How to Shift from Always-Say-YES to be I'm-Brave-to-Say-NO?
By Isti Toq’ah ~ Founder of 10-Minute Pause Initiative “Humane Human”
As an Asian especially Indonesian, being polite is a MUST according to my family and neighbors. By the time I grew up, I realized there's something wrong with this act of hospitality. Besides torturing, it's also destroying someone's soul who's actually not in the good shape to keep saying YES. Then, how can I shift from this always-say-YES upbringing to have an I'm-brave-to-say-NO attitude?
First, I realize that I am alive not to please everybody. Hence, how can I make others happy when I am unhappy? That doesn't make sense, right? Today I read a wise quote which more or less says,
"Why do you busy yourself taking care other people's gardens? Why don't you beautify yours and let the likeminded ones come to you and enjoy your garden together?"
This advice sounds simple, but it's a wake-up call for me and many of us that spend (read: WASTE) time to mind what other people say and demand?
Second, self-love first before the rest. Along with the sophistication of human's civilization, mental health becomes an important urge besides food, clothing, and shelter. What distinguishes human with other creatures is conscience. I used to think that conscience is only used to be kind to others, to each other's human fellows. Now I understand that:
I also need to humanize myself besides humanizing my human fellows. The other term of humanizing self is self-love.
Third, after I relearned that always-say-YES is destructive, I tried and still try hard to unlearn it and learn new thing which is I'm-brave-to-say-NO. Internalizing a new attitude or habit is challenging, but it doesn't mean it's not possible.
It's widely known that a habit or attitude can be built for 21/90 days. 21 days are the number of days needed to get used to new habit or attitude. Then, 90 days are the days required to make it as a permanent lifestyle.
This formula found by Doctor Maxwell Maltz which he wrote in a book titled Psycho-Cybernetics published in 1966. I believe this idea is still relevant. And in this pandemic time where most of us get more chance to stay at home, why not we take a chance to think and create this new attitude of I'm-brave-to-say-NO.
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