Talane’s Blog of the Week, September 24, 2007

Attraction Principle #9
Say “No” To What You Don’t Want

Last week we talked about using the Joy Filter for decision making. In other words, if it isn’t bringing you joy, then why is it in your life? You only have so much time on this planet and how you use that time is your choice. If you aren’t careful, you can easily fritter away your precious time on people and things that aren’t that important or meaningful to you.

One of my clients is a very warm, wonderful human being and he befriends everyone who comes into his life. He can’t help it because he simply loves people. The problem is that he spends so much time helping others he is left with no time for himself or his family. One of his personal coaching goals is to have more time with his family. I gave him the assignment of defining what “more time” actually looks like. He decided that he’d be happy with a “normal” working week of 9 a.m. -5 p.m. and the rest of his time he would be available for his family. Even if that means they are just together in a room, at least they are together. They don’t have to be doing anything in particular. Since he usually works 80-90 hours a week, this “normal” week will be quite a big change for him.

In order to get make this change, he is turning off his cell phone and returning calls in batches when it is convenient for him or returning the call by email, which is more efficient. This change alone is freeing up huge amounts of time as he was in the habit of dropping everything to talk to a caller who might want to discuss his marital problems or some other personal topic. Second, he has defined his Circle of Ten closest people in the world. These are the people he wants to make sure have his time and attention. All the others he will handle more expeditiously or in batches as above. This sounds callous, but when you are loved by so many people, you have to make some hard choices.

His assignment this week is to say “no” to the jobs/clients that don’t make it through the joy filter.

One of the dangers of the attraction principles is that they work. And, they work so quickly in most cases that it can be a bit scary. He is attracting new clients from out of the blue without any effort on his part. But does he want all these clients? Just because you attract them, does not mean you have to say yes to the opportunity. The more attractive you become, the stronger your filters need to be. And, ironically, you’ll discover that as you put stronger filters in place, you will then become even more attractive!

Enjoy the process!
Talane

P.S. This tip goes with the Attraction Principle: Nature Abhors a Vacuum. As your power increases, you’ll attract more opportunities into your life. These can quickly clog up your empty space. In order to keep some empty space and keep the suction power of the vacuum working you’ll have to say no to some things or find other ways to handle them (delegating, etc.) so your time is still free.