75: What are you saying no to?
One of the fundamental things that I teach as part of “Be Brilliant” and I want you to cultivate for yourself, is to become very protective of the life that you want.
Think of your time as your most precious asset. How you spend your time will determine what you create in your life. You need to be the gatekeeper of your time and energy, so that you have the capacity to build what you really want.
Saying no is a necessary skill. And there are two ways to say no - unintentionally and intentionally. In this episode we are talking about trade-offs, unintentional ways that we say no. I'm walking you through 4 steps to help you uncover both your yes's and your no's, so you can be more empowered with your time and energy.
And I've got 6 examples of sneaky trade-offs that most of us are doing, so I want you to be on the lookout for these in your life!
If you're saying yes to obligation, you're saying no to joy.
Key Takeaways
There are two kinds of no – intentional (a.k.a. boundaries) and unintentional (a.k.a. trade-offs).
Be protective of the life you want - honor the time and energy that is required to have what matters to you.
Follow these 4 steps to make powerful choices in your business: Aim, Uncover, Investigate, Champion.
6 sneaky tradeoffs to watch out for.
Ps, make sure you are subscribed to the show, and I’d love to hear what you think of this episode! Take a screenshot in your player and tag me @linsibrownson on Instagram.
Links
I mentioned Episode 62: Clarifying questions and Episode 63: How visualization changes your life. Put those on your playlist to listen to next! These will both help you with clarity.
Sound editing is provided by Erik Hulslander at hearnoevilmedia.com
Schedule a coaching consultation at https://www.linsibrownson.com/get-started
Transcript
You are listening to Be Brilliant in Your Business, the podcast for small business owners to be focused, energized and in charge as you build the business you love.
Hey, Mavericks. Welcome to the show.
Today, we're talking about saying no to things, which I think is a challenge for many of us. And it's probably something that we could all use a little bit more of, in our lives a little more, no.
So one of the fundamental things that I teach as part of being brilliant in your business, and something that I really want you to cultivate for yourself, is to become very protective of the life that you want.
And I want you to think of your time as a precious asset; It's the most valuable thing that you own. It's the one thing that you can never create more of, no matter what you do. So it's really important that we use it in a way that we want to, and that we recognize our ownership over our time. It's yours to spend however you choose. But most of us don't think about time this way.
We aren't nearly as intentional with our time as we could be. And our results really show it .The life that you are currently living is the reflection of what you have been thinking about. So what I mean by "be brilliant" really, is to be intentional. To be empowered. And to be focused on what you want, on what matters most to you.
So in order to do that, you need to become the gatekeeper of your time and energy, so that you have the capacity to build the things that you really want. So you got to get clear on your NO's.
Now there are two ways to say no - there are the intentional NO's, which is what most of us think about when we think or hear about learning to say no. These are setting boundaries, these are turning away projects or opportunities or clients. Actively learning how to not people-please, and not need outside validation. Or really understand our our boundaries and what we're capable of. And so that's the intentional way of saying no.
But there's also all of the unintentional No's. And these are the trade offs in our lives. So that's what we're going to talk about today; The trade offs, the unintentional No's that we make by saying yes to any of the other things. And I want you to start to really open up to what that looks like for you, because it's going to give you so much more fuel and power behind how you're choosing to spend your time and energy.
So I want to walk you through four steps to help you do this. And then there are six sneaky trade offs that I want you to start being on the lookout for. So let's dig in.
Alright, step one is aim. What are you aiming for? This is all about clarity and specificity. As we've talked about before on the podcast, and if you haven't listened to Episode 62, on clarifying questions, or Episode 63, how visualization changes your life, I want you to put those on your playlist and go listen to them next. Because those will both help you so much with creating clarity on what you're aiming for. Because the more certainty that you have about what you want, what it looks and feels like, the easier it becomes to gauge where you are in the process. And you become better at recognizing what is and isn't included in creating that.
And so you don't need to know every detail, and you couldn't possibly know that right now anyway, right? But I do want you to always be actively reorienting yourself to what it is that you really want. So it's never redundant to ask yourself, where am I going? What am I aiming for? And to really give yourself the space to answer that question over and over again. So step one is to aim and this is all about creating intention and learning to ask and listen to yourself.
Step two is uncover how you are spending your time and energy. This might be a hugely eye opening step for you. I know it was for me. And I've spent the last few years doing weekly planning and scheduling. And I'm a big list maker, so I totally thought I had this in the bag. But I was shocked to see how I was actually spending my time compared to how I thought I was spending my time.
Because here's the thing our brains tend to generalize. That's what they're built for. And so we will think things like, "I worked all day,"or "I ate pretty healthy." Or sometimes we think the opposite too, our brains also like to catastrophize things like, "I'm so unhealthy!" We create this big thing, but then when we actually break things down and look at the real picture, or when we track and measure it, sometimes it will give us a very different story. So I want you to spend a little bit of time looking backward, and reflecting on what you did over the last few days, or even over the last week.
I want you to try to really fill in all the gaps here in an honest way. So there's no judgment, the point is not to catch yourself doing naughty things like hanging out on Instagram instead of working. Yes, I see you. But the point is actually for you to really take ownership over your time. And that requires honesty. So if you already live by a calendar like I do, it will be really helpful for you to jog your memory on where you were and when.
