[00:00:00] Kristy: You have to say yes more than you say no as you're getting your business off the ground. Let's just normalize that for a moment. However, there will come a time when saying yes to so much no longer serves you. In fact, it's actually going to prevent you from achieving next levels in your business or big growth in your business and also for yourself. Setting boundaries can be really challenging at first. I totally understand that, especially so for women. We're raised to be helpful, to be compliant, to be in service of others and not to make any waves. But knowing that it's okay, actually, no, it's necessary for your personal and business success to lay down your boundaries. In this conversation, I'm going to share with you some simple and effective ways to embrace your no era without the guilt. This episode is for anyone who has regrets when they say yes to things or is constantly feeling overwhelmed by the endless commitments. Are you ready? Let's go.

[00:01:10] Hello boss and welcome back to the run your business like a boss podcast. Thank you so much for hitting play on this episode. This conversation is such an important one. We are at the business end of the year and you need to get really intentional about how you're spending your time. Setting boundaries and executing those boundaries are what's going to create capacity and time for you to deliver on those big goals and objectives over the next few months.

[00:02:16] So this conversation is so important. In fact, I'm going to say that this episode is probably going to be the most important episode you listen to this week. I'm going to share with you some really simple and highly functionable and actionable tips for you to employ. It's going to give you the confidence to stop saying yes to the things that no longer serve you. I've said this on the podcast so many times before, but it's something you need to not only know, but fully embody if you're going to enter your no era successfully.

[00:02:52] What you say yes to will invariably end up with a no somewhere else. And very often you say yes to things that are not that important. You say yes to things that result in less time for you to work on the big pieces in your business or less time for you to have for yourself personally, which is what is going to give you the opportunity to rest and recharge so that you've got the big energy and capacity to deliver on the goals that you have set for the rest of the year.

[00:03:27] It's time to be really intentional about saying no. It's time to be really intentional about figuring out what is not working for you and what is not serving you and to say no. And when you do, you will be so much further along on the things that are actually really important to you at the sacrifice, perhaps of those dopamine type, busy work type, people pleasing activities that maybe is keeping you stuck.

[00:04:00] Now, I want to preface what I'm about to share with you with, in order for it to work, you need to have 10 out of 10 self awareness. You need to recognize when you're saying yes to things out of habit, you've always done it. Out of obligation, which is essentially people pleasing out of fear because you're uncertain of what to do instead, or out of ego. These things don't actually serve you. So you need to be really aware of what your yes is and what your no is.

[00:04:38] So I'm going to suggest something a little bit different for this episode. Typically, I share content that you can pick out what you think is relevant to you, but I want to set you a challenge. We are so close to the end of 2023. This is your runway into 2024 and you can either choose to Let your goals slip, or you can choose to go all in, in the rest of the year.

[00:05:07] But in order for you to do that, you need to get really, really intentional about how you're spending your time. This is where the reset of the no era is going to come into play. I want you to spend the next 10 days focusing on what it is that you're actually saying yes to and making sure that you're filling your days with activities that either bring you closer to the life that you wish to live or closer to the goals you wish to achieve by the end of this year.

[00:05:42] So if you are keen to go all in on this reset and to get all the things done whilst also looking after yourself, whilst also not feeling guilt or shame around saying no to people, then you're going to want to have a pen and paper handy because I'm going to share with you some stellar tips that I know is going to support you through this process.

[00:06:06] Okay. So the first thing you want to do is to get really clear on what's important. So we've got about 10 or so workable weeks left of the year. It might be a little bit more than that, depending on when you start to wind down for the summer break, but do remember very often in those first couple of weeks of December, it's wrapping up your client projects. So it's very little time for you to be working on your business or on activities for yourself. And it's very much in your business. So that's where I get these 10 weeks from, eight to 10 weeks.

[00:06:43] So the first thing you want to do is to get crystal clear on what it is you want this next 10 weeks to look like. What it is that you want to actually deliver and achieve by the end of the year. Forget about what's been done. What hasn't been done. What you've let slip, all the things that maybe has gone wrong to this point and that you have not delivered on and draw a line in the sand and get really clear on what it is that you want to achieve.

[00:07:13] The second part of this is also knowing what's important to you. So if you want to create better health or optimal health for yourself by eating healthy, exercising, having time out to rest, then you also need to be really clear on what that also looks like.

[00:07:33] The thing is, is that you can have big energy for your business, but it's also really important that you're creating space for yourself to recharge and to invest in the greatest asset that you have, which is your body. You might also have a bunch of things that you need to do in your personal life. So for me, my eldest is actually wrapping up primary school and we have a lot of different activities that we need to be involved in with her or to prepare her for over this term. So I need to make sure that I've got time to do all of those things as well. Figure out what that might look like for you. How do you want to look after yourself? What are the personal objectives that you need to achieve and what are your business objectives that you want to achieve?

[00:08:21] The second thing that you need to do in order to really embrace this no era or this reset is to get comfortable with your decisions. And what that means is you will potentially annoy people. If you're the sort of person who is always putting up your hand to volunteer with school or with personal things, with your friendship groups, or in a commute business community, whatever that might look like, and then you find that you don't have enough time to work on your business or work on your personal objectives, then knowing that maybe those are the things that you might need to drop over this period, may leave you feeling a little bit uncomfortable. That's the first thing. The second thing is, is that that may annoy other people. Okay.

