I am writing 31 fighting scarcity. I will be collecting them all at the starting point. I hope you join

Hello. My name is Abby and I am addicted to saying yes.

I know. It doesn’t sound like a problem. But it is. Some times in my life I have it under control, and other times it absolutely explodes in ways that leave me feeling exhausted and resentful.  I mean, how come SOMEONE ELSE isn’t doing this thing? Oh. Yeah. Because I said “Sure!” No Problem” “I got this!”

And let me be clear….I really did mean that when I said it. I really did mean yes. I really did have that. In my mind it really was not a problem.

But that was the fifth yes I gave, or that was the first yes but I would go on to give seven more. So by the time I got to the thing I said yes to….I wasn’t as ready as I thought I would be. No problem after no problem can spiral into: this is sort of a bigger deal than I thought it was going to be pretty quickly.

The thing is, it feels good in the moment to say yes.

The thing is, the second I put too much on my plate I can no longer enjoy any of it. I just scarf everything as fast as possible, go through the motions, do the first thing while planning the next and on and on and on. So the things I said YES to, quickly turn into, okay I am here…..but not really.

Scarcity gets us on both sides of this. FIRST: I sometimes say yes because I am believing in scarcity. If I am believing that I am bound to run out of chances, or if the love will run out if I say no, or if somebody needs to do it (FYI: My name and your name are not SOMEBODY. When you hear we need SOMEBODY to… that doesn’t mean it is you.)

Being a yes addict

You have to say no for your yesses to really count.