Sometimes in your work and life you have quiet periods when you feel you are on top of your priorities and other things, and you feel good about achieving things. Sometimes you get busy periods in your work and life:you calendar is already full and other things pop up.
Maybe someone in your family gets sick and you need to look after them. Maybe an unexpected e-mail comes with a request to referee a paper, or evaluate a proposal. Or maybe something gets broken in the lab and you need to take care of that. And these are the things that are on top of your schedule, and you don’t seem to have time for them.
The whole thing inflates, and there seem to be too many things to do just by you. As a result you feel overwhelmed, very busy, and as a result of this you get frustrated, tired, and often grumpy.
Today we are talking about how to deal with this situation, when your schedule is already quite full and things keep popping up. The thing to do is to start and learn to say No and start setting boundaries around your time and your attention.
I am not talking here about you needing to choose one thing out of all the things you want to achieve and sacrifice others in its favour thinking you can’t have it all. When I work with my private clients I always insist “You can have it all. You can achieve all the things you want, in its own good time. And let’s sit down and see how you can do it.”
What I AM talking about is that you start saying NO and start setting boundaries around the things you don’t need to do. Maybe they don’t need to be done at all. Or maybe they don’t need to be done by you. Maybe they can be done by someone else, and will be done even better than you would do them. This is what I am talking about!
NO is a simple word but so difficult to say for so many people. It’s been a theme in my coaching throughout the last couple of weeks. This week we spent almost an entire time of our face-to-face personal meeting with one of my private clients on how to say NO and set the boundaries. And two weeks ago I worked with a group of students where we spent some time writing scripts for saying NO avoiding the “sorry, but” expression and making it more empowering.
And what I realised that you won’t be able to say NO in a good empowering way if you feel messy inside and you don’t know your priorities. So this is the key! Your first step to saying NO is to get in touch with your priorities. I am talking here about big goals, big priorities, such as your family and friends, your projects at work, your social activities and engagements and it’s your well-being and health. It’s good to take some time to get clear on those priorities.
The second step is every time someone requests your time and attention is to pause for a moment and get in touch with your priorities. (In ideal case you will be in touch with those priorities every moment of your work and life) Also ask yourself: “Is this request in alignment with my priorities?” This is going to make it easier for you to say Yes or No. Eventually you will also find your language that is empowering you and empowering others even if you say No.
Remember that every time you say No to others, you say Yes to your priorities. And this might sounds like a definition of selfishness, and a lot of us grew up with people telling us this. But I would like to suggest that it is not selfishness. The better care you can take of yourself and your priorities, the better care you can provide to others, and be of service to others.
If you are a parent you would know it first hand: if you have not had your tea and you are very low on sugar, it is very difficult to take care of your children. So I suggest, the best thing you can give to others is a happy you! A fulfilled you!
Here is your assignment for this week:
- Take some time to get clear on your priorities: the big things in your work and life that are important to you. These are the things such as family, projects at work, socials activities, and your health and well-being.
- Every time someone asks you for your attention and time, either by e-mail or in persona or by phone, take few moments to get in touch with your priorities and ask yourself: “Is this request in alignment with my priorities?”
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