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The power of having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside

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The power of having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically – to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.

– Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

 

I am not there yet, I am getting better….I’m getting much better at learning to say NO.

 

So many of us are task rich and time poor, juggling different elements of our lives; be that work, children, parents, friends, hobbies, interests, looking after where we live, paying bills, worrying about paying bills, washing, education, illness, partners, pets, weekly food shop, cooking… oh, so maybe you wouldn’t find me personally cooking, something I have managed to avoid given I really do manage to burn beans, however you get the drift, we have really busy lives.

 

Often people will ask me how I fit so much in a day, how do I have so much energy, they think I am uber organised and a time management supremo. The thing is I don’t think of it as time-management, I think of it as self-management.

There are only so many hours in the day and by learning to say no, not only do we conserve some of our precious energy, we also are saying yes to an infinite number of other things.

 

It hasn’t always been this way, and it is still a daily conscious act.

Saying yes when we actually want to say no

You see…. I love to be involved, if I don’t say yes, I might miss out. I like to be helpful; it is the right thing to do, if I say no maybe that means I am not being very nice or I could be perceived as rude. I want to be kind, if I can be kind why wouldn’t I say yes and be kind?  I like to learn; I don’t want to miss opportunities. I like to feel that I have stuff to do, that little nagging voice of making the most of our time. I want to be thinking about planning for the future, for me, for the family, for the ‘what ifs’, so surely it’s best to say yes, just incase! And let’s be really honest, given it is an innate human trait; I want to be liked, I don’t want people to make judgement of me for saying no, so I often found myself saying yes; saying yes when I wanted to say no.

 

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, summarises this brilliantly; he says,

No is a decision. Yes, is a responsibility.

He talks about No being a form of time credit, signposting that when we say no we are able to retain the ability to spend this future time saved however we want. Whereas the other side of the coin would be that yes therefore becomes a sort of time debt. We will have to pay back our commitment at some point. And what might that look like? Well maybe a little less time doing something that we choose to do, something that we would like to do at work and have been putting off, maybe a hobby, maybe more importantly time with a loved one; maybe even more importantly time for ourselves. Time to pause, to think, to sleep, to be! We are living in a world where everything is so fast and busy, to really thrive we must take time to slow down. And we must, must, must learn to be more gentle with ourselves.

Giving ourselves time to think, breath and be

Now I am not advocating always saying no to stuff and never saying yes. Goodness, not at all. I have so much passion to get involved, helping where I can and going above and beyond for others, it is my very core to be kind. At the wise old age of 43, as my children are becoming teenagers, losing my father this year to Covid, ramping up opportunities with my career… there are parts of life that seem to be whizzing past, or ‘zooming’ past this year (terrible joke but you can have that one!) Some parts are absolutely out of our control, some parts are very much within our gift to make choices that are right for us.

This year of all years, with the challenges we have faced, it can be so very tempting to hang onto what feels familiar, what feels safer to do so, infact that’s human nature. It is just sometimes the holding on, the not saying no, quite often can be doing even more damage.

So, as we begin to look to the last couple of months of this year, it is so important to not routinely say yes. Take a big deep breath and pause. Give ourselves time to think, breath and be.

Being deliberate in our approach

Switch off the notifications on emails or our phones, to give ourselves a little bit of space. Do think about how our yes decisions fit in with our other priorities and goals. Do use our networks personally and professionally to think who else may be able to say yes for us- delegation can work in our personal lives as well as our professional lives. Be clear on your important things to get done in a day, think about how your yes to other stuff may impact them, be really deliberate with your approach. Sometimes I replace no with a not now, it feels a good halfway house in self-management.

 

I love to help others, it fills me with absolute joy, I love saying yes. I am getting better at making sure I help myself too, sometimes saying no or not now means I am conserving energy for an infinite number of other things, it means I am saying yes to myself….. And the magic is that some of those future opportunities I won’t even know anything about yet, but I am giving myself the space to say yes when I find out what they are.

 

By Emma Lloyd, Head of Experience at MB People and Chief Ripple Creator at Create the Ripple.

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DR ELENI ATHANASAKOS, Lead Paediatric Clinical Scientist — NHS Barts Health

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

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Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

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Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

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Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

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Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

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Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

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Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

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Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

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Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Alive were professional, friendly and great to work with. Most importantly they were creative, helping us to bring an extremely important safety campaign to life.”

Jack Grasby — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

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Jack Ford, Head of Marketing — streamGO

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Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

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Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

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Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

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