The Art Of No: Reclaiming Your Time For Happiness

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

There's a lot of things that keep us from being happy,

Having a good life,

But do you know what one of the main ones is that we have complete control over and yet we every day often succumb to it?

I call it the yes trap.

The first time I really began to understand the yes trap is one when I was at university working on my first college degree.

One of my professors who I felt was very wise was sharing this story about people that are good at what they do get asked to do more and more and the ones that don't really do anything don't get asked to do much at all.

She said it was sad because often everyone should be involved,

But the people who often are good at what they do get asked over and over again to the point that they often get exhausted.

Sometimes she said they reach a point of such exhaustion that they really can't help out anyone else anymore because they're just utterly spent.

And as I was entering the field of health care and helping other people,

I really saw this to be true.

Some people were so bad at saying no that they truly either got sick or just stopped because they couldn't do it anymore.

They got burnt out.

So where does this yes trap come from?

It grows from our cultural and societal pressures to overcommit.

People saying yes when they already are overwhelmed with things to do,

Even if saying yes is detrimental to our own well-being.

A few years ago,

I was in Yellowstone National Park,

One of the most beautiful national parks in America.

And while I was there,

I ran into three different doctors that had all retired early because they were so exhausted from their work and just couldn't do it anymore.

They couldn't say no.

So what they did is they just quit.

And these were very capable people that could have helped so many others,

But they just wore themselves out.

So all three of them decided to retire early.

Not that there's anything wrong with retiring early,

But might it not be better if we decide to retire early that we do it because we really like our job or we're ready for a new phase in our life instead of retiring early because we're just utterly exhausted.

So how do we respond to the yes trap?

It's with the power of no.

There are just so many benefits to sometimes saying no to things.

These include reduced stress,

Increased self-respect,

Better focus,

And more time for what truly matters all along the way.

And we begin to be able to do this by defining our values.

We decide what's important,

What do we really value as a foundation of making conscious choices about where to invest our time and energy.

There's an old adage that says,

We can have anything we want in life.

We just can't have everything.

So the question is,

What do we want in life?

What's important to us?

A simple example of this is when we say no to something that frees up time so that we can spend time with our family,

Spend an evening reading a good book,

Or going for a walk in nature instead of accepting something that may give us,

Yes,

External validation by people being so happy that we help them out,

Or that people think we're so awesome because we're doing these things.

But that doesn't lead to our happiness because that's external approval.

Happiness comes from the inside,

And when we do things that truly bring us happiness,

We need to make time and space for them and decide what's important.

And we do this by setting boundaries in all areas of our life,

Including work,

Relationships,

Family,

And even social commitments.

I decided long,

Long ago that I wanted to be physically healthy as best as I could given the age that I am at.

And in order to do that,

I need to spend time taking care of my body,

Eating well,

And exercising,

Which does take time.

So when I started university,

I had hoped that I would be going to university for a very long time because I wanted to get my doctorate.

But that meant I had to get good grades.

But I knew what happened was during finals,

People often don't take care of their bodies because they're studying for finals.

Their grades were so important to them that they were going to relinquish their self-care during that period of time.

They were not going to say no to studying.

And I thought,

I don't want to do that.

I want to stay healthy even during finals.

So I decided I would never cram for finals.

And if my grades suffered,

So be it.

Then I would find something else to do.

But because I made that commitment to make sure my body stayed healthy,

I knew when finals came that I was not going to stay up all night.

So I had to be prepared.

And I was still going to make time for working out.

And so in order to do that,

I had to be prepared.

And thankfully,

By the grace of God,

I was able to do that.

I was able to keep my grades up and still make time to take care of my body and be healthy.

But I also knew at that time that if it meant that I wasn't going to work out because my grades were going to suffer,

I was going to let the grades suffer.

I decided my priority was to stay healthy.

Even if my choice to stay healthy and to say no to studying had consequences.

So what I feel is important if we want to have a good life is say,

What's important for us to have a good life?

Not I'm going to work really hard and then someday I'll have a good life,

But having a good life today and making that a priority.

I always base my foundation of my life based on that,

That I would do these certain things because I felt they were important to live a good,

Happy life,

Which they were.

They've held true.

And then after I do these daily things to live a good life,

Whatever time is left,

I would fill with commitments and things I could say yes to that were not necessarily required to live a good life,

But they were part of living a life and helping others and saying yes to commitments,

Including goals that I had for my future,

Even professional goals.

It was just that I would say yes to these things.

I would set up these goals after each and every day I did things to be happy and healthy.

So part of the skill that we have to learn if we are going to start saying no is saying no with grace,

By developing communication skills to decline requests or invitations politely,

Though sometimes assertively,

But without feeling guilt or needing to apologize.

One technique that I learned along the way that I think you'll like is because most people do tend to be very busy,

They assume we are too.

So what we can say is,

Oh,

I'm so sorry,

My plate is very full right now and I won't be able to fit that in,

But thank you so much for the invite.

Now what they may be full with is going to the gym,

Going on a date with our spouse,

Getting a massage,

But these are on our plate because we do these things to stay healthy.