[00:09:15] If others are used to you behaving in a certain way, then they're going to feel a little bit like, Hmm, what's going on here? Or have their nose out of joint for you to be able to execute your boundaries. But I want you to know that that is okay. You are not responsible for the reactions or the emotions of others. You can still deliver your boundary in a positive way. It's not your obligation to constantly put your hand up or to constantly say yes to others. so being prepared to upset others is going to be part of this process, and that may leave you feeling uncomfortable, especially if you have people pleasing tendencies or perfectionistic tendencies.

[00:10:02] One other thing I want to say on this particular topic is that you don't need to justify your boundaries to others. You don't need to go in and say, sorry, uh, I can't do that. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. It's because of this, that, and the other, you don't actually need to apologize and you don't need to over justify the reason why you're saying no.

[00:10:25] Yes, you can say a reason, but you can do so in a very strong way that doesn't offend or isn't designed to offend others, but isn't also putting you in that weaker position when you're executing your boundaries.

[00:10:39] Now, the last thing that I want to talk about when it comes to having this boundary reset, which of course is probably the most important part of being in a no era is making radically conscious choices rather than being on autopilot. So often, we just say yes. So often something comes across our desk or drops in our email or drops into a conversation that we simply say yes to and in order for you to create time, to create capacity, to have big energy, to deliver on the objectives personally or professionally over the next couple of months, then you need to stop being on autopilot and start making choices. So think about your choices, or let's say something comes across your desk of asking you to do something or be a part of something.

[00:11:37] Look at it a little bit like this or that. If I do this, how will that affect other things? remember at the top of the episode, I shared the most important thing for you to know as you're enforcing your boundaries is that when you say yes to something, it will result in a no. So if you say yes, even to something like scrolling, social media, what is that time taking you away from now?

[00:12:07] It could be taking you away from doing some exercise, meal prepping, getting some additional sleep, writing your own social media captions or whatever, right? The thing is, we often think these things don't have consequences, but cumulatively, all these micro decisions of how you spend your time absolutely results in chunks of time that you could be focused on needle moving activities in your business or looking after your health so you have the big energy to take radical action in your business. So look at every decision that you're making, either implicit or explicit as a request on your time. So it could be something that someone's asking of you or something that you simply take action on as in the social media example I just gave before.

[00:13:02] So the first step is to get really clear on your choices and your actions and think about if I do this, what will that take time away from? The second thing you can do is to sit on requests. Now, you all know I love personality profiling and DISC is a really simple one to understand. If you are a D and a C style personality, you're very often task focused. You're very often checking boxes, moving through and that can be a really good thing because you can be highly productive. However, sometimes checking off those boxes doesn't actually get you closer to where you wanna be. This is busy work, as you know.

[00:13:53] So, As requests come in, or as you're creating your to do list, sit down and think deeply about the action that you want to take rather than just using your reflex and saying yes to that thing and doing that thing over here and, you know, filling your day with activities that aren't moving you closer to the life you want to live or the business you wish to have.

[00:14:19] Also under the action of making radically conscious choices rather than being on autopilot, I want you to challenge yourself if you want to skip out on something that you know is challenging, but does actually bring you closer to achieving your goals, which as you know, is essentially procrastination. And if you want to deep dive on that, head over to episode 126, I spoke about that a couple of weeks ago. But rather than skipping out on doing work that actually brings you closer to achieving your goal in substitute of procrastination activities, scrolling, social media, emptying the dishwasher, doing all the washing and essentially anything but the work that you need to be doing.

[00:15:13] I want you to again, remember that in order for this to work, you need to have 10 out of 10 self awareness and ask yourself, why am I not doing this work? Why is doing this work so important for my business? If I was just to take action now on this task, where would I be by the end of the day?

[00:15:37] Where might I be by the end of the week? Where might I be by the end of the year? So being really conscious and really intentional about the tasks that you're doing over the next 10 days is going to set you up for success. It will bring about momentum in your business, and this is how you are going to achieve the goals or the big things that you need to achieve in your life and business by the end of the year. We say no to all the wrong things too often. And at the start of the episode, I shared why out of people, pleasing, out of fear, out of obligation, out of stroking our own ego. But what if, what if you were to do this reset? What if you were to take complete ownership of your calendar and go on to actually dig into the work that matters? You're going to feel so much better about where you're at and what you've achieved than if you get stuck in this cycle of saying no to the wrong things.

[00:16:45] This is so simple. Anybody can do this starting right now. Starting as soon as this episode finishes. Get clear on what's important. Be okay with upsetting people. Don't apologize or justify your decisions and make radically conscious choices. Rather than being on autopilot, I promise you, you're going to get to Christmas time and you're going to feel so much better about what you've achieved in the last couple of months than if you were to sit on autopilot.

[00:17:21] Boss, I hope you feel really energized and excited about the possibilities by executing this very simple framework and I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what are you most excited about achieving over the rest of the year by doing this no era reset. I'm so excited for you. I cannot wait for you to wrap up the year on an absolute high.

[00:17:48] Boss, I hope you're feeling as excited as I am. I appreciate you being here, for listening to this episode and I just cannot wait to see how the rest of the year pans out from you. If you loved this episode, I invite you to send it to a friend. All you have to do is copy the link, shoot it to a friend and get them excited about the possibilities for the remaining couple of months of 2023. As always, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening to the episode. I look forward to chatting with you next week. This episode was recorded on the land of Killin Darbin. I pay tribute to the traditional owners of the land, the Turrbal people.