5 Things I’m Saying No to This Year for More Peace
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ 5 things I have done in the past, but am saying no to this year
⋒ How saying no to these things are going to bring me more peace in my life
⋒ How you can figure out what things you need to stop doing to live a more peacefully productive year
This time of year there is a lot of goal talk happening and I am here for it. But I also think it’s just as important to recognize what habits or routines aren’t supporting you so you can be intentional about releasing those.
Here’s the thing: we can set the most epic goals that are super aligned with our vision and values but if our plates are full of stuff we don’t really care about but that we feel pressured to show up for (which is creating stress and guilt) there’s gonna be less time and energy for us to dedicate to the goals that we decided matter to us.
The reality is, we don’t have unlimited time and energy.
We all have a capacity. A threshold. We can only do so much. That being said, I’ve been trying to be more intentional about being mindful of what things I’m releasing each season so that I can make sure I am being the best steward of my time and energy.
Obviously, it’s important to know what your priorities are in each season so you can show up well for them but like I said, we gotta know what we’re not available for, too!
I brainstormed 5 things that I’m not doing this year – 5 things that I’m saying no to so that I can say yes to what really matters to me:
5 Things I’m Not Doing This Year:
01. Chasing my “best self.”
I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m a recovering workaholic who hardcore dabbled in hustle culture back in my early to mind-twenties. I believed that if something wasn’t nurturing my mind, growing my bank account, making progress on a goal, or benefiting my body that it was a complete waste of time.
It was a very self-centric, tireless striving season of my life, let me tell you.
I’m planning to focus a lot less on DOING and a whole lot more on BEING this year. I hear so often from other mamas that the first year (and pretty much motherhood in general) flies by and I don’t want to be so wrapped up in constantly striving to be the best that I miss the opportunity to make sweet memories with Everly and watch her really develop this year.
Now, this is not me saying that I’m throwing all of my healthy habits to the wayside and just going into each day without a plan and intention. I still plan on showing up well for myself and the people in my life and taking care of myself mentally, physically, and spiritually.
But instead of chasing my “best self”, I want to reframe that and focus on being my healthiest self this season.
To me, the difference comes in the approach. Because yes, the healthiest you probably is the best you. But the way I pursue my healthiest self is a more gentle and intuitive approach.
I imagine trying to chase your best self being a sprint where you go hard and quickly burn out whereas pursuing your healthiest stuff is a nice little power walk.
So anyway, that’s the first thing I’m saying no to this year – chasing my “best self.”
02. Working out to “bounce back” or get my “pre-baby” body back.
Health and fitness is a major part of my life. I’m really passionate about caring for my physical body because I believe that our physical and mental selves are so interconnected and one affects the other. We have to care for them both to be the healthiest version of ourselves.
So yes, I will still be working out, and working out hard this year because I enjoy feeling strong and lifting weights, and all that stuff. But again, this one goes back to the intention behind the action: I am not working out with the goal of “bouncing back” or getting my “pre-baby body back.” That’s a mindset I don’t subscribe to because I’m a new version of myself now that I’m a mom. Why go backward? I want to focus on going forward and building a new version of my body that I love in this season.
I am so proud of what my body has done over the last year. In January of 2022, I was back squatting over 200 pounds and I had a rock hard six pack. From March-December of 2022 my body grew and birthed a human being. God is so cool and life truly is such a miracle. And now my body is sustaining that little human that it grew through breastfeeding.
There is no going back to my pre-baby body because my body has a different job now and honestly birth is a traumatic experience for a body to go through…I’m focused on moving my body this year to support healing and regaining strength in a way that allows me to be healthy for my baby girl for years to come.
If I get my six-pack back, awesome! But that is not my driving motivation for moving my body this year.
03. Living with the pressure to be “extra.”
I am ALL FOR people going all out and being extra if it lights them up. I am 10/10 extra when it comes to certain things and have no shame in that, lol.
Like let people shine as bright as they want to is how I see it.
But let me back up for a second and explain what I mean by “being extra” in case someone has never heard of that before. Y’all know me and my love for looking up and sharing definitions so I slid on over to Urban Dictionary and here is what it says about “being extra”: Excessive, over the top, doing the most, dramatic behavior.
So for me, this year, I’ll be extra when I have the energy to be but I’m not going to expect that of myself. For example, a lot of people told me that when I became a mom, I would be the mom who went all out for everything – as in staging cutesy photoshoots for every holiday, having a perfectly time-blocked/color-coded schedule for my baby, doing a learning craft on the daily, etc.
