The older you get the easier it is to say “no” to things you don’t want to do. When you were younger that wasn’t the case. You had to eat your vegetables, you had to go to school, you had to read, you had to meet new people. All of those “had to’s” were supposed to prepare you for adulthood with the hope they would eventually become “want to’s”. The challenge for most of us is that we weren’t internally motivated to complete those tasks, we instead were externally motivated by things like reward, positive affirmations or probably more likely punishment, guilt, and shame.

Because we never internally saw the value in those “had to’s,” now that we have moved past the stage of others programming our lives we exercise our “mature” voice and say “no”. Maybe the “no” isn’t even audible, but it is still as powerful. Frequently saying “no” to things you’re not comfortable with is keeping you stuck and average.