Growing up I was a kind of person who is always shy to say what I want, always not been able to say no to anyone.
I was always trying to please people even if it means that I will displease myself.
When I got into higher institution I tried be have less friends and always be on my own cause I felt it would make me comfortable and people won’t take advantage of me, but it didn’t work the way I thought because I started having friends who were in same department as me, most times I will have something doing someone will just come and ask me to help her out in making her hair or arranging her hair I won’t be able to say no even though I had something important I was doing.
Every Sunday morning or anytime we have an occasion in school they always come for me to do their makeup and arrange their hair I won’t say no will do it for them when I know I need to do mine too, I will then end up going to the event unorganized.
At a time in school I thought to myself that I needed to start saying no because I knew that they were taking advantage of the fact that I could not say no and was always submissive to make me do hairs and makeup for free. So I started learning how to say no, and it helped me because I started been organized to events, I started having time for myself. but was not still strong enough to stand on my word(NO).
After school I started learning how to do makeup in a more professional way my boss was taking advantage of me, by sending me on jobs, I will stress myself to do makeup for 3-4 people and also I will use my own money for transportation and at the end when they pay her for the job she won’t give me any money at-all.
At a time I was thinking of how I will be stressing myself, waking up early and going on jobs and at the end no income.
I was angry at myself for always been submissive up to this age of my life, so I decided to let her know that I was not okay with the fact that I go to jobs for her and she does not give me anything in return and she said the next job she was going to pay me. I was so happy at myself for expressing how I felt when she sent me money after the next job I did.
After that experience with my boss, I finished learning under her and decided to rent a space for myself, where I have to be paying weekly for the space given to me.
The lady that owns the saloon saw that I was a submissive type, she tried to take advantage of me by making me tend to her customers without paying for my services even with the fact that I pay her weekly for the space. but little does she know I can now express my feelings even though I always acted submissive, I told her that if she wants me to be assisting her that we need to be dividing any money we make and she agreed.
Now any service I render to her customers I get my own pay from the money she receives, I am so happy that I told her because if I had not expressed how I felt I know I would still be rendering free services and still be paying her for the space.
So hivers, I want us to stand up for ourselves and learn how to say no to anything and anyone you know is not of benefit to you. It’s not a crime to care for your own benefit, and it’s always good to speak up at the right time before it’s to late and they exploit and take advantage of you.
Because most times we are the one that give them the sign that we are open for exploitation, because once you accept the first move they bring to you they will always take advantage of you, so it’s best to not give yourself out by always speaking up at the right time.
I want to thank 