The Art of Saying No: Empower Yourself to Prioritize Your Life

The Art of Saying No: Empower Yourself to Prioritize Your Life

Hello, and welcome to In the Rising Podcast. This is the platform that I've chosen to talk about living a life that is full of joy and success, personal success on all different levels, and feeling that you've accomplished what your purpose is in life. Basically leaving that shame and blame and regret behind you. So if this is sounds like something that is of interest to you, go ahead and hit the subscribe button and reach out to me on Facebook, Pinterest, or through email.

I'd love to hear from you. So today I'm going to talk about that one angel that we are always trying to reach, and that's the angel of balance. You know, you've got work on one hand, your personal life on the other, and you've got 50 other things that need your hands and need your attention. But there just isn't enough of you.

And this is what a lot of people are feeling. Quite frankly, when this podcast is being produced in the middle of our current coronavirus pandemic and schools are opening, schools are closing, work is coming back, work is going away. A lot of us feel that there's just so much on our plate and we don't know if we should act.

We don't know if we should sit down. And so I will be honest, I was really struggling today to continue on because I came home and I have to institute homeschooling. So yes, it is late by the time we're done. That's why I let my sons sleep in and wake up late because that's what I have as an option, and I wanted to get homeschool done.

I got some food in the crockpot. I had some frozen pizza, cuz we always have frozen pizza when I have him. And, and it was just like, is this, is this what I'm really aiming for? You know, fast, fast, fast. And I still have some dishes that need to be washed and so I really had to take a moment and just breathe in and out.

And I did just. Get this little wisdom about living life with some balance and what we call basically like an angel of balance. And that is not something that we're going to get because we feel like we need to have better systems. We have to actually do. Some better systems, and that is really, really important.

So this podcast is gonna talk about five ways that we can consciously work on building and balancing our goals and our physical and emotional life and our physical and emotional energy. The thing that really struck me of why this is so important is as I was doing my research, I came across some articles that highlighted that the threshold of working consistently over 55 hours per week raised the risk of having a heart attack and having a stroke.

And that's a big deal, you know, putting all this work in for someone else. Usually that's the case. Unless, even if it's your own business, but putting all that work in is really shortening your ability to enjoy anything you're working for in the first place. Isn't that ironic? And that extra stress adds to more inflammatory issues.

So we can be eating right, and we can be exercising, but still not lose weight because we're in this constant state of inflammation and fatigue and stress. Maybe that's why we feel so fri, you know, fried in the brain and fried in our body. So I wanna highlight five ways. Now, there could of course be hundreds, but five ways that we can let go of something to really gain what we want, and that is more energy and excitement and vigor for living and not trepidation and irritation.

For waking up to go to work the next day, or let's face it, having more dishes to do, more laundry to do. It doesn't matter how much you love someone, when you keep doing tasks for them, it gets irritating. It does. So that first thing that we should do is let go of perfectionism. And this was so hard for me.

I really love it when my living room and I would say my dining room looks like the cover of a magazine. I just love it when the pillow is just so and fluffed and it has, you know, when you put that karate chop in the pillow, just so, and, and there's really no dust on anything, which, where I live is impossible, but you know, I always try to keep everything just nice.

And clean and organized looking. Hence, you don't ever open any of the closets, but I, it has to look that way. But there is just no way that this level can be maintained. And perfectionism is something that a lot of us develop when we're very, very young. We want everything to be certain ways. And you know what perfectionism actually is?

It's all about control. Now we're used to saying, well, I'm, I'm a perfectionist. You know, I want it to be right. And we say it still with, um, almost like a badge of honor. But what perfectionism really is, is like, I am so in control of this. I cannot let it not be that way because then my day is messed up and then I'm gonna mess up your day by being unhappy about it.

Whether it's the cup being in the right place, the dish is in the right place. The drive a certain place, you know, it, it's, it's having that kind of perfectionism is one thing, and that's control. And the reality is we get burnt out when we are trying to be in control of too many things, even if there are legitimate things we can control.

If it's too much, it's too much, let go of it. And you can't just say, okay, today I'm done. I'm done with the control. But to be conscious, Of your own behavior is the first thing you know. It's not someone else's job to change you. It's not some, no one can love you enough. Someone can't care enough about you to change you.

