Espresso Shot 20: Strategic Ignoring

THIS IS YOUR LIFE BY DESIGN Y'all!  Yep, it's time to start ignoring people in order to get what you want! Listen in for how YOU can live a life that has healthy boundaries. It's called STRATEGIC IGNORING. You heard me! Intentionally ignoring people, emails, phone calls, any and all distractions, etc. that interfere with your values based LIFE BY DESIGN! Get out your pens and journal your way to powerful boundary setting and goal alignment NOW!

MAYBE BUY THE BOOK: FIVE by Dan Zadra is a great starting point! 

And THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT:

Transcript

Nicoa Coach: 0:02

sometimes don't you just need a quick moment of inspiration. Or maybe you just need a moment of caffeinated contemplation to reflect on life. That's the idea behind my weekly coffee with Nicoa espresso shots. I'll be sharing short jolts of inspiration in each clip. In addition to my longer Coffee with Nicoa interview episodes, make sure to subscribe so you never miss an espresso shot, or a full length Coffee with Nicoa interview created just for you. Hey, guys, welcome to this week's espresso shot from Coffee with Nicoa. This is Nicoa I sure I'm grateful for you all. But I want to invite you to think about something that some other people might not be too grateful for. I call this concept strategic ignoring. Keep in mind, just because someone asks you a question send you an email invites you to something doesn't mean you have to respond. What? You want me to ignore people in the COA? Yeah, actually I do. And the reason I want you to ignore people, emails, obligations that you have set up that may no longer align with what matters most is because it may not aligned with what matters most to you. This is where the word strategic comes in. So how do you live a life where you're setting appropriate boundaries and pushing back and ignoring things that come into your world? without feeling guilty about it without feeling like you're hurting someone's feelings without worrying about the future? And what people might think? Well, it's kind of tricky. But I can tell you that if you practice this long enough, you will learn how to do it without second guessing yourself. The cool thing about strategic ignoring is it, it can make you feel super empowered. So you get to decide where to focus your energy and not waste time on things that just don't matter to you. It's like hitting the skip button on all that crap, that doesn't matter. And you're going straight to the good stuff. So start doing, you need to figure out how to do it. And the way you do that is you start with a list. All right, yeah, I want you to get out your pen and paper. This is your journaling prompt for the week, figure out what really matters to you. Now, my favorite book that my friend said, Why aren't you writing your own book for this? So you can stop selling the guy Dan's agers book, but I don't care. Dan already wrote a great book. It's a fill in the blank kind of fun book called Five, five, where do you want to be in five years? Well, part of that process is figuring out what matters most to you. People don't stop long enough and really ask themselves these questions. What are your values? What are your goals? What are your priorities? Once you know this, you can start setting personal boundaries that align with your standards. You know, before I even met my beautiful husband, John, my best friend, she said to me, have you done the standards? Postcard? Or what does she call it? Standards? note card stack yet? And I was like standards, no cards back? What are you talking? She said, Yeah. Have you written down all of the things that you want in this relationship? And with this man? What are your standards when it comes to attracting a man for your for your life? And I was like, you know, I never really wrote down standards. So what will you accept and what Won't you accept in a partnership, that is the same thing as figuring out what matters most to you. And then making sure that you do not deviate from what you want. That means saying no to things that don't matter, and intentionally choosing how you're going to spend time, energy and who you're going to spend it with. Now, I know this can be really tough. Sometimes setting boundaries means, you know, letting go of things or sometimes people that you care about. It's not always easy to do. But it's really necessary if you want to live a fulfilling life that's aligned with your priorities. Remember, this is your life by design. I remember once sitting behind one of my leaders at GE, and he said, Come here i want to show you something on my computer. So I was standing over his shoulder. And I noticed that he had his email account open at the same time. There were 1000s It appeared of unread emails. Now, I was about 29 years old at the time. And I remember thinking, oh my god, I could never Are you kidding me? There is no way I could go through an entire day and not try at least to get as many of my emails responded to. Well, fast forward to being an executive in a large corporation like GE. Yeah, guess what? You just don't have time to answer every email. And this is where I really began to recognize that this concept of strategic ignoring as a leader I have To remember what mattered most, was it to check off my end of the day? I've answered every freaking email and cost me my time and energy. So I missed dinner. Maybe I don't even focus my energy on the more important project at hand that might be due the next day, because I was so concerned about answering emails. Are you kidding me? So you can apply this anywhere in your life? Strategic ignoring just because someone emails you and ask you a question doesn't mean you have to answer it. Hey, and as a matter of fact, if they see see it a whole bunch of people, guess what you ignoring? Have you ever noticed that four or five emails later because you never could get around to it that the problem solved itself? That is the power that I really love about strategic ignoring people move on. Things don't have to always be exactly the way other people want them to be. You get to set some boundaries, and you get to let go of the things that no longer serve you. The real key here with strategic ignoring is strategic thinking. So ask yourself is this thing I'm thinking about or about to do really worth my time and energy? Does this align with my priorities? And if the answer is no, then you know what to do? Strategically ignore it. I send you off this week. Don't forget to journal I can't wait to hear how your strategic ignoring strategy works for you. Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an espresso shot or a full length Coffee with Nicoa interview created just for you.