Taking Control of Your Life

A major step toward becoming a more confident woman is gaining back control of your life. In practical terms what this means is engineering your everyday actions so that you spend more and more time on meaningful, rewarding, energizing experiences, and less and less time on the non-essential, meaningless, space-absorbing, energy-draining ones. Here are some actions that you can take to get control of your life:

Confident Action #1: Never say yes automatically

Never, ever say yes to anyone who asks you for your time, energy or body without first giving yourself a chance to think about it.

Confident Action #2: When To Say "Yes" And "No"

This technique involves asking yourself two questions and answering the questions by assigning them a number on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 = no way, negative; 10 = absolutely yes; there's nothing I'd rather do.)

Two Questions to Know Whether to Say Yes or No

Question #1: How much do I want to do this? (Rate the activity or event from 1-10)

Score: ________

Question #2: Given everything else that is going on in my life, how important is that I do this? (Rate the importance from 1-10)

Score:

Results:

Now add up the two scores: ______

If the combined score from the two questions is 13 or less, don't do it. If the sum from the two questions is 14 or more, then do it and enjoy yourself!

Confident Action #3: How To Say "No" To Invitations And Requests

Here is a proven way of saying "No" graciously and effectively. (This technique may not apply to your receiving an assignment from an instructor or a boss.)

1. To begin with, NEVER, EVER say "Yes" automatically to anyone who asks for your time, or energy. (And for goodness sake, don't volunteer!)

2. Graciously thank the inviter for the invitation and say that you will get back to him or her within a specified amount of time (ten minutes, a half hour, a few hours, even tomorrow). Tell the inviter that you need to check your calendar or consult someone else who might be involved. This maneuver gives you some distance from the person or a situation so that you can gain perspective and decide with no pressure if you want to accept the invitation.

3. Decide whether or not you want to accept the invitation. Don't forget, if you have trouble deciding, you can use the above Two Question method. Also keep in mind that you always have at least three alternatives:

• Saying "Yes," if you really want to do something.
• Making a counter offer if you want to say yes, but the time or date or circumstances are not good for you.
• Saying "No."

4. If you decide to say no, get back to the inviter, again graciously thank him or her for the invitation and with no apologies or excuses, say "No."

5. After saying "No" (or making a counter offer), reward that behavior with positive thoughts such as "Good for me!" "I did it!" "I'm finally getting control of my life!"

6. If you decide to say "Yes," go for it!  

Confident Action #4: Act on Your Priorities

1. Keep a List of Your Priorities in Front of You

In the hustle-bustle of everyday decision-making, we often fail to take into account our priorities. It's not so much that we intend to do this, but it's more a matter of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Therefore, a good first step to remember our priorities is to write them down on a few 3 x 5 cards. The number of cards you create depends on how many locations you want and need to be reminded of them.

a. You might, for example, place one card on the monitor of your computer.

b. You might staple another card to your calendar.

c. Another card might go into the wallet in your purse.

d. Another could be taped in a place near your desk phone, and so on.

Placing these cards at strategic locations will help remind you about where and with whom you really want to spend your time and in what directions you want to make decisions.

2. Compare Your Priorities with the Reality of Your Days

Look at your calendar for the next month or coming few months. Compare your priorities against where you have actually designated spending your time. Is there a match? If your answer is yes, then good for you. If your answer is sort of or no, then one way of making sure that your behavior matches your priorities, is to schedule regular time for the people and things you hold dear.

a. For example, many working mothers I know carve out the first half hour when they get home to play with (or talk to) their children (and not answer the phone or open the mail or check messages or get dinner started).

b. Other women have told me that Sunday mornings are carved out as inviolable family time.

c. As for what's important, a number of women say that they take the first hour of every morning to act on their top priority, whether that be writing a novel or taking an exercise walk.

d. Others carve out time to go back to school.

e. Still others red-line one day a month for doing nothing. YES! They really do that.

Confident Action #5: Someone Else Do It: Delegate It * Barter It * Hire It Out or Buy It

There are three major ways of addressing the question, Who else can do it: delegating, bartering and hiring and/or buying help. A major barrier for many women in getting help is that they fail to ask for it. Another common barrier is that women don't ask effectively. Hinting, hoping, blaming, getting angry, and guilt-slinging do not do the job.