You have to love and care enough about yourself to do that. So that's our own responsibility. And if we're having this perfectionism, that is our own responsibility also. And why not? Make a decision to just let something be and realize that the world has not shut down cuz all the dishes aren't done today or the laundry wasn't done, or that nice pillow that you like the karate chop in, and I'm talking about myself, is kind of just laying there.

I may fix that after the show, but the reality is I'm letting go of a lot of other things. The second thing I'm gonna say is it's important to unplug. We can only stay plugged into the world so long. Um, you know, even though I'm on an digital internet platform, there are times I just have to turn it off.

I, I'm interested in the world, but sometimes what you get said as information is also overwhelming. You know, this year we're in a pandemic. This is 2020. We have a huge change in our social consciousness. We have a huge debate regarding our electoral process. Healthcare as we know it, is altered. Our life as we know it is altered.

The economy is just changed what we expected. You know, what we expected is gone. We everything. And it's not just now for seniors in high school and and college, everything is different and once in a while you just have to unplug from all of these events and just spend some time in the present moment, not in what happened last night or what can potentially happen tomorrow.

But just stay in the present moment. There's a gift in unplugging. There's a gift in, in that we are still able to stay connected, let's face it, because of our, because of things like Zoom and our social media and, and whatever source you like as a news. But there is a point when we just have to turn it off.

And having that balance of, okay, this is when I'm going to allow myself to be privy to information, which is almost information overload. And then there are times when you're like, no, right now you don't have access. Just unplug. Number two is exercise and meditation. Now exercise is really difficult. I mean, right now you can go to the gym, but you have to at this time, wear a mask over.

You have to have so much distance and there's a lot more stress just going in the gym. Do you go in the time you're only allowed so many p you know, people in, you have to be so far away, et cetera, et cetera. And if you go outside in certain parts of the country, you know, if you're seen without a mask, you're gonna get a ticket.

Everyone looks at you suspiciously. It's not the easiest time to exercise. So just moving your body, let's face it, a walk around the neighborhood. A walk with someone that you care about, whether it's on the phone here, I talked about unplugging, but whether it's on the phone to connect or just listening to some music or just listening to the sound of your own feet, having some gentle exercise is also really important so that you can balance your mind as well as you are balancing your body.

We cannot sit all day, every day. Whether it's for work or whether it's for anything else that we're doing as hobbies and expect our bodies to be healthy, we are designed to move whatever we can move we need to, and meditating is basically movement for our brain getting out of that hustle bustle. Or they say depression is when you're in thinking about the past anxieties, when you're thinking about the future.

In that moment, right then and there you are meditating and you are opening yourself to a different feeling, not having to be right there with your feet doing whatever tasks, but just having a moment when you can actually relax and it changes your brainwaves and you're more into theta brainwaves, which is what gives you a deep sense of relaxation, which helps your immune system by the way.

Which is beneficial at certain times of the year. Like now, for example, the other one, I'm gonna say this, number four is limit time wasting activities and limit time wasting people. I said it. So if whatever you're doing and time wasted can be, you know, per your own definition. For some people, time wasted activity is watching tv.

Endless hours for other people, that's their hobby. For Some people time wasted is, you know, maybe taking that walk around the neighborhood. For other people, it's their enjoyment. It's their quote unquote exercise. But if you're noticing that what you're doing with the majority of your time is not changing your life, then it might be time wasting.

If we are noticing what you're doing is writing a list after list, after to-do list. After I want list after I've done list. Then the active writing a list is more important than actually doing what you're needing to do. It's a time waster and coming up with all these spreadsheets about how you can write a better to-do list is wasting your time.

We each have to learn what? What works for us, right. And that what worked for you to, you know, 10 years ago may not work for you now, but you, you know yourself, you know whether or not you will really wake up at 4:00 AM and you know whether or not you will really, you know, forego exercise for, let's face it, two, three months.

Two, three years, and still write on every health report that you exercise, you know yourself and you can't lie to yourself. So if there's something that's wasting your time, scrolling on the internet, scrolling on Facebook, scrolling through podcasts, scrolling through books to read, to learn. You know, there's a point when you need to stop all of that and just do something.

And I'm gonna say, time wasting people. There are people in your life that will move you forward, encourage you, get you. You know, excited about your future, excited about where you are right now, and then you have people that they have, I can't even call it conversation. It's just the same thing all the time, and you're not even sure what the value of the comments are.

