Giving Your Best Life

Prioritizing Health, Honoring Commitments, and Finding Gratitude in Spilled Coffee

• Stephanie L. Jones, Giving Gal • Episode 122

Share episode

Skipping an event might seem trivial, but prioritizing well-being is a powerful act and often a mindset shift. In this episode of "Giving Your Best Life," I share my journey in recognizing when to hit pause for the sake of longer-term goals.

Discover how understanding our reasons for saying "yes" can guide us toward intentional decisions that prevent burnout. I also recount leading an event plagued by last-minute cancellations, shedding light on how honoring commitments is crucial for personal integrity and the smooth planning of any gathering.

Buy The Gratitude Challenge (here)

Connect with Stephanie:

Get a free resource The 4G Method Journal here.
Shop Stephanie's books here.
Follow me on IG: @Giving_Gal or FB/GivingGal


Speaker 1:

Hey friends, it's Stephanie here with another episode of Giving your Best Life podcast and I was reflecting back this morning on something that happened last week and it was a great lesson for me. Actually, when I did it I was like, oh, I'm growing, and celebrated that a little bit. So, first of all, when you see that you are having growth in your life, pause and celebrate that, because I think sometimes we can be really hard on ourselves or we don't think that we're making forward progress or we're growing. So if you notice that in yourself, first of all take time to celebrate it. So what I want to talk about is I don't know about you, but on and off for the last couple of weeks I have just had I don't know if it's a head cold. I actually think it's allergies. I've noticed the pollen is very high, you know just runny nose. But when you have a runny nose, doesn't it just feel like, oh gosh, can I blow my nose one more time?

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, I was supposed to go to an event with my accountability partner, zach, and I had actually canceled our accountability session, like that Monday. I just like, at first I just wanted to make sure I wasn't sick. I didn't want to get him sick. He's got two little kiddos and so I was just being precautious. But as the week went on, it's like I think I just got a whole head cold or allergies. But we were supposed to go to an event on Thursday and so he had texted me and was like hey, are we still going to this event tomorrow night, or probably not? And I really wanted to go. It had been on my calendar for a while, it was going to be good for my business, but then I just paused and whenever I am speaking to groups on burnout am speaking to groups on burnout.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that I've realized that myself and many women that I coach, many women that I talk with even men, I just know a lot of my audience is usually women is when we get asked to do something or we've maybe even committed to something, is we don't pause in our decision-making. Sorry, we don't pause in our decision-making, and so it was like I had to pause and think about not only like the immediate effect of going to that event, but what did I have coming up? And sometimes, when we make decisions and we say yes to attending things, we don't think about the long-term, we don't think about what we have coming up and that's how we can overbook our schedule, that's how we can get run down, we can get burned out because we just start saying yes to everything and then it's like, oh my gosh, my schedule's overflowed. So I took a little pause to think about it and then I was just like I don't think, so I'm not going to go to this event, because I had a speaking engagement like three days after it and I was like man, I just think if I'm around a bunch of people, um, it was going to be a multiple hour event. You know, going into the evening I still had prep that I had to do, um for my upcoming speaking engagement, and so after I had told him like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to go, even though I really wanted to, um, you know, I sent a follow I'm going to go, even though I really wanted to. I sent a follow-up text to say the old me would go, but breaking up with burnout, which is something that I've been working on for years, that me is not, and I feel like that's a win for me. I want to share this also because something happened at the event this weekend and it also reminded me of commitment, so making sure that we're sticking to the commitments that we make, and how it affects with people. So I think this is a really good, you know, kind of segue into that. So before I segue into that sorry, I just want to kind of tie a bow around that first piece of it. I think I've been able to break up with burnout and kind of get through this.

Speaker 1:

That phase of my life and that's been over years is that one. I don't make quick decisions and commitments when people ask me to do stuff or even when I'm evaluating events. So I really challenge you to not just say immediately yes is really pause and take time to look at your schedule, look at what you have coming up. Does this align with your priorities? You know, if you say yes to one thing, you have to say no to another thing. I think two is you know when we say yes or if we want to say yes. When we say yes or if we want to say yes is why are we saying yes?

