The Power of Saying No-How to Protect Your Time and Energy as a Business Owner
As business owners, we’re constantly making decisions - some choices boost our happiness and creativity while others waste our time and drain our energy.
Saying NO to the time wasters is a simple way to improve our life and finances so today, we’ll explore the power of saying NO.
My name is Lucas and welcome! One of the best parts of being a business owner is that I get to choose how I spend my time. One of the most challenging parts of being a business owner is that I must choose how to spend my time.
I used to wake up each morning and immediately check my email, texts and social feed. Within 30 minutes my neck, shoulders and jaw would be so tense that I’d spend the rest of the day trying to escape the anxiety and burry myself in a million distractions.
It took me a few years to connect the dots but when i realized that checking my phone first thing was a big part of the problem I did an experiment. For a week, I kept my phone off for the first three hours I was awake. Instead, I did yoga, meditated, worked out and enjoyed a delicious breakfast.. Guess what happened? My debilitating Anxiety went away.
Every moment, of every day, we get to make choices:
If you’d like to protect your time and energy and nurture your creativity, it’s essential to say No to the choices that distract you from your purpose and say YES to the choices that contribute your happiness.
So let’s get into it (If you prefer to watch the video, please check it out here…)
Step 1 is to get clear on your daily choices.
Which ones are helping you and which are hurting you? Draw a line down the center of a page. At the top left put the word Helping and at the right, the word Hurting.
The goal is simple: Inventory every thought and every habit thats taking away from your happiness VS the ones that are contributing to it.
Let me give you a few examples..
Checking my phone as soon as I woke up led to a tremendous amount of anxiety and some really shitty days - so I put it on the hurt list.
I didn’t drink much but as I got older my hangovers, even from 1 drink, would have me waking up late, feeling lazy and quite foggy - so I put hangovers on the hurt list.
When it came to money, I was always worried that there was never enough and so I became really stingy - I put both of those on the hurt list.
Buying friends lunch always felt really good so i added it to the help list.
Waking up early and spending time in nature make me really happy so i added them to the help list.
Now it’s your turn:
Think about your daily routine.
How do you start your mornings?
What are you doing just before bed?
What habits and thoughts add to your stress and distract you VS the ones that contribute to your happiness?
List everything that comes to mind.
Pro Tip: And keep a running list on your phone so that when a thought pops in or you notice your getting triggered by something, you can add it in real time. I’ve been adding helpful habits and removing hurt ones for 5 years.
Once you have several things written down, look at the two lists. What do you see? I had about thirty things on the hurt list and only six on the help list.
No wonder I was so anxious and unhappy - I was actively choosing stress and worry over calm and happiness on a daily basis.
What side of the list are you currently spending your time and energy on?
Step 2: Practice Using Your Power of Saying NO
Once you a have few things on your list, it’s time to engage the Power of saying No to the behaviors that are holding you back. Tim Ferriss from the book The 4-hr Work Week refers to this as the Low information diet and I like to call it turning off all the noise.
Look over your hurt list and find all of the behaviors that would be really easy for you to let go of.
Responding to work emails as soon as I woke up was silly so, I quit. Eating dairy made me feel like shit, so I turned that off. Complaining about my relationships was zero fun so I stopped.
For each behavior that would be easy to let go of, cross it off the list. Turn it off and move forward. And if your help list is really short like mine was or you’re having a hard time coming up with helpful behaviors, ask yourself, what’s the opposite?
The opposite to checking my phone first things was to not check it at all.
The opposite of being stingy was to practice being generous.
Once you’ve identified all of the low-hanging fruit, it’s time to move on to the other behaviors hurting you. Technically, you could start saying No but in my experience, it can be challenging to quite things. Have you ever tried quitting junk food? Kinda hard right?
In my experience, it’s much easier to practice a new skill than it is to break an old habit.
Think about it… When we focus our time and energy on getting healthy, we eat well, sleep well, go to the gym, take care of our mental health (yoga & meditation) and hang with healthy people.
By pursuing healthy habits, we have very little time or interest for things that are unhealthy. It’s Out with the old, by replacing it with the new or as Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “New thoughts and new habits creates new results”.
Are You Content With Your Current Life?
Take a moment to think about your days. What percentage is spent distracted, overwhelmed and stressed. If you’re anything like I was, you’ve been living in survival mode for decades.
But there’s a much better way and it’s a lot more fun.. Practice saying Yes to the helpful habits and No to the ones that are hurting you.
By the way, it’s not about “being happy” all the time. I don’t need to be “happy” everyday but I can be content and I certainly don’t have to be anxious and worried.
Just like getting in shape or learning a new language, this a daily practice that takes time. So, be easy on yourself and let go of being in a hurry.
I Improved My Life and Reversed My Age by Using The Power of Saying NO
I used to wake up and immediately check my phone. I’d waste an hour looking at social feeds and because I was getting a late start, a sense of urgency would begin to grow. I’d rush through my morning, and for there rest of the day I’d teeter between stress and avoidance of my responsibilities.
This one little choice to check my phone had a massive, effect on my day. And because I chose it every morning, it had a massive effect on my weeks and eventually my years. But thanks to my hurt list, I could now see all of the choices that were setting me up for a shitty day.
Once I learned how to say no to the choices that were hurting me, and yes to everything that was helping me, my life quickly improved. The black bags under my eyes vanished, my skin looked healthier, I slept better, my appetite improved because my stomach was no longer in knots and my anxiety dissolved.
I felt younger, more vibrant, healthier, my brain was clear and my focus was sharp. No pills, no talk therapy. Just sunshine, nature, quality sleep, food and water - saying no to the distractions and Yes to taking care of myself first, each and every day.
As we wrap up I invite you to do 3 things:
Look at how you start your mornings and end your days. Identify the hurt behaviors and then create a new routine that is the opposite of the old one.
Find you Practices - Yoga, working out, running, swimming, meditation, starting your mornings in the sun, reading, writing, painting, journaling - Experiment to figure out what works for you.
Find your Mentors - find people who are doing what you would like to do and learn from them. My personal favorites are Jay Shetty, Vishen and everyone at Mindvalley, Peter Crone, Travis Eliot and the entire Inner Dimension Yoga Family.
Saying No to the things that are holding you back and Yes to the things that add to your joy is Powerful way to revitalize your Spirit and transform your life and finances.
And if you’d like to learn new financial behaviors, let’s hop on a free call. I’ll show how The Big Split can help you pay off your debt, grow your savings and move you away from hurt and into financial happiness.
If you know anyone that could benefit from this, it would mean the world to me if you shared it with them. Thank you for your time and energy. I’ll see you in the next one.
- Lucas Z.