It's, it's superficial. You can scratch the meaning of anything that these people say with, you know, your nail. There's just, there's no depth to them. Then those are your time wasters and usually they're not really even friends. They're acquaintances. Or acquaintances of acquaintances or, well, I wanna keep up with them because you never know.

You know, we may need each other. No, it's a waste of time. Move on. And the last thing I'm gonna talk about, number five, to how to get work life balance for you is to restructure your time and habit. And I went through, again, I have not, I'll put a full disclaimer. I've not finished Atomic Habits, but I've read the same part because I think it's just so, it speaks to me so much and it's when James Clear describes that when we can focus on improving something in our life, 1% every day, not these big changes.

But a small change. And then the next small change and then the next small change, we end up with bigger changes. So if you are looking for ways to have more time with your family, maybe making a way of cleaning out that you don't have that much laundry, cuz you don't have that many clothes, maybe you won't have that many dishes because half the stuff you don't need and you know you have not used that Dutch oven.

Since the 10 years you've had it, get rid of it. Having less stuff to clean to bother with can actually free up your life. You don't need a floor to foot jewelry case of stuff that you never wear when you wear the same four or five items over and over again. You just don't need it. I'm not saying anything about the heirlooms, but I'm just saying in general, if you have that much, you're going to be spending more of your time dealing with it.

Just put it aside and restructure your time. I like this one example, and I've done this where I will put in time with friends the way I put an appointment in, and it may take a time and it had to be, you know, especially right now with the virus, it was postponed, but I. I pencil in until we have both confirmed and we pen in our time together.

And that is just the way it is. That if I'm tired after work, which I'm gonna guarantee you I am, and I'm gonna guarantee my best friend is also tired after work, but it, it doesn't matter. We are going to spend that time having good conversation. We are gonna spend that time putting effort into our friendship.

We were structured our time, I tend to every two weeks. Friday night, yes. Friday night I tend to sit down for about an hour, hour and a half, and I kinda look at my budget for the next month and I make a plan. What are my goals? What is my goal this year? What's my goal next year, for example? And then I have an action plan.

So, That is not really about, well, I need to pay the water bill, which I probably have to do, but I get, I want that time just to simmer over my whole goals, and I don't want my goals to just be, well, you know, when I have the money because let's face it, that might be next year, that might be 10 years from now.

I need to actively participate in my own life and not let my life be so busy that I'm not living in it. I'm more like a character and a play. As opposed to being the director of it and the main actor and the film, you know, whatever they call that. When you're editing all of that, that is your own role.

And so I'm gonna just do a little recap. How can we build better work-life balance in our lives? Well, one, we let go of perfectionism cause that's nothing but control and we don't need to control so much. It's, it's exhausting. The second thing I mentioned is just unplug. Leave it behind. I'm sure when you're back plugged in, you can catch up on everything.

The third one is exercise and meditate. Your body needs to move and so does your mind, and so does your soul limit time wasting activities and people, you know what? You gotta focus on what's actually beneficial. And so much of our time is really not placed in the right way at all and restructure our time and habits, and that is a phenomenal one.

It is in James Clear book about the British, what is it called? Bicycling team. That was really so bad that they almost lost all their sponsors, but this team was so dedicated. To improve that they not only changed their, their bikes, but they changed, um, what, what kind of bed they sleep in. They did some testing with what massage, you know, when do, when is that better?

Uh, what type of clothing works better? They got to the point where they were able to just be excelling. And a lot of this work life balance problem is because we want to excel. We want to excel in both of those areas and we can, but we cannot put effort into two different areas at the same time. And let's face it, they're never, two areas work in life.

They're like 15. They're the cookies for the girl Scouts. Oh, I gotta do this. I gotta weed the backyard. We cannot divide ourselves that many time and really make a difference. So having work-life balance is really evaluating. What is the most important thing and then just keep working on that. That is where our true happiness comes in.

So thank you again for listening today. I appreciate it. You know what, we only have so many minutes and I just took up 21 of yours, so I appreciate it. Leave me alike or leave me some stars on the bottom there. I really appreciate it and I look forward to and talking to you guys next week. Next Tuesday is when the next episode.