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

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 size 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.

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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 her calendar, and then just get on with her day.

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 going to 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 she'd said yes to. Once the thing she'd said yes to was looming.

Sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes she would realise that she didn't actually want to do it anymore. And then she'd be in the incredibly uncomfortable position of having to go back and say no.

Which might not be so bad except for the fact that because she's human and she hates the idea of letting people down, she would procrastinate for ages, tying herself knots about whether or not to do the thing 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 that she was kicking the discomfort down the road for future her to deal with later when she realized that actually she didn't want to do the 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. 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. 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 to see exactly what's involved. I think about my capacity and then slowly I start to realize that actually I should have 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 running 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. But then I realized actually I had quite a lot of space to get organized 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 I 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 bags 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. I realized 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. 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.

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 with the opportunities that might present themselves if she did, and that the lack of those opportunities and the loss of something if she said no.

So neither of us is right or wrong, but I do think that we would both benefit from learning to say let me get back to you instead of vocalizing our first almost unconscious thought. So do you recognize yourself in any of this? Are you more likely to default to saying yes or to saying no? 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.

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