Have you ever wondered why you are willing to live a life that isn’t your ideal life? Or maybe you’ve wondered why you can’t seem to say no to things that aren’t serving you or making you happy. Let’s take a look at why people accept less than they want and figure out how you can “Decide what kind of life you actually want. Then say no to everything that Isn’t that.”
Why We Settle
People decide to settle for what they have or what they can get for several reasons.
- We get comfortable with the way things currently are.
- We think we don’t deserve better than what we have.
- We are emotionally attached to what we have.
- We are afraid of taking risks to get what we want.
- We deny that our current life isn’t what we want.
- We base what we want on the lives of other people and not on what we actually want.
No matter what your reason for settling is, it prevents you from getting the life you want.
The Difficulty of Saying No
Another thing that prevents us from living our ideal life is not being able to say no to things we don’t want.
One reason we struggle to say no is that we don’t want to create conflict. We think that refusing someone’s request will put us at odds with that person. Similarly, we may not say no because we don’t want to disappoint someone or ruin a relationship with them. In addition, we might think that saying no will hurt our chances of future opportunities or we feel like we’ll regret saying no in the future.
Saying yes to things isn’t always bad, but saying yes to everything puts you in a precarious situation and fills your valuable time with tasks that you never wanted to do.
How to Start Living the Life You Want
If your life isn’t what you want it to be, you can always take change it for the better. Here are four ways you can start living the life you want.
Look at Your Current Life
To start living your ideal life, you first need to take a good look at your current life. What about your life isn’t what you want it to be? Think about the many areas of your life: your relationships, your home, your job, your schedule, your hobbies, your habits, etc.
Dream a Little Bit
In addition to analyzing your current life, take some time to dream about your ideal life. A good way to do this is to take out a piece of paper and write a story about an ideal day in your life like it already happened. Be specific and add as much detail as possible. Then read your story over and see what changes you need to make to achieve that life.
Take Action
Now that you know what you want out of life, take action to make the changes you want to make. Outline 5 steps you need to take to make each change, and focus on devoting your energy to one change at a time.
Learn to Say No
While you are building the life you want, it is important that you learn to say no to what you don’t want. Your time needs to be devoted to what matters to you and what makes you thrive. Say no to anything that doesn’t support your ideal life.
You always have choices in life. You can settle for the life you have, or you can make the life you want. You can say yes to things you don’t want to do, or you can say no and reserve your time for things that serve you.
