How to say no and not feel bad about it and have peace while doing it. How to break free from people pleasing, not to feel bad about saying no and how to enjoy a peaceful life. I will tell you how I went from saying yes to everyone and everything to saying yes to the things I actually wanted. Spoiler alert: You actually can have a peaceful life and not say yes to everything all while maintaining your household.
Stop making yourself so busy.
Okay, now before you stop reading, hear me out. I was so stressed and attending all of the events and parties and playdates, but I couldn’t keep my house clean, get our schoolwork done, be a patient mother or a loving wife, do any hobbies I wanted, etc. Or really just enjoy life. I was so confused I thought this is what we do, all the things, see all the people and then life just keeps going on happily and we survive it. Boy was I wrong! I was so wrong. This was a difficult journey for me to learn too because I felt like if I wasn’t doing everything then I would be missing out with friends, my kids would be missing out and that some how I was a loser because I wasn’t at every event. And surely people didn’t like me and were mad at me because I didn’t attend. But I wanted to do all of these things and I also wanted to manage my home well. No, seriously, I really wanted to do all the things and I still do, but I didn’t want to do them more than have peace in my home.
So what did I do?
I had a nice date with my husband and we talked about what is it we really want in life and what we are trying to accomplish as parents. Turns out we had the same ideas, we were running too much and not being intentional enough with our time at home. I don’t know about you, but I need practical steps to help me get to my goal. First, we decided for two weekends out of the month we won’t have any plans. (This worked for us at the time because our kids were only in sports during the week.) So if there was a birthday party one weekend or a grandparent visiting or a plan with a friend that was counted as an event for one weekend! Same thing for another weekend of the month. They could be back to back weekends or not. Obviously, we can’t live life super rigidly so sometimes we did things three weekends out of the month, sometimes one weekend of the month…the goal here is to find a balance.
We came up with this idea because we were having plans every single weekend of every month and we were extremely exhausted, but we still wanted to have somewhat of a life. I also needed something of a guideline to go by. It was also easier when my husband and I agreed on the two weekends a month because if we said yes to something we would have to go back and tell the other we over booked and didn’t keep our promise to one another. No one wants to do that!
How to create peace
Really what we needed to do was to be content being home and restructure our life and expectations. Overtime that is what happened. Our kids do sports on the weekends now so our weekends look a little different, but let me tell you what really changed during this time. We realized the more we said no to events or things the less we felt like we were missing out! (Yes it took time, it wasn’t instant). We started to have time to do things together as a family. Then it became easier to say yes to the things we actually could say yes to without sacrificing our family or our peace. It was like we just needed a reset to realize what was a healthy amount of home versus outings. Or even other people versus our own family. We also needed to realize how much we needed that time together at home, we started to create such a peaceful atmosphere in our home. It is kind of crazy to think we live in a world where we are told that we should always be on the go, I do not think that is how God designed it to be. Do I think we are supposed to be hermits? NO! I repeat, NO! But, I don’t think it is supposed to be going all the time though.
REMEMBER THESE ARE MY OPINIONS BASED OFF WHAT I HAVE LEARNED IN MY OWN LIFE.
Please don’t take anything I am saying the wrong way, these are things I have learned during my own journey of peace. Everyone’s life and tolerances will be different, that is okay. We all don’t have to be the same to thrive. How boring would that be if God created us all the same! We all have different levels of what we consider busy.
I really started asking God why do I have such a desire to be so liked and loved and involved with everyone! It was so draining and I couldn’t understand why I would say yes to plans with someone and then five minutes later realize I didn’t actually want to say yes. It isn’t that I didn’t want to hang out with these people, I loved them. I just didn’t really actually want to say yes for one reason or another.
What I found out is I really have a desire to want everyone to feel loved and welcomed! Not a bad thing, right? However, when it starts to consume me and I am making choices based on others being happy and not my own family or myself, then getting stressed out, it is a bad thing. It took me so long to learn this! I MEAN SO LONG! I felt like if I was saying no to someone I was hurting their feelings and I really didn’t want to hurt them. Through time and trial and error I learned that just because I am saying no doesn’t mean I don’t like the person and I definitely was not trying to hurt them!
How did I learn not to hurt people?
First, I realized I wasn’t hurting anyone. I wasn’t disappointing anyone and no one was mad at me. I also realized that if someone was disappointed or mad at me all because I said no, I wasn’t the issue. I am allowed to say no and not feel guilty. This took a lot of praying and healing to get here to this position of peace. If you have this issue really look inward and ask the Lord to show you why you feel this way and struggle with this. Often times the answer is we care more about pleasing people than we do about pleasing God. Proverbs 1:7 says The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. (If you don’t have a healthy fear of God, I highly recommend this book). It can also come out as dealing with issues from being a people pleaser, or growing up thinking you have to be the one to fix everything and be there for everyone. I promise if you ask Jesus to heal you from this he will and you will be free from it. I went from feeling guilty for telling someone no because I literally couldn’t make it to a birthday party because I had two other events that day that over lapped; to being able to politely and kindly say no thank you to things I was invited to with out feeling like I was missing out or feeling guilty.
Remember the goal is peace
After you have decided what you’re limit is then I recommend making a list of things you want your life to look like. What do you want to have time for that you don’t right now? Who do you want to have time for? What do you want your time at home to look like?
For me it kind of looks like this: I want to be able to be in God’s word everyday. I want to cook healthy meals for my family and most of those meals be around a table screen free. Time to work on projects in our home. Having fun with my children and husband. Keeping the house clean. Doing school and the extras that we want to do for fun. Be creative and joyful doing one of the million hobbies I start!
Perfectionism is not the goal for peace. Perfectionism is the thief of joy. READ THAT AGAIN… perfectionism is the thief of joy. There is no way you well ever have joy if you’re constantly striving to be perfect because none of us are perfect so we will always fall short. That is why Jesus came, to save us and make us whole.
Once you have your list… on to peace
Take one thing at a time and write out 2-3 practical things you can do to accomplish those goals. For example: having time to work on our house projects required us to have more free weekends so we set a goal for no more than 2 weekends out of each month we won’t have plans. For the spending time in God’s word daily required me to get up before my children. First I started with fifteen minutes then twenty five now I’m at an hour. Start small, set realistic goals, be consistent.
You will definitely have to reevaluate your list and goals and what you’re doing often. During the holiday months my sister and I do a ton of craft shows with our business Sugar Creek Farm & Co so almost every weekend is taken up by that, but we adjust during the week by making practically no plans and any volunteering I do goes almost to zero. Then I start back up in January. Everything is fine by me stepping down for a short period of time and no one gets mad at me.
Point: make goals, make a list to achieve those goals, be flexible and realistic, adjust accordingly. Also, remember I am still learning in this journey, there are so many layers and decisions along the way.
Closing
If I can leave you with one thing it would be to pray and ask God to show you where to slow down, where to prioritize and how to draw you closer to him. God will always meet us where we are and help us along the way. Peace is something that we all desire so lean in, listen to the Holy Spirit and do the hard work. Protect your family by protecting your peace. If I can pray for you in any way or if you have more questions please comment below or email me any time!
Tiffany
Ministry of the Homemaker
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