5:00 o’clock in the morning, my alarm rings. I slowly open my eyes and the first thought, which comes to my mind is “I feel weak and tired.” It seems like that the last days or even weeks sucked out the energy out of me. To be honest, I feel like this from time to time. Running from A to B, having a big inner-to-do-list every day and ending up tired in bed. Too tired to either read a book or to watch Youtube or Netflix. To say it in short: Too tired to have a little bit of ME-time after doing all the things all day long for someone else.

How many times we fall asleep tired with our clothes on, we wore all day, the light on and with makeup to recognize that we even hadn’t had the energy to change our clothes and make us ready for bed?

„I recognized that not my workload increased, rather that I forgot to set boundaries in very important but significant situations to protect myself from what is sucking out the most energy out of me: saying yes to other people.“

Losing yourself in the fear of disappointing someone else

Finally, it was the result of my decisions – the summary of my Yes and No’s during the past weeks. I couldn’t blame anyone more for this status than myself. The reason was simple:

„Setting boundaries will bring up emotions which aren’t always positive. Emotions like disappointment, sadness or anger can be the result.“

What we forget in these moment is to distance ourself from emotions of others. The emotions, which are self-created results. Every person is responsible for what she or he is feeling.

„Finally, I found out that the fear of disappointing someone else caused the risk of disappointing myself.“

Your inner peace is a castle!

Don’t get me wrong – I am a very social and connective person, but sometimes I prefer the need of someone else over mine. The result is that we please others, but the most important persons remain unnoticed: OURSELF. Yes, to be balanced out mentally also means being egoistic and prioritize you over someone else when it is needed. It is not about going through this world and screaming “ME” all the time.

„More about bringing up a red flag, when someone tries to cross your boundaries.“

Imagine that your inner peace is a castle and there is a river – our boundaries – around it to protect this beautifully built castle. Sometimes people jump into this river and try to swim over and we’ll let them. They’ll even knock on our doors and come for dinner and all we’ll do is to sit there and serve them delicious food instead of putting a fence around this river – our character – and tell them what will happen when they cross your personal river – our boundaries.

Fear vs. Courage

I had a situation when I still was a student at the nursery school. The work asked me to do an extra shift, because someone else was ill. While I was busy preparing myself for the final exams, I thought about going to work for the appreciation and gratitude of the boss. I feared saying NO will influence my final mark at work. But guess how I decided? I said NO. I prioritized myself. Looking back this was the best decision I’ve ever made, because I was more relaxed during the preparation for the exams. Working would have stressed me more than I already was.

Therefore, it is very important to set boundaries. When someone oversteps your standards, have the courage to say no! Some people and even organizations live from our fear of saying no.

„Saying yes and agreeing all the time is comfortable, it creates no conflicts and we can continue with our work like we usually do.“

What I also noticed personally the last weeks is, that I agreed a lot when someone else said: “Look I am stressed at the moment, can we do that on xyz?”. And my response always was “Yes, of course why not, I will make time for that.” So, I tried to create a space between all my work to meet the standards of someone else, while forgetting I have my own.

That was the point, when I recognized that this is sucking the energy out of me. It felt like overtaking the stress which the other person loses, because I was compromising, was getting to be my own stress. So, I recognized that I had to stop to make other people’s problems to my own. Saying NO sometimes or saying what you image can save a lot of headache.

The power of having standards

Standards are your definition of how you want to be treated and which behaviour you will accept. And I have the feeling that people can smell it when you are too soft or to unsure with what you really want in your life – like when you are ready to let someone else swim over the river, get into your beautiful castle and have dinner. Even when they recognize what you accept and what not they’ll try to diminish them. Sentences like:

“Oh wow you are really picky.” or “Why you are stressing about this?”

are red flags – they show us that

1. the other person doesn’t respect us for what we are and more importantly: what we expect and
2. that they can’t meet what we want. That means they’ll try to cross the river even when you put a fence around it.

Instead of cutting these people directly out of our plans, we’ll still believe in good, invest more energy and time until there is no energy inside ourselves. We’ll invest in someone, who’ll create an outcome, which won’t even meet nearly what we want. Sadly, we’ll see the results only after we are sucked out and tired. We’ll lose ourselves by investing too much in someone else. Do your inner peace a favour and say bye to this bad possibility. You don’t need anyone in your life who can’t accept you for who you are.

„Caring for others is great but it shouldn’t let feel a person empty, who invests a lot of time and more in this situation.“

Selfcare is taking time for yourself

Another example is an experience during my studies. While I worked part time, I manged to study fulltime and have my own household. I was always someone, who had high expectations towards myself. So, I worked and worked, wrote every exam and tried to make space for my friends and family – until I felt one day that I had to stop, or I will run into the open arms of a Burnout in the long run.

So, I decided to take a step back and cancel the private plans the next month. In this moment it felt like a relief, because I hadn’t had in mind anymore that I had to meet someone’s needs.

„I took the risk to hurt someone else to find myself back and it worked.“

Taking time for ourselves is an uncommon topic, especially in eastern societies. We learn from other mothers how others benefit from your self-sacrificing behaviour. This does not only cause that we feel tired, but also that we are running into a mental breakdown.

„We are afraid that we disconnect with others by saying no while forgetting that we are disconnecting us from ourselves by saying yes all the time.“

Cutting people of your life is not always a solution. Every kind of relationship is complex, but when you feel like you won’t benefit from something in the long term, why not let this situation go and look for something, which satisfies you more? What’s wrong about this?

„Your time is rare, invest it wisely.“

Prioritize yourself

Sometimes being egoistic is not only healthy, but also needed – for you, your mental health and your wellbeing. Next time when you wake up and feel like you don’t have energy or even time for your own life, ask yourself if you set your priorities right.

„When you learn to set healthy boundaries, it feels like a relief from expectations, stress and all the negativity, which goes within unhealthy yes-saying.“

Saying No is also caring for yourself. This is a trait, which especially girls got taught not to do – or somebody couldn’t like them for saying NO. But what stays at the end of the day is not the feeling that you are liked by a bunch of persons but how you see yourself. By feeling tired you are not pleasing yourself. End this vicious circle by finding out what you deserve. Don’t let anyone overstep these limits and more important: Don’t overstep them yourself. Take care of you. If you don’t do it, no one else will.

„Prioritize yourself, eternally.“

Picture for this article drawn by the talented Arts by Arthy. Thank you for your work!