No. The most underutilized tactic to save time, to increase your self-belief, to increase your efficiency, is to say no. We do not say no because we love pleasing, we love being nice, we have been raised to be nice. So we want to help everybody. We want to do everything especially we women. We try to do everything because we want to be great, we want to be loved, we want to be good girls. And don’t take me wrong, men tend to do it as well. Look at your agendas, full of stuff and that creates so much confusion because we have so many things to do, we don’t even know what to do, in which order to do them. One of the most powerful techniques that you can use is just very simple: SAY NO.
So I’m going to give you six reasons to say no more often. Ready?
#1 You are the boss
Number one, you see you are the boss of your life, you are the CEO of your life. When you don’t behave like the CEO of your life, you allow everybody else to tell you what to do, but when you say I’m going to take control of my life, you start saying no. This is the border. This is the limit until here, you customer are allowed to ask me, until here you boss, you are allowed to ask me, until here husband, until here child. This is the limit. This is the boundary. When you set up that boundary you will feel more in control of your life, of what happens within your kingdom, within your business, your life.
#2 Gain focus
Number two, with this control, you will gain focus because you don’t have to do that and that and that. It will be very clear what is that thing that you need to be doing now. And when you’re focused on what is that one thing that you need to be doing now, the quality is just going to increase because you’re going to be there.
#3 You empower others
Number three, when you say no, you help others to grow. We love developing people, that’s why you are here in this channel because you want to see other people grow. So stop saying yes to the things that they should be responsible for. You see I’m a mom, how am I going to raise my children, tie their shoes every day, putting their butter on their bread every day, dress them every day. They have to learn to do it themselves. It is better not to help them. A good mother helps better when she doesn’t help. The same counts for your customers, for your boss, for your colleague. You can do it. You can do it. When you say no, you help other people grow â�� empowering. It might be difficult at the beginning, but then you will be amazed. I love to tell my daughter, “You choose, choose your clothes”. Three years old, she picks her clothes, I love it. She’s empowered. I’m not going to criticize her and I’m going to say no you have to do it this way. She has to grow.
#4 Welcome JOMO
Number four, you know we are all afraid of missing out, FOMO: fear of missing out. What if I miss this? What if I miss that? You see years ago, I was very much into movies. I will watch every movie because I was terrified of missing out. I would just watch a movie and this movie and this movie obsessively. There was a period when I was watching movies, about three movies a day. It was crazy! And sometimes I had marathons of six movies in one day. I was afraid of missing out. I wanted to watch everything. Now, I don’t go to the movies as often as I used to. And there are many, many dozens of movies that I haven’t seen, but I have the joy of have missed out. Because in that time, I saw many sunsets, in that time I have written my books, in that time I read awesome books, in that time I saw the plants growing, in that time I held my family; my children, my husband, in that time I had great conversations with my customers, in that time I sat down and did nothing. That is the joy of missing out. When you just forget about the fact and really let go of the idea that you have to be up to speed with everything that is happening, a big weight off your shoulders falls off. You don’t have to see everything. Look at the rate of change. Look at the graphs of everything that is happening in the world; news, population, the programs, applications all this just growing exponentially. If we really don’t want to miss out, we’re going to go crazy. Say no to that and join me in the joy of missing out, it is great. The joy of being in silence, it’s wonderful. The joy of listening the silence, the birds, the trees, your own heart is priceless. That is joyful and it’s great that I missed out.
#5 Increased Self-Care
Number five, when you miss out when you don’t go to the movies; when you don’t go to the party, there is time for self-care; there is a time to have a nap, we’re sleep deprived. It is insane how little sleep we are getting. No wonder we have so many illnesses because of just lack of sleep. When you say no, you will have more time for self-care; sleeping, eating, mindfully eating, looking at that piece of food that is entering your beautiful system and is bringing the joy of the farmer, of the land, of the person who cooked that meal, being present and really taking care of yourself, having the shower where you feel that water falling on you and you are grateful for all the technology that is behind it, you’re grateful for all the people who clean that water, who made all the pipes to let it into your house, to make it warm thank you, thank you for falling on my body. It’s just nourishing to your soul, self-care by saying no.
#6 Increase your self belief
And finally, number six the one I love more of all these ones. When you say no, especially when you say no to yourself, you increase your discipline. When you increase your discipline, you increase your self belief. You are changing your habits regarding food and you have the cake or you have the tea, and you drink your cup of tea. Maybe at the beginning, the first time that you do it, you feel like oh my God, this is fear of missing out, what if I’m missing out? But later, you will have the reward of saying I did it, I can do it, I’m building my self-reliance, I’m building my self belief, my discipline, I can do this. See me, I got this and if I can do this, what else can I do? Say no to things that you would like to have but you know that you shouldn’t like the cake, like the party at night. I have done that recently. They invited me to a really cool party. I was really excited to go because I will be dancing salsa. This party started basically at midnight, but I thought about it, oh am I really loyal to waking up early, having my discipline so I can produce my work or not? If I go to this party, I’m not loyal to myself. It was painful for me. I said no. After I said no, I felt great. I built my self discipline. I built my courage. I dare to tell these friends why, and you know what happened? My friends said, “No problem Blanca. We support you, we like what you do, just go for it. We’ll see each other at lunchtime another day.” I love that. The people who love you, the people who appreciate you will not have any problem when they say no, and the people who just you know, are not on this journey of self transformation and really building a better world â�� they are going to be upset and they’re not going to like you. When you say that you’re not going to get drunk, when you say you’re not going to be late at night, when you say no you’re not going to help them on that project â�� they are going to be upset. It is not your responsibility. You’re the boss of your life, they are the bosses of their life. Their feelings, their journey is their responsibility.
So this is why you should be saying no. Now you’re going to ask me, Blanca but how do I do it? I have it, I’m going to tell you. Just do it, exercise it, just like a muscle. The more you will be saying no, the easier it is going to get. Just do it. Just do it, just start saying no. And record it in your success journal. Every day, write your successes and in those successes, write when you said no. If you can at the beginning, to build this muscle, you can say no three times a day; “no I’m not going to take coffee”, “no, I’m not going to finish this book”, “no, I’m not going to the movies”, “no, I’m not going to wear this”, “no child, I’m not going to clean your clothes”, “no husband, I’m not going to wash the dishes”. Just start saying no and you are going to start to build the muscle of being the boss of your life, of building your discipline, of taking care of yourself. Excited? Go for it, say no.
So did you like this video? I hope you did and if you did, please do like it and subscribe to the channel. Also, please share it. Share it with your friends especially those of us who are overwhelmed with a huge to-do list and totally confused, not daring to say no. Also, I invite you to come over to my website to share with us what is it that touched you of this video, in which way are you going to embody what we discussed today. In other words, how are you going to say no? And I say goodbye to you, as always inviting you to be all in.
Featured Image by Marc Falardeau