Learning to say no gracefully

I was a type of kid who wanted to make alot of friends. And the way to do that was to help people. Well atleast in my mind it was. And actually it helped. I was there for anyone at anytime and it developed this thing in the minds of everyone that Aatif (me) is a very helpful lad, ask him, he wont turn you down. So yeah, more people, more friends. But it kind-of started pulling me back. How was it pulling me back? Well i slowly began to realise that other peoples priorities were taking place in my life more than my own. 

Heres a gist to what im talking about,

So yeah, one of the many instances, where my time used to get wasted because i had to send people work, and send them properly or else theyll get mad cuz one of the degit went missing. I was sort of becoming a yes man, always agreeing and it was all my fault. No one else to blame. No one manipulated me to do it, nor forced me, it was all me, just because i thought it is nice to help people like this, comes to show how nice and kind hearted i am. But no, i later realsied that i was my own enemy. 

I used to help people in every assignment while stopping my own, had to come at days when i shouldve been relaxing at home, teaching everyone for exams while not learning anything new my self, and well many more. 

It was just because i didnt say no.

Now how did i come to realise that this is going so wrong, is when they all turned on me. When i stopped helping them, they started putting me down, trying to shut me up, and thats when i came to realise that, that is not how friends are made. Friends are not those if you help them, they're all good to you, and once you can't or are not able to help, they stop being your friends. They are not your true friends.

The once who turned on me, turned on me so severe that they probably dont even remember half the things iv done for them.

Ill reference a book, iv read and got the inspiration to write this passage, the book is called "who will cry when you die" by Robin Sharma. It has these beautiful words, "The most effective people concentrate on their 'areas of excellence,' that is, on the things they do best and on those high-impact activities that will advance their lifework. In being so consumed by the important things, they find it easy to say no to the less-than-worthy distractions that clamor for their attention."

It also has an example of a very famous basket ball player Michael Jordan, saying, that he didnt design his costumes, nor scheule his travel plannings nor did he negotitae his contracts, instead he focused on doing what he did best, and that it playing basketball, and left the rest to his handlers.

To hopfully my reader got some inspiration out of what iv written. Leave your thought down below so that i could know what you guys feel about this.