Time to Start Cancelling Your future Appointments

I am often amazed by human kindness. We are excellent at being kind to others, and to ourselves. But we are sometimes also really good at sabotaging our future selves. And I don’t mean in all the obvious ways. Sometimes, we agree to doing something in the future that we won’t do now. I think we will all live with a lot less worry in our lives if we were as kind to our future selves as we are to our present selves.

Let me explain. We are often approached by people to set up a meeting or a sales pitch or something similar. If they asked for a meeting today, we would definitely say no, because we know how busy we are on that particular day, and we also know that this meeting is not important in our lives. But if someone asks us for such a meeting way into the future, we are more likely to say yes.

Then, as the day draws closer, we get increasingly anxious, because we really don’t want or need this appointment in our lives.

I think the time has come for us to change our approach to kicking the can down the road.

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1. Understand yourself

The reason we constantly accept appointments that we really don’t need in our lives is that we are genetically hotwired not to say no. We don’t want to be nasty to other people, so we indulge them. But this approach doesn’t do anyone any favors. We are getting locked into something we don’t want, and sometime in the future, someone is going to be selling us on something we don’t want either. Better to stand firm and not put our future selves in that position.

2. Future you is the same as present you

If you don’t want to deal with something today, why would you want a future version of yourself to deal with it. We have this habit of confusing delaying with avoiding. If you don’t want it now, you can bet that you wouldn’t want it in the future. So don’t delay. See this as an opportunity to practice being firm. Protect your future self by not delaying something, but to protect your future self from it by saying no in the present. When you clear your diary from things you don’t need, both your present and future self will feel a lot more content.

3. Take the right steps

Once you have mastered the art of saying no to things you don’t really need in your life, you can look at your current schedule and decide if everything in there is really necessary. You may even find that some tasks that form an integral part of your daily life are really not that important, even if others at your work or even your personal life consider them important.

Know your commitments and how valuable your precious time is. Then, when someone asks you to dedicate some of your time to a new commitment, you’ll know that you simply cannot do it.

Be honest when you tell them that: “I just can’t right now." They’ll sympathize as they likely have a lot going on as well, and they’ll respect your openness, honesty, and attention to self-care.

You may have to have a few uncomfortable conversations, but in the end you could create a schedule filled only with the really important stuff.

The stuff that both you and those around you really appreciate when you get it done.

Remember that when you learn to say no, isn’t about being mean. It’s about taking care of your time, energy, and sanity. Once you learn how to say no in a good way, people will respect your willingness to practice self-care and prioritization.

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