This morning one of my clients, the MD of a thriving business, cancelled our coaching session because she was too busy and I completely understand why she did it. She is overwhelmed and feels she can’t justify spending the time on herself when everyone around her needs her and she has a never ending ‘to do’ list, which includes trying to find time to spend with her 3 young children.
Do you often find yourself taking on too much? Finding it difficult to say no?
Just Say No was an anti-drugs campaign back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and makes me think of the kids TV programme Grange Hill – I’m showing my age here! As women we are conditioned to help and support others, to be accommodating, we don’t want to let others down or to upset them. These are the expectations that are put upon us from our childhood – to be a good girl and put others first. We tend to take on everything and don’t ask for help.
I see this so often, last week I was working with another client who was struggling with this same dilemma. She was full of “I know I should just ask for help but I can’t” comments and was feeling over-burdened, add to this when someone asked her to do something extra and her automatic response is “yes that’s fine, I’ll do it”. Sound familiar?
In recent blogs I’ve talked about finding our purpose and achieving balance in our lives. If we focus on who we are, what’s important to us and what we want from our lives, it can give us the courage to say no. It helps us understand more clearly what things do, or don’t, fit with what we want or need. The more we know what we want the easier it is to focus our time and energy on it.
So, how do we learn to say no?
- A good place to start is with some self-reflection on your purpose and what is important to you, then turn this into goals for yourself – what do you want to achieve?
- Keep focused by writing down your goals (work and personal) and keep them somewhere that you’ll remind yourself of them every day.
- Set boundaries – where do you draw the line for yourself? People will take as much as you are willing to give. Make choices deliberately, set limits and stick to them.
- Consider situations carefully, what’s the worst-case scenario if you say no to something or don’t volunteer? Often we don’t stop to do this, we automatically say yes without really thinking about it.
- Learn to delegate and be comfortable doing it – you do not need to do everything.
- Ask for help and support, it’s good and necessary, it’s a sign of strength and intelligence
- Treat yourself as you would treat your best friend – if your best friend came to you for advice what would you say to her? Maybe it’s time to have a chat with yourself…..
You can read more of my musings on women and our self-development by clicking here and I’m always happy to chat about the work I do to help more women become senior leaders so do get in touch.
Lisa
Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash