dazed driver was full of goods.

Thus, we stepped in and took the injured man to the nearest hospital, which was just a few yards away. The driver followed us. After we left them at the hospital, we had to go to a car wash to thoroughly wash the car and clean all the blood. It was only after all this that we continued with our tour to see the waterfall. Though stopping to help the injured man momentarily interfered with our goal of domestic tourism, a person’s life was at stake and that was more important.

Saying “yes” or “no”

I have detailed how to say “no” in a previous article about the art of saying “no”. Much as we should fiercely uphold our goals, we should be discerning with reference to knowing when to say “no” and when to say “yes”.

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