Honor Your “Yes” and “No”
Time and energy are two things that I find my Life Coaching clients constantly wish they had more of.
“I never have enough time in the day to accomplish everything I want in a day.”
“I’m too tired at the end of work to go to the gym/read a book/watch a webinar.”
“I wish I had the time and energy to do everything I want to do.”
Many of the professional women I work with tend to be busy, busy, busy. They keep tight schedules, they have endless meetings, phone calls, and social activities, and they tend to overcommit. While keeping a busy schedule isn’t inherently bad, it can deplete us of our valuable energy and distract us from what is really important in our lives.
It’s easy to say “yes” to way too many invitations, both work and personal. We want to help those around us, we want to be viewed as a good friend or hardworking employee, or we are simply good at many tasks. While it’s great to help people out and be viewed as a good friend, it’s time to check-in and see if chronically saying “yes” to others’ agendas is keeping you from propelling forward on your own.
If you are a busy woman with a tight schedule, I’d like to suggest looking at your commitments through a new lens-- the lens of honoring your yeses and your nos. When we say yes to something, we are saying no to something else. However, the opposite is also true. When we say no to something, we create the space and time to say yes to something else. Being intentional about honoring your yeses and nos can be a valuable part of creating the life you want for yourself.
Instead of over-committing to the point that you are exhausted and your own progress is hindering, follow the steps below to honor your yes and your no on a weekly basis:
Determine your top priorities. Create a list of your 3-5 top priorities, goals, projects, or focus areas for the month. These goals could involve any area of your life. Perhaps you want to focus on your health and commit to exercising at least 3 times a week. Maybe you want to be better about connecting with old friends. Or maybe sleep is something you know you haven’t been getting enough of and you’re ready to prioritize getting the rest you need. Come up with your current list (knowing it can change) and write it down.
Review your weekly schedule to determine what’s on your plate. As you do this, ask yourself, “When I look at my weekly schedule, what feelings are stirred up inside me?” If the feelings are negative-- exhausted, depleted, overwhelmed, overworked, etc.-- ask yourself, “What would I like to be experiencing instead?”
Look through each of your individual commitments, both work-related and personal, to determine if they are in line with your top priorities. Many times, when we add something to our schedule, we automatically say “yes” and then try to manage how we can fit it into our already busy schedule. Adding an intentional pause before saying “yes” gives you the chance to determine if your commitments are in line with your priorities. Create time to review your schedule and determine if they are in line with your goals.
Remove commitments that don’t support your priorities. For example, let’s say one of your top priorities this month is to eat healthy, home-cooked meals and make physical movement part of your daily routine. When a friend asks you to meet her for happy hour at a Mexican restaurant, it’s time to take a pause and purposefully think through how this would or would not be honoring your goal. Instead of automatically saying “yes” and sabotaging your health goals, consider the alternative. You can instead invite your friend over and offer to cook her a healthy dinner. Or, you could suggest a walk in the park or hitting a spin class instead of happy hour.
Each Sunday, I encourage you to practice this same routine of looking at the week ahead and taking a pause for each commitment to determine if it is honoring your goals. See which activities, if any, can be removed from your schedule. Moving forward, without those commitments, you can add in other activities that are more in line with what you’d like to be experiencing instead, that gives you joy and energy.
