Sometimes saying yes, even when you don’t feel like it, is truly a good thing. But there’s a fine line between people pleasing and stretching yourself too thin and saying no to preserve your mental health and create healthy boundaries.
No really. It’s a thiiiin line. I think someone drew it with a mechanical pencil. 0.3mm lead.
Take it from me. I used to be such an introvert that I hoped no one would invite me to do anything so that I could just enjoy my free time alone. I need a lot of alone time to recharge, but a healthy dose of socializing, I’ve learned, is quite good for me. Just as it’s good for most of us.
So I started saying yes. To dinners. Projects. Parties. Day trips. Weekend trips. FaceTime dates. Coffee dates. Wine dates. Even – cringe – coworking dates.
After a while, I had grown so accustomed to accepting invites, that I didn’t stop to think about whether it was what I really truly wanted to do with my time. Also, as a natural people pleaser, I want to make other people happy. So when I get invited to my friend’s aunt’s four-hour indoor community theater show on the first beautiful Saturday night in May, I go.
If you’re the kind of person who accepts every invite without batting an eye, spends an hour going to five grocery stores just to get your sick friend the brand of toilet paper she asked for (yes, I have done that), or whose calendar magically fills up without many of the obligations or events being your own idea, we need to have a little talk.
The Vibrational Piggy Bank
It’s time to start implementing a creative strategy called the Vibrational Piggy Bank. And it’s all about three key principles.
Time, money, and energy.
Precious cargo, baby.
This concept may exist already. Or it may not. It’s nothing wildly groundbreaking, and yet I think it could solve a lot of social invite dilemmas and unnecessary internal agony.
All I know is that it came to me during a phone call with one of my close American friends who lives in Florence. She had been invited to Paris (to Paris!) by some old buddies from California, and even though it was Paris (Paris!) she realized that she actually did not feel like going, playing tour guide, and trying to balance work with travel.
She’d rather go to Paris when she felt like it. With her steamy new boyfriend perhaps. When she could take a week off from work and just LIVE. IT. UP.
I started thinking about how often this happens. We get invitations or proposals from people we know and love (or at least don’t hate) to go and do something that might sound fun but isn’t really our top choice for how we’d spend that time, money, or energy.
And so we drain these three crucial resources in ways that aren’t awful but don’t leave us feeling particularly happy, relaxed, inspired, spiritually fulfilled, or sometimes even physically full. I’m just saying. Family style dining isn’t always a good idea.
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How To Use Your Vibrational Piggy Bank
So the concept is pretty simple. When you get an invitation that generates an automatic “hell yes! I’m in,” response from you, you go. When it’s something important you’d rather not do but is an essential part of being a good friend, daughter, sister, or insert modifier here to someone close to you, you go. Think wedding showers, birthday celebrations, medical appointments etc.
BUT. Next time you get an invitation that isn’t obligatory, that’s supposedly “for fun”, and leaves you with a bit of hesitation, ask yourself the following questions:
How much time will this experience take? How much money will this cost?
Then,
Is this ideally how I would choose to spend this time? Is this ideally how I would choose to spend this money?
And finally,
Will this leave me with more or less positive energy when the experience is over?
If you decide to accept the invitation, that’s all well and good. If you don’t, you get to invest that amount of time and money into your vibrational piggy bank. It becomes your own sacred little pot of energy reserved for YOU, and you get to spend it on an activity of your choice (your TOP choice) when you so choose.
For example, let’s say that your good friend invites you to a group dinner. You’ve been to hundreds of these group dinners, so you know that it will be fun, but you also know it’s not going to change your life.
These dinners last 2.5 hours on average. And you usually spend $60.
You decide you’re not really feeling it this time and would rather spend that time and money on other things. The group dinners leave you feeling happy and grateful when you’re in the mood for socializing, but when you show up begrudgingly, you walk away feeling even more drained.
So what happens now? You decline the invite and have 2.5 hours and $60 to spend on yourself. In any way you choose.
You could get a mani-pedi and buy yourself a new book. You could just go for a long walk and put the $60 towards that new Furla bag you’ve been wanting to get. You could go out to dinner with your boyfriend on another night that works better for you, finally try out that cute little Italian place with the twinkle lights, and put that money towards the meal.
You would have spent that time and money anyway. So recycle it. Use it on your top choice.
Give yourself what you really need instead of giving yourself away.
I hope this concept is helpful to anyone out there who suffers from overscheduling, saying yes when they want to say no, or trying too hard to make other people happy instead of putting your happiness first.
Happy investing.
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