But to be honest, you don't really need it, you can remember far more than you think you can, if you allow yourself to really go there. So reflect back at least a few days, if not your whole week. And really just check on where you were spending your time what your energy was like throughout the course of the day. What you did and what you didn't do. This is something that I promise you is going to be so valuable. And yes, it is tedious, but it will change your life.
Okay, step three. So we had aim for step one. Two, uncover. Step three is investigate. So this is where you start to look for the trade offs. What is it that you're saying no to? Looking at your time, and what you've been doing, these are all of your yeses, right? So, on purpose, or not on purpose, you said yes to every single thing that you did last week. So now I want you to start to look for what those trade offs were, what were you saying no to in the process of saying yes.
I'm gonna give you a few examples. These are sneaky little things that you might be doing, there's six of them.
The first one, this has been big on my mind lately, is doing everything yourself. DIY. So if you spent the last week wearing every single hat in your business, and knowingly doing things that you know you don't want to do. That aren't the best use of your time. That aren't part of growing your business or making your business better in a meaningful way. So if you are doing everything yourself, what are you saying no to? I'm just gonna leave you with that question. You can answer it yourself. I've got some ideas.
Okay, the second one that you might be doing is waiting. So what are the trade offs of that? What exactly are you waiting for? Like, what are you hesitating on? And why? Why are you doing that? What do you think is going to change if you don't take care of something today, and you put it off into the future? Or if you're letting yourself stay in indecision? By not saying yes to something today - by not hiring the coach to help you, by not enrolling in the program, by not making that hire that you've been wanting to make? - is that really benefiting you? What are the trade offs of not doing that? What are you giving up in the process of not making a decision and not moving forward on something that you know is going to help you improve your business or improve your life?
Okay, another sneaky one I want you to think about is numbing out. Yes, yhis is something that we all do. This is, I think, Brene Brown's term "numbing out", which I love. And this is when we are mindlessly scrolling on Instagram, or reading the news, watching Netflix, even sometimes some of the self care things we do like reading books, is a form of numbing out. Because we are telling ourselves things like, "I can't handle this. I need a break. I am working too hard." And those all seem really logical. Right?
You've heard me talk about this before, but these are thoughts that seem very true. But actually starting to pull back and consider what are the trade offs of doing that? Because unless it's something that is actually rejuvenating to you, and we don't really question if Instagram scrolling is rejuvenating - it's isn't for me! But what's the trade off of that, because you're not gaining energy back. You're just using your energy on something that isn't making you feel better., and it's also not moving you forward. So while you're saying yes to numbing out, what are the things that you're saying no to?
The next one is overworking. Pushing through, working harder, refusing to take breaks for yourself, not getting enough movement. Overworking has a whole lot of trade offs, right? Burnout being one of them. But if you're saying yes to pushing harder, what are you saying no to ?One thing for sure is that you're saying no to letting things be easy. You're saying no to looking for the ways to make things easier, because you're just insisting on keeping it hard. So if you are overworking, start to really look at, what are the trade offs? What am I saying no to as long as I keep saying yes to working harder?
All right, another one is worrying. Worrying, you guys, is an action that you take. So if you're saying yes to worrying about things, what are you saying no to? Once again, you're definitely saying no to things being easy. You're definitely saying no to trust. In yourself, in the universe, trusting that everything is working. You are saying no to all of those things so long as you are worrying. So what else are you saying no to while you are busy worrying yourself?
And my last example is obligation, whether it's to yourself or to others. Anytime that you have thoughts like "I have to" or "I should," you're thinking that something isn't your choice, or that it means that you're a bad person - or it means something negative about you if you say no. Those are all creating obligation. And as long as you're saying yes to obligation, you are definitely saying no to wanting to. You're saying no to joy and excitement in your life. You're saying yes to guilt, probably yes to resentment and drudgery and dread. And no to feeling connected and inspired and excited to move forward with something.
And this is something that I do with my clients a lot, is that I will stop them when they say things like "I have to..." or "I should..." And I'll repeat it back to them saying "I want to..." because the language that we use is so important. It gives us so much insight into what is really fueling that action. And so to simply stop, it's an instant reframe here, so stop and recognize that you don't "have to" do anything. That everything is a choice. And it gives you an entirely different energy to move forward with.
So these are all examples of investigating really finding the trade offs in how we have been choosing to spend our time and energy. And step four, then, is to champion yourself. So decide what it is that you will be saying yes to. Now you have so much information, you've got the awareness, the clarity on what it is that you want in your life, and you understand how you have been spending your time and energy, what you've been doing and not doing, and understanding the trade offs. And then you just get to decide what is important to you. Right?
Sometimes trade offs are maybe not the "best thing" for us, right, but we still choose them and we're still okay with them. But a lot of times these sneaky trade offs are the things that, as soon as we can see them, we're like, "oh, wait, no, that's not what I want here. That's not really in alignment with where I want to be going." So in step four, you are deciding on purpose. What is it that you're okay with saying no to so that you have the capacity to give more of yourself to something even greater?
So quick review here. Step one is to Aim. Step two: Uncover. Step three: Investigate. And step four: Champion. Alright you guys, I hope that this has been helpful. Have a great week.
Hey, I know that running a small business can feel complicated. So let me help you uncomplicate it. I teach people how to harness their creative brainpower to take clear and focused action to accomplish their goals without burning out. I offer a free one hour consultation where we uncover what is really getting in your way right now.
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