Speaker 1:

So originally I had said yes to this event because there was an upside for my business. Also, it was local, so I wasn't going to have to travel. It was a very low cost and I didn't have to sign up before, so there was a little wiggle room to get out of it. So these are just things to consider as opportunities come in and you get asked to do things or you see things that might be a nice shiny object you know, like how do I make decisions of what I do? How am I spending my time? Now what I want to transition to is this commitment of events.

Speaker 1:

So I led an event this weekend and it was an RSVP event because we were catering it. So there was a cost of food and drinks and snacks and printed materials and, like there was a significant cost, the morning of that event, half the people well, not half, but like a good handful text the event planner and said they weren't coming. Now some said they were sick. Okay, that's, you know, we don't want sick people there. But at the event we had over half people that committed to coming not show up and at first I was very irritated because I have seen this of someone who puts up on events.

Speaker 1:

I keynoted an event a couple of weeks where people just don't show up to events. I don't know if it was the nice day. I don't know. I feel like we live in a society where our commitment, our word, doesn't really mean anything or something better comes up, or maybe we just don't feel like it. And I really challenge you that if you commit to an event, especially where there is going to be food this was actually a free event so they didn't have to pay, but there was going to be food, there was materials, materials like there was a cost to somebody else of people backing out, which ended up costing this organization a couple hundred dollars because that many people backed up out of the event, the event that I didn't attend. There was no RSVP, there was no cost, there was you. It didn't affect anybody else really except me and you know, my friend, who I was going to go with. So I just really challenge you that you know, stick to the commitment, especially if there is somebody's putting a cost and effort, unless you've paid and you're covering that cost.

Speaker 1:

The other thing too, it was interesting, which it ended up being a positive thing. I know my friend and I were a bit irritated in the beginning, but the smaller group led to more engagement. We got to have a lot of really good discussions. You can't do that when you have a larger group, so I always like to look at you know. The other side is this is who was supposed to be there, but there was a gal there and I appreciate her sharing is, even though she had signed up, she said she almost didn't come. It was like just going to be easier to stay in bed it was a Saturday, be comfy, like watch a movie with her kiddos but she decided to do something for herself and it was a perfect Like.

Speaker 1:

Her sharing that with us was like this is why people don't show up because it is more comfortable a lot of times to stay at home, to not get outside of our comfort zones, to just do what's easy. I even feel like a lot of times it's just comfortable not to leave our house and have to get ready and have to go be with people. So I didn't intend to talk about that today. I really just wanted to talk about, like you know, the burnout and how we make decisions and our schedules and over committing and in taking care of ourselves first, um, but also I just felt it's important to make sure that we're sticking with our commitments and making sure we are people that you know if we commit to something, we do it. And if I think about these two topics is they are just other ways of how you can get to giving your best life. Ps, I want to add some bonus content.

Speaker 1:

This morning I spilled my coffee. You might have seen. I posted it on social media and I was immediately irritated with myself and I put protein in my coffee. So it's just really gritty. It was really hot too. I mean, I was like trying to scramble of how do I set my coffee down, but as I was like sitting on the floor cleaning up this mess that I had made, I just went from irritation to gratitude.

Speaker 1:

And you know, a part of giving your best life, my 4G method, um, you know, number two of that is gratitude, um, and I just started thinking about what I was grateful for and going through that list and then, as I was thinking about what I was grateful for, I just started thinking about all the people in the mountains of North Carolina that had, um, you know, literally lost their homes. Many people lost their lives, um, homes, many people lost their lives. You know that still don't have water, electricity, just all this stuff. And I just really challenge you to, you know, when you have even small things, I think a lot of times these small things we just tend to let them snowball and it becomes really big in our head and then we get so caught up that and it ruins our day, it ruins our week, it affects other people, whether it's in their household, whatever it just can. Snowball is if you are practicing gratitude, um, and if you're not, I have two great resources my book, the Gratitude Challenge, and then Thank you Notes to God.

Speaker 1:

You can get them on my website at givingyourbestlifecom. Gratitude can help you reset these moments, for it puts life in perspective and now I can go throughout my day, not even having to worry about the spilled coffee. So that's just a little bonus. Content of you know, whenever you have things that go wrong or don't go your way, or it's spilled coffee, whatever it is is immediately switch your mindset to what can I be grateful for? And friends, I am grateful for you today, go out and have a fabulous day.