They don't need to know that that's what we're doing,

But because we're prioritizing our own happiness,

They are our priority.

And that means we have to say no to other things that get in the way of making time for them.

Now another thing that can really get us in trouble and keep us from saying no is guilt and shame.

You see,

When we say no,

Sometimes we have this emotional challenge that associates saying no with such things as guilt,

Shame,

Or fear of disappointing others.

And these can be very powerful emotions.

And here's a technique that I think could really help with that.

If again,

You like helping others,

Which I think is wonderful,

I do too,

Or if you have goals for yourself,

Which are important,

But not necessarily going to make you happy right now.

And to do the things that would make you happy,

Don't fulfill those certain goals.

Here's what we can keep in mind when we're saying no to these things is that the best thing we can do in order to help others or improve our lives is keep helping others and keep improving our lives.

But if we get burned out,

We're going to stop doing things.

We're going to just be worthless when it comes to goals for ourselves and goals to help others.

So in a sense,

By saying no to other people and other things,

What we're doing,

We're saying,

Yes,

I'm going to be around for a long time.

And because I'm saying no right now,

That means I'll be able to say yes for years and years to come.

And the way we're able to do that is when we make self-care as non-negotiable.

We reframe self-care as an essential practice for well-being rather than as a luxury or an indulgence.

The truth is the things that we're working on,

Whatever they be,

Or things that we get called to do that take away from our self-care aren't that important.

We may think they're important,

But the truth is in the long run,

Our self-care is the most important thing that we can do.

And we're responsible for our self-care.

No one is going to do it for us.

I know there are times every once in a while,

But I do mean very rarely,

Where there are times where self-care has to be neglected for a little bit.

For example,

It's three o'clock in the morning and our child is very sick and we're staying up to make sure they get better.

These things do happen,

But most things truly are not that crucial and they don't require that level of vigilance.

But the truth is we act like they do,

So we neglect self-care.

And because it's so easy to get pulled into this trap,

Often because of shame and guilt that I talked about,

We then get caught in the trap of,

I'm going to neglect myself this one time.

And then that one time not only becomes a regularity,

It becomes a lifestyle.

And no matter how strong we are,

Sooner or later,

We all get burned out when we don't take care of ourselves.

And our minds are so tricky in justifying what we're doing.

For example,

We work really hard.

We do overtime because we want to make sure that our kids don't have any debt when they go to college or they have a big backyard to play in.

But the truth is when kids are younger,

They just want us to be there with them and play with them.

They may later get used to the things and the financial benefit that we're bringing,

But ultimately at the core,

Everyone just wants childhood memories of happiness and joy and laughter together.

And you know one of the best ways to really do this,

To say no to things,

Is finding joy and simplicity.

What I mean by that is exploring the concept of minimalism and how decluttering our lives can lead to greater clarity,

Peace,

And happiness.

See when we clutter our lives with goals and achievements and stuff,

We don't have time to smell the roses,

To slow down,

And just watch the wind flow through the trees or the birds sing outside.

Simplicity keeps our minds quiet.

It keeps our hearts still.

When we're cluttered,

When we're overwhelmed,

We're exhausted and we're not here right now.

May I suggest another thing that we could do to help develop this skill of simplifying our lives?

Choose to go someplace in nature,

Maybe rent a cabin,

Or if you can't afford that,

Just borrow someone's tent and go in nature just for a weekend.

Don't bring any electronics with you,

Except for a phone if it's an emergency of course,

But leave the phone off unless it is an emergency and just sit,

Just be,

Just spend time in stillness and what you'll find is there's so much joy and beauty there.

At first it may be hard,

At first it may be overwhelming,

But with time it will become beautiful and you'll crave it and then what we'll begin to do is create a life that lights us up by discovering our passions,

Pursuing our dreams,

And designing a life that is aligned with our authentic self.

We have to listen to know what's important to us and once we discover that,

Then we have to say no to everything that doesn't align with living our life the way that creates beauty and joy and happiness.

The one last thing you may be thinking is,

Well Dr.

Puff,

Isn't this going to create selfishness?

Isn't this going to make me a very narcissistic,

Egocentric person that's all about me?

No,

That is definitely not what's going to happen.

When we truly say no when it's appropriate and we make our own self-care the priority of our lives,

What we'll find is from that abundance we will want to help other people out,

We'll want to make the world a better place,

We'll give more than anyone we've ever known.

From self-care comes love,

Comes kindness,

Comes joy of sharing it with other people.

I've been blessed to be able to help people out for 30 years now and my profession is a very high burned out profession and I'm hoping that God will grant me another 30 years that I can continue to help others have a good life.

But we do that by making sure that we're okay first.

We give from our abundance,

Not from our exhaustion.

We have so much more to give the world when we first make sure we're okay and from that abundance we share it with the world.

But let's start by learning to say no more often and saying yes to ourselves more frequently.

The world could really use our love,

Our attention,

Our help,

But we're going to do that from our abundance and that abundance is going to come from saying no when it's appropriate,

Saying yes to who and what's important to us and living our authentic life from that authentic life,

Making the world a better place for all of us to live in.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.