As I was hurrying through my morning routine one day, I got a yank on my sweater: “Mommy? I need to ask you a question…” “OK…” I half-heartedly answered as I simultaneously curled my hair and gulped some lukewarm tea.

My daughter evaluated me for a beat, then said, “Never mind. You’ll say no.” And she walked downstairs. Then the guilt set in. I put down the hot curling iron and the tea and focused on her for a moment. (In the end, I did say no, because the question involved taking an expensive electronic toy to school.)

But after she was on the bus that day, and I was on my way to work, I took a moment to think about how she answered her own question. She knew. Even at 6, she could see how scattered I was. I’m 40+ years older than her – why didn’t I do it? Not acceptable.

I realised my problem: it was time for me not just to slow down, but stop. Stop and take a deep breath. Stop and smell the roses, as they say. Stop saying yes to things that took me away from the life I wanted, but also stop saying “not now” or “no” to things and people I did like.

That’s why I want to apologise to everyone I’ve said yes to in the past five or so years. I had no business saying yes to you. It’s not that I don’t like you or your cause. I’m pretty sure I haven’t given 100% of myself to anything I’ve said yes to. It boils down to this: I haven’t had time to focus ALL of my energy on any one thing since the kids were born. Being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none wasn’t fair to anyone or anything I said yes to.

For a while, I ran my own business while working full-time. Then I cut back on the freelancing, only to resurrect it when dollar signs hypnotised me into saying yes again, albeit hesitantly. All of the volunteer efforts I’ve done, initially, I really wanted to commit to because I believed in them. Which then begat more offers or requests to volunteer, because … apparently I did do a good job at some of it, despite my scattered focus.

Sure, I learned a few new skills from my “yes” efforts, and I picked up some nice material for my resume. And I probably got my new job because of those skills and the lines on my resume.
Then it became too much, and I realised I was saying yes to the wrong things. All of my “yeses” were actually personal nos…. to my husband, my kids, my friends, my family, a good night’s sleep, a settled stomach, a stack of ignored novels, housecleaning, and even showers sometimes. (I know! Eww!)

When I heard questions like, “Mommy, can you play with me?” or “Hey, let’s go out for coffee/wine/lunch/shopping/a movie/a walk”,… these were my standard answers: “I have to work.” “I’m too busy.” “I have a deadline.” “I really need to get this done first.” “I need to make a phone call/return this email/write this.”

I wasn’t saying directly, but those were my ways of saying no. Because, on the other end, I was apologising to my clients for being late more than I was working. I should have seen that I was wasting all my precious spare time, inefficiently, because I finally get that it is SO, SO precious at work. On a computer. Online. With strangers. Who sometimes paid me and sometimes did not.

As I drove to work that day, I had to ask myself a tricky question: How would this change?
I thought about one friend after another lately, each revealing illnesses or other issues in their lives that stopped them cold. Situations that kept them from saying yes or no. Their answer could only be “pause.”

They couldn’t live the way they wanted anymore. They had serious regrets about the choices they’d made to that point. Once the pause button was pushed, there was only one choice ahead of them: Play. But it wasn’t the story they had had in mind.

So if I kept saying yes to all this work and hahalf-heartedlydoing it, was I actually living my life, or just making it through the day, the week, the month… the year? I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone or anything hit the pause button on me and keep me from living out my story.
So I began turning the yeses into NNOs (in capital letters). I developed a list of people who could take on my side work, and started telling people, “No, but… here’s someone who might say yes.” I resignedfrom from two volunteer positions and began planning to resign from others. By this summer, I plan to retain one volunteer position, and it’s the one that requires the least time and effort.

Because now it’s time to say yes to me – my creative side, my own writing (that I definitely don’t get paid for), my nose in a book, my walks with the dog, my hot tea in the mornings, my dates with my husband, and playing board games and pretending with the kids. Be the Jill of MY trades. No one else can do that.

Thank God my kids, friends, husband, and family kept asking, “Can you come out and play?” Because I finally really heard them, and decided that my new answer was going to surprise them.

It was going to be “yes” – an enthusiastic yes. A focused, happy, breathing-in-life, yes.

Shannon

Written by: Shannon Janeczek