Ep134: Learning to pause before you say yes (or no!)

00:51 Welcome to Unfrazzle, a podcast for solo business owners with a big vision who are ready for a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity. I'm Louise Miller and each week i share bite-sized insights to help you step away from the hustle stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world Before we dive into today's episode, if you enjoy what I'm sharing here on Unfrazzle and you'd like to support the podcast. You can buy me a cuppa by going to BuyMeACoffee.com slash Louise Miller and making a one-off donation. I'll pop a link to that in the show notes Okay grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started! I once worked with someone who was very popular and got invited to many things she would check her diary and if she was free she would usually say yes add that thing to our calendar and then just get on with their day

01:44 But as the thing that she'd said yes to started to get closer, quite often a tiny bit of remorse would start to creep in. She'd start thinking do I really want to take a day away from my desk to go and do that thing? You know i'm going to be in the car for hours maybe I need to book a hotel if it's a full day thing...I'm gonna have to find someone to walk the dog Not to mention the fact that being away from her desk for a day or two would prevent her from getting on with the other important things that were on her To Do list. And so she'd start to panic and worry about how she would catch up with everything that needed to be done, Trying to figure out if she could get ahead by cramming more in before she had to go off and do the things that she'd said yes too. Once the thing that she had said yes was looming, sometimes not all of the time but sometimes she would realise that she didn't actually want to do it anymore and then she would be in this incredibly uncomfortable position of having to go back and say no which might not be so bad except for the fact because she's human and hates letting people down She would procrastinate for ages tying herself in knots about whether or not to do the thing

02:46 And putting off saying no for as long as possible. So, for that client saying an instant yes to invitations back in the day got her into all sorts of problems. Saying yes felt like the right thing or maybe actually it felt like the easiest thing to say in the moment but what ended up happening was she was kicking the discomfort down the road for future her to deal with later when she realised that actually she didn't want to do this thing after all And I do understand how that happens, but interestingly I kind of can't relate to that personally because i am the exact opposite. So whenever i'm invited to something my first instinct is to say no

03:25 So I'm very aware that my default setting will often revert to lack. So, I go straight to...I don't have time, I can't afford it or I don't have the energy sometimes it's a combination of all three and so I often say no but then I go away and think about it, I stare at my calendar for a while, I do a little bit of research just see exactly what's involved, I think about my capacity and then slowly I start to realize that actually I should've said yes So two examples spring to mind. So the first is that a friend invited me to the National Coaching Awards, a little while ago and my first thought was I can't possibly do that it was a few days before i was winning my first ever retreat and a few weeks before i was taking a three-week break i didn't think i could spare the time so i said no

04:10 But then I realised actually, I had quite a lot of space to get organised for those things. There was plenty of time to get everything done and it would actually be really good for me to leave the house and meet some people in real life so i went back to her and said yes! And then there was the time that my client asked if I would make candles in ceramic pots for her for the gift bag she was creating for an event And my first instinct was to say no because I was convinced as a first thought that i wouldn't be able to get them done in time, because of that three-week break getting in the way again. But then I slept on it and realised I actually had a whole weekend in which I could play around with some clay before our break and actually I could get them done in time so the next morning I went back to her and said yes

04:50 Thankfully, in both of those examples it was possible for me to go back and say yes I hadn't missed the boat so that was good. So what fascinates me about all of this is that although me and that past client are on opposite sides of the spectrum she would default to Yes i would default to No our instinctive responses are caused by the same thing And that is our subconscious which is very aware of our past experiences and patterns and how we've been burnt before and our subconscious is trying to protect us So for me, I don't want to be busy because being busy made me ill back in the day. So i protect my peace and my space really fiercely so whenever something presents itself that wasn't on the plan my default is to say no and my client didn't want to miss out on opportunities she used to struggle with FOMO and wanted to make sure she was visible so that people wouldn't forget she exists

05:41 There was also an underlying sense that she needed to be busy or that would mean that she's lazy and she wouldn't be able to achieve all that she wanted to achieve. And so her default was to say yes, her subconscious was kind of connecting the yes Do you recognise yourself in any of this? Are you more likely to default to saying yes or no

06:18 And is that working for you? Would giving yourself a moment to think by saying let me get back to you serve you as well. So, as always I hope that this helps and i look forward to seeing you again soon! Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and share it with a friend who needs a dose of calm productivity in their life and i'd love it if you could leave me a rating or review as that will help more people discover the podcast And if you're struggling with productivity right now, take my free assessment to find out what's really getting in the way of you getting things done. It takes less than three minutes to complete and I'll send you tailored resources and insights that will help based on your score You'll find that at louisemiller.uk slash quiz and there's a link for that in the show notes So thank you so much for being here and I look forward to seeing you next time