Learn to say no, so you can say yes

You’ve seen the movie, The Secret, you’ve made a vision board,your book shelves are full of motivational books, you’re a jedi-master of course correcting your inner critic. You are doing lots of the “right” things to achieve those big goals of yours.

But wait… things aren’t exactly going the way you would like them to.

You’re up to your eyeballs with personal and work commitments.

You feel stressed and overworked.

Being in joy feels like a foreign concept.

In a past survey I conducted, I asked people what their top challenge was with time management. Hands down, the biggest challenge people face is how to prioritize! It seems that in the age of excess, we have an absolute abundance of opportunities, choices and decisions to make everyday.

Our to-do lists begin to resemble an unraveling, never ending Scroll of Actions to be taken.

All the while, our BIG GOAL, aka our deepest, fondest wishes and desires aka our BIG DREAM, are pushed back to the back burner because, darn it, there’s just not enough time to do everything.

Sound familiar?

The solution? Living and breathing our truest priorities. Not just giving our dreams lip service, but truly designing our days with our top priorities inked into our calendar.

Here’s a quick 3 step power tool I teach all of my clients in all of my coaching programs & seminars.

1. Define your juicy big goal- ( this could be creating an exciting cash goal, moving to Italy, or starting your own consulting business ) Honor this dream. Write it down. Find a visual anchor, maybe a picture or symbol of your goal & keep it in a place you can see it every day.

2. Design your weekly plan - Set a time over your weekend to dream and design your week. What do you want to accomplish? What is wanting to emerge? What needs completing? Starting? Released? Write down your top 3-5 priority goals for the week & map out your action plan. Immediately plug these into your calendar. Be sure to give yourself plenty of time for each action step. Do this weekly planning each and every week. Buy some champagne because once you start doing your weekly action plans, you’re going to be celebrating & toasting your fine self!
3. Stay true to yourself- Be sure to honor your BIG GOALS by doing what you need to do in the upcoming week. When other “things” come up you MUST ask yourself, “Does doing this move me closer to my desired goal?” You’ve got to do some “tough love” with yourself. It’s easy to get distracted and get interrupted everyday with things that just aren’t that important. What’s more important… yardwork or writing the first chapter of the book you’ve been dreaming of publishing?

Be strong.

Be accountable.

Learn to say NO to those things that keep you from living your dream.

Say yes to your dreams.