1. Delegating

To delegate effectively, here are some steps to follow:

a. Decide what task you want to delegate.

b. Determine to whom you want to delegate the task.

c. Delegate the task by:

• Describing it (including the elements of what, when,

where, why and how)

• Listening to any reply

• Responding to the reply

d. Follow-up on the delegation by

• Thanking the person for doing the task and/or

•Describing what needs to be done in order to do the task appropriately

2. Bartering

Bartering is a system wherein one person exchanges one product or service for another person's product and/or service. For example, you might bake six dozen cookies in exchange for a friend providing two days of after-school child care. I think you would be surprised how many women all over the country us the bartering system in one form or another. It's especially useful for people who don't have a lot of extra cash on hand. Most women are very informal about their exchange arrangements and that informality usually works out. However, if you decide to get involved with some kind of complicated bartering, to avoid misunderstandings you and your bartering partner might want to write down exactly what products and or services are being offered by each person.

Here are some products, services and other things that women are bartering: (I am sure that you can think of many more.)

What You Can Barter

Products • Services • Other

• Meals
• Food products (such as breads, cakes and cookies, homemade baby food)
• Home-grown, vegetables and fruits
• Home-grown flowers
• Handmade clothing
• Handmade jewelry
• Art pieces
• Tutoring
• Cooking
• Haircutting or manicuring
• Child care or elder care
• Erranding
• Bookkeeping
• Grocery shopping
• Housecleaning or gardening
• Word processing
• Carpooling
• Writing or editing
• Pet sitting and vacation house-sitting
• Meeting service people (telephone person)Room and/or board
• Use of a car
• Use of garage
• Use of a storage area
• Use of a computer
• Use of an office

3. Hiring It Out or Buying It

If I were to ask you right now, why don't you hire someone or some service to take care of your household chores, errands or work, my bet is that your answer would be typical of what many other women say:

• No, I can't
• No, I don't have the money
• No, it's too expensive
• No, it's too much of a hassle
• No, I wouldn't know where to even begin
• No, I don't have time to do it; it's easier to do it myself

Even among high-income, highly successful women today, there is incredible resistance to spending money on what women have traditionally done for themselves or for their respective households. But as Letty Cottin Pogrebin said once, "If it's okay to hire someone to fix the toilet, it sure as hell should be okay to hire someone to clean it."

Women need to think about how to conserve their time and energy for the priorities in their lives. Paying other people to do things is an appropriate way of doing this.

1. Remember, you can buy parts of a person's time, or

2. Buy parts of a important meal such as Thanksgiving, or

3. Hire someone for a few hours of service.

You don't have to hire a full-time housekeeper (although that's a fine thing to do), or have your Thanksgiving dinner catered (although that, too, is a fine if it's what you want), or hire a handy person for a full day.

Services You Can Hire

To give you an idea about the range of services other women use, here is a list:

answering service, baby-sitting service, bartending service, bookkeeping service, catering services, children's party service, cleaning service, companionship service (for elderly or homebound) diaper service, dog-walking service, driving services(for children and the elderly), drugstore delivery service, errand service, home repair service, in-home personal grooming services (hairdresser, masseuse, manicurist, exercise coach), gardening service, house-sitting service, laundry and cleaning services that pick up, messenger service, milk-delivery, package wrapping and mailing service, painting service, party service, pick up and delivery service, pool service, rug and furniture cleaning service, secretarial service, shopping service, travel service, tutoring service, wardrobe consultant, window cleaning service.

If you decide to "buy it," remember that the goal in purchasing services is to save you from dealing with hassles, or give you more time and/or preserve your energy for the people and things that are important to you.

You will want to hire people (or services) that make your life easier, not more complicated or difficult. Be careful to choose individuals who are not only competent, prompt, reliable, and honest, but NICE! Over and over the women I interviewed for this book told me that one of life's great lessons is to stop hiring people who are a pain the neck.

Confident Action #6: Become a "Solution Nut"

Over the years I have noticed that the most interesting, confident, competent women I have encountered are women who have become what I call "Solution Nuts." In everyday terms, what this means is that they are always "on the make" for good ideas, suggestions, excellent products, outstanding service and professional people, helpful hints--every single one of which helps them to get better control over their lives. These women not only seek out solutions, but they are very generous in sharing their finds with others.

More importantly, "Solution Nuts" seem to have such fun doing what they do.

1. Open up your eyes and ears to solutions.

Pay attention to and WRITE DOWN any ideas you see or hear.

2. Keep track of idea solutions: in a journal you keep in your purse, in a box, in a binder, in a manila folder or on your computer or all of the above.

3. Find a group of people who enjoy sharing solutions with one another. The quality of your life is determined by one thing: what you do with every minute of every hour of every day. Regardless of your circumstances, age or health, your happiness depends on your actions and your actions alone.

From this moment on, you can take ownership of your life by making positive choices about what you do right now, with whom you spend time right now, and where you choose to be right now.

Yes, you can do that and you can do it as of right now.