Saying Yes is Fun! Or is it? P is for Planning.

Everyone has a word or phrase that slips out of his or her mouth easily whether it’s a curse word or an expression. Mine is, “Yes, (insert affirmative tag here)!” No one jumps at the chance to admit they have a problem or bad habit, especially when it’s something as embarrassing as saying yes to almost every favor, request, or invite. Hello, my name is CSS and I say yes to almost everything. 

But it feels goooood to say YES!

 

But why?

This may sound weird or maybe even disturbing, but I get a high saying yes to people; I become the good guy, the hero, and the fulfiller of dreams. It stems out of my desire to make people happy and see them smile. I draw energy from people’s smiles and laughter similar to how some people draw negative energy (and pleasure) from other people’s frowns and misfortunes. By the way, I hope I never meet a person of the latter persuasion. However, I soon end up as the bad guy, the breaker of promises, or worse, someone whose actions does not live up to the sweet sweet words spoken earlier. Let me clarify: Hello, my name is CSS and I say yes to almost everything, but there’s a fifty percent chance I might later contact you in the last minute to recant my yes and put in place a big disappointing no. Sigh. See what I mean? 

I said... Ah, forget it! -__-

However, no despair! There is a solution to every bad trait we want to rectify, and in my case I want to properly assess a favor, request, or invite and respond honestly instead of jumping at saying yes—all in the time frame of several seconds. I go into a mini-panic mode when I can’t respond to questions quickly because I’m a thinker. I believe it’s rude to leave this wide gap in the middle of a conversation, so that’s a second problem added to the mix.

First of all, I need stop this habit of drawing energy from people and redirect it to drawing energy from my own happiness, my own smile, and myself. It doesn’t mean I feel nothing or uninspired when goodness befalls people. It’s more about relationship dynamics where I don’t depend on pleasing others and making them feel good at the moment to make myself feel good. I should be confident enough to provide an answer based on reality in terms of what I can give and am willing to give. ALSO, commitments are important. When you break them, it sends people the message you don’t care about or value them, and that’s not the case at all. It’s like promising to give five little kids rock candy right away when you have only three Jolly Ranchers in your possession. You'll have two sour kids in your hand. Plan accordingly.

And that brings me to the P of ESPER. P is for planning. Now, I know I was supposed to share my writing process with the planning component, but I’m still working on this phase and won’t have anything to share until Monday.

Oh snap, I did it again!

Promise. Monday.

What? This face pays the bills.

Thanks for reading, ::-)

CSS