Last week I met up with my literary agent, David Headley, to talk about my next books and for a general catch up. Whilst we come from very different backgrounds, it was uncanny how both of us are our own worst enemies. Like the song from Oklahoma, we just can’t say no.

Anyone who has flown on an aircraft will be familiar with the instruction to "put your own oxygen mask on before helping others". This makes perfect sense in the event of an impending air crash as we would be no good to anyone else if we can’t breathe. Why then don’t we take that logic into our everyday, hopefully less dramatic, lives? My default position has always been the opposite and, after I retired from the police, I found that my inability to say "no" had a profound effect on me and my family. I never intended to take on so many projects as I was supposed to be winding down. However, take them on I did and it felt like being at a buffet, picking up morsels of food then looking down and realising my plate was groaning to the point that I couldn’t manage any of it. I’d like to say I have learned from that, but as my chat with David showed, I sadly can’t.

The fact is, "yes" is much easier and socially acceptable to say. Of course, we cannot go round declining every opportunity, offer of work or challenge but who hasn’t agreed to something they didn’t have the time, inclination or energy for, knowing they’d struggle from the outset? Over one six-month period I was asked to undertake five safeguarding reviews for different local authorities. Each takes at least six months and, rewarding as they are, they are a huge drain in many ways. I should have said no to at least three of them, but I didn’t and whilst I completed them all, the toll they took lingered for months.

Why do we do it then? For me it’s a combination of wanting to be accommodating, avoiding the confrontation of rejecting people, fear of missing out ("I’ll never be asked to do anything again") and disliking it when people say no to me. It’s the same with social situations. I can’t be alone in accepting invitations out of a sense of duty, dreading it from the moment I said yes and yearning for that sense of relief when it’s all over.

The more we say yes, the more people expect us to in the future so the more the unwelcome requests pile up and so it goes on. Requests and invitations are just that, they are not compulsions despite what our inner voices might tell us.

Saying "no" is putting our own needs and well-being first. It’s boundary setting and regaining control over our time and energy. We wouldn’t allow others to syphon from our bank accounts so why are we so free and easy with our other resources? The key is defining our goals, values and interests, then, so far as we are able, nurturing those and only those.

I once read a book called "Will it Make the Boat go Faster?" by Olympic gold medal-winning rower, Ben Hunt-Davis. The premise is about defining what you want from life (in his case winning a gold in the 2000 Olympics; feel free to choose something less lofty) and measuring everything you do against that aim. In the case of his team, it was literally making the boat go faster, but for us mere mortals it could be anything; the same principle applies. One of my desires is to write the best novels I can so anything that doesn’t support that (or go towards my other goals) should be met with a resounding no.

Author and blogger Mike Robbins was spot on when he said that when we don’t say "no" in an authentic way, we feel burdened, resentful, and even victimised, forgetting that we were the ones who said yes in the first place.

I, for one, will be putting my own oxygen mask on first and be braver in saying "no" more often. I won’t always manage that but, in time, I am convinced I won’t lose friends or work offers and my aspirations will be more than just pipe dreams.