WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAID NO?

Intuition is something you’ll hear me talk about a lot (obviously - what Intuitive Coach doesn’t?) but I am not immune to ignoring it. Our gut feelings are rarely wrong - they are usually trying to tell us something and we ignore them at our peril! Last week, I was dog sitting. I had previously agreed to look after a dog, despite my intuition and my gut screaming at me that it wasn’t a good idea. For whatever reason (ahem, self sabotage, ahem), I ignored my inner voice and took this dog on for four days. ‘It’ll be fine! He’s only a wee Whippet, I can handle dogs no problem!’. Spoiler: it was not fine. He was bananas and having him for just two days resulted in a 3am trip to A&E and a sore hand that meant he had to go home early.

Now, after meeting him a few weeks ago, I knew he would be too much for me. Looking after him took up every minute of every day, and every other part of my life had to take a back seat - including my business. Did I know that this would happen? Yep, I sure did. I had the worst feeling about it, but I ignored it. Squashed it down, wrote it off as just worrying over nothing.

Saying yes to things that don’t serve you is good ol’ self sabotage creeping in my friend. Things tough right now? Let me just distract myself by dog sitting/saying yes to that party/slumping in front of Netlfix all week/insert your favourite distraction here. You tell yourself you need a break, you need to see people, you need to rest by watching tv for a week solid. I’m not saying these things aren’t true sometimes. To tell if it’s true vs if it’s self sabotage, here’s an easy question to answer:

By saying yes to that distraction, what are you saying no to?

Saying No can be uncomfortable. But ask yourself, is saying Yes to your favourite distraction going to support you? Is it going to help you look after your needs, or achieve your goals? What are the consequences to saying Yes, instead of No?

Suffice to say, I am tuning into my intuition more than ever. I am letting it guide me in all my decision making, even if it’s scary or uncomfortable. When was the last time you said No to something that doesn’t serve you? Try doing it just once this week, and see how you feel. It gets easier, I promise.