If I have the energy to do some of that, amazing — but I’m not putting pressure on myself to try and do it all. And if I don’t go all out for something, I refuse to let guilt make me feel like I’m a bad mom.
As I mentioned earlier, this year my main focus is on “being” over “doing”. I want to be present in my day-to-day life and lead from a place of peace and love…there really is no room for guilt and shame when you’re living a peacefully productive life!
04. Pushing my Focus 3 tasks to the end of the day.
Last fall, I got into the habit of doing my Focus 3 tasks toward the end of the day, and let me tell you right now… it did not support me well.
In case you’re new around here and wondering what Focus 3 means – they are your 3 most important tasks to get done each day.
As tempting as it is to look at your to-do list and start with the small or “easy” tasks that don’t take a lot of time and energy – don’t do it – it’s a trap. I’m speaking from experience.
I will fool myself into thinking that I need to do my small tasks (which for me look like admin tasks – emails, checking Voxer, checking in with the BFF FB group, posting on social media, and things like that) to help hype me up to get into work mode before I start my Focus 3 tasks.
But then I end up spending an hour or more doing these tasks and by the time I’m starting my Focus 3 tasks, which reminder, are the most important tasks of the day and need my best time and energy, half of my brain power is already spent from using it on all the little tasks.
So this year, I’m saying no to starting my day with more than 15 minutes of “low energy” tasks before I get busy with my Focus 3.
I’ve heard this example before and it really does just make sense:
When you’re working out, you spend a little bit of time warming up (like 5-10 minutes) and then you typically want to do your big lift first while your energy is fresh, and then you finish your workout with accessory movements.
So for leg day, this could look like a 10-minute warm-up, doing your sets of squats, then finishing your workout with movements like leg extensions, walking lunges, and step-ups.
If you started with the accessory movements, you’d be tired by the time you got to your big lift (the squat) and you wouldn’t be able to perform as well…maybe you wouldn’t be able to lift as heavy or complete as many sets as you wanted to.
And another example in case you’re like, “Jess, I don’t lift, you’ve lost me.”
Imagine you have a pile of rocks and a jar. If you put all the small rocks in the jar first, it’s really hard to then try and fit the big rocks in on top of those.
But when you start by putting the big rocks in first, you can then put the small rocks in and they end up falling into place around the big rocks.
Getting your Focus 3 tasks done toward the beginning of the day whenever possible sets you up to give those tasks your best time and energy and plus you know how good it feels when you have those important tasks done earlier in the day…freaking amazing. It creates momentum when you don’t have them looming over your head and you know they’re done as soon as possible. It’s easier to be peacefully productive the whole day when you get those Focus 3 tasks done early on!
So again, something I’m saying no to for more peace this year: pushing my Focus 3 tasks to the end of the day.
05. Letting people make me feel guilty for honoring the boundaries I’ve created.
I gotta be honest with you… I don’t identify as a people pleaser and I am pretty dang good at setting, communicating, and standing firm with my boundaries. I think it’s because of the way I view boundaries. I don’t view boundaries as keeping things out. I view boundaries as protecting what’s inside.
So I always keep that in mind when I’m creating and communicating my boundaries.
Having a newborn comes with setting ALL kinds of boundaries. I’ve never had so many boundaries in my life.
When you put your focus on what the boundary is protecting rather than worrying if you’ve offended someone with the boundary, you’re more prone to uphold it.
Now let’s be real – enforcing boundaries isn’t always fun. It can be awkward and uncomfortable, especially if it’s not well received at first. But you created the boundary to protect something that is clearly worth protecting to you!
Those are 5 things I’m saying no to for more peace this year – but maybe you’re like, “Okay love this idea, but how do I think of my own?” How can you decide what to say no to this season when everything FEELS like it’s important?
Here’s what I did to help me figure these things out:
I sat down with my journal and asked myself 2 questions:
01. “What open loops are making me feel extra stress right now?”
02. “What habits don’t feel like are supporting my season right now?”
Don’t overthink the questions – just sit down somewhere quiet for a few minutes and give yourself some time with your thoughts and let whatever comes up, come up.
It feels dang good to call these things out of my life and let the world know I’m not available for them this year.
Let me know over on Instagram what one thing is that you’re saying no to this year for more peace – it can be one of the ideas that I shared or something completely different that came up for you as you listened!
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