Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Today we're discussing a simple yet powerful question what are you saying no to? So you can say yes to your relationship. Join us as we share our journey of discovering that sometimes the best way to deepen our connection isn't by adding more into our lives, but by choosing what to leave out. We'll talk about how opting out of commitments imposed on us by societal, social and familial expectations has opened up more space for us to enjoy life and each other.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Hey, we're Kim and Rog, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should, we think about the future as a field of possibilities and we let joy be our compass.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house flipping business, we've achieved some big dreams. And most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Pick conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts, and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. Sit back, get comfort in whatever tickles you pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
Today we're talking about saying no to something so you can say yes to your relationship.
So this makes sense, right? Especially at the back end of 2024 or the back end of any year when we're all so busy? I can tell because my, for me, my WhatsApp group with all the boys on, it becomes a lot quieter the closer and closer we get to Christmas. We are only halfway through the year, but it does seem like everything's catching up with us. There's less public holidays as well. Everything seems to be in motion. And so perhaps we're not spending the time with our loved one, with our partner that we need to. And we're like, okay, this is great. Kim and Roger always telling us to spend more time with our partners, but we're so busy, we don't have time to do that. Where are we going to find this magical time? Do you want us to get up at 04:00 a.m. in the morning? Well, actually, what we're going to talk about today is the power of saying no to one thing, so you can say yes to another thing. And I think what's important here is saying no is not about rejecting opportunities, but it's actually about making room for the right things, the right opportunities.
It's also about aligning our actions to our values, taking control of our lives and making decisions that enhance our well being because they are aligned with who we are.
We believe by mastering the art of saying no, we are. We are empowering ourselves to live more intentionally and as a result, live more fulfilling lives. Because the truth is, time is finite. And instead of trying to cram more into less, we really should be looking at what we can focus on to get what we really want out of life.
You know, when we try fit more into less, one of three things will happen. We get overwhelmed because we're burnt out, we're not so purposeful, so we don't focus on the things we truly want. We just pick up activities as we go. We say yes to everything because that's our usual mode and we don't want to disappoint people.
Or what can happen is our output isn't optimized because we're spread too thin. So we're not focusing on one or two things and doing them well, instead of focusing on ten things and doing them half asked.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the no principle, which we've talked about a bit before on the podcast, that is, to say yes to something you have to say no to something else is particularly important in specifically the relationship context and for the more enduring relationships. So relationships that have been around for a bit longer, where people often reflect to us when we say, you know, do you work on you? Like if someone's talking to us about our business and we say, do you work on your relationship? We haven't got time. Yeah, and you're right, you haven't got time 100%. Everybody is absolutely flat chat when they've got children and work and incredible amounts of unpaid labour work that they have to do, mental load, everything going on. So if you do want to work on your relationship, you're going to have to say no to other stuff. That's. It's just a simple give take situation. So for anybody thinking, I would love to do some work on my relationship, but I haven't got the space, this is a great episode for you. You are going to have to say no to something. And what that no is for, you won't look the same as the nos that we have but the principle will be the same. All right, so saying no is a powerful tool, and it can significantly impact your decision making, it can impact your time management, and by this, I mean positively impact these things. And most of all, it can impact your overall wellbeing. And in the relationship, this can be super powerful. So let's go through some of the key points on the power of saying no. What power does it bring us? Firstly, every time we say yes to something, we say no to something else. And this is conversely true.
Every time we say yes to something, we really have to be giving something else up because we don't have infinite amounts of time. We have to make room for the thing we are saying yes to by saying no to something else. And that means we say yes to the things that really matter. We get focused on that. We become more deliberate in what we're doing. Saying no allows us to put our resources on the most important activities, like the relationship, which leads to higher quality outcomes. We're not just drifting through, saying yes to things that don't fulfill us, you know, whatever it might be, it might be wasting your time somewhere or doing an activity that doesn't bring you a lot of joy or trying to escape from something by doing something that doesn't actually help you in the long term. So by saying no to those things, to say yes to something like your relationship, where you know you're going to have the benefits, you are going to increase the quality of your life, you're going to have higher quality life outcomes and a greater level of satisfaction in life. It's more than just prioritizing. When you say no to something and yes to something else deliberately, it's about being purposeful in what you're doing. I am deliberately saying no to that thing so I can say yes to this more important other thing.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I really like how you flip the script on us there, sweetie, because we're talking about the power of saying no to things, and you're like, yeah, well, if you think about it, when you say yes to something, you're actually saying no to something else. You're not just creating this extra time to do these yeses, you're taking on more yeses. And what you'll find is, without realizing it, things that you really wanted to do start slipping through the cracks and don't get done because you just keep on pine these yeses on top of each other. So by saying no to things, you're creating room for the things you really want to say yes to. I love that one of the other great things about saying no to things and using the power of saying no is you stop getting so bogged down in the obligations, the obligatories and the shoulds. I think one of the most powerful things we can do in life is breaking free of the shoulds, the social expectations. We often feel so compelled to say yes to things we think we should do, driven by the guilt or keeping up with the Joneses or the parents at the. What they call them, PNas. The parents PNC.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Almost the right way.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: The PNCs, you know, by consciously saying no to these obligations, while at first might be hard, we can actually focus on what we generally want to do. Or you can say, yes, I am going to focus on a PNC being part of the PNC or the school council, but then I'm going to say no to volunteering at the lunch, volunteering at the football, coaching, volunteering and all that, you know, so you can be purposeful. Purposeful. What this does is it fosters a sense of autonomy and also makes you feel like you've got control of your life. So instead of feeling like it's everyone else dictating and society dictating how you should live, how you should prioritize your. Your life, you. You feel like you actually have full autonomy over it. And that gives you that less guilt about, oh, I'm letting everyone down, or I shouldn't do that because you are being decisive. And I think that's really empowering. Saying no to things that don't align with our goals, instead of saying yes to everything gives us that ability to be more authentic to who we are, which gives us more confidence. And yes, it's hard to do, but over time, it does get easier as well.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah, and another part of that, I think, is that if you do it this way, the way we're talking about it, being conscious of your no, you get to own your no's. So rather than saying yes to things and then figuring out you haven't got enough room, so I'm going to have to start saying no to things. You get to pick what your nos are so that you have space for the yeses that really matter. And that's all about taking ownership in our lives. That's about being the ones in control of our lives. Not passively being a passenger to what's happening to us in life, but being a driver on the journey of life and dictating the direction you want to go in. We gain more autonomy when we're really deliberate in giving out no's. And yeses to the things we really want to. And a relationship is such a great example of that. You're the one in the driver's seat. If you want to say yes to your relationship, you do it. And then you make the space by saying no to the things that aren't as high a priority for you as your relationship. And owning our nose also requires a level of assertiveness. And this helps to build our boundaries in life. It helps for us mentally to become clear about who we are, what we want, what's okay for us, what's not okay for us. This sort of behaviour is going to prevent burnout. Burnout comes when we're not fully in control, we're not fully aware of where we're at, what our capacity is doing, how much we've got left in the tank, what we need to be giving it to get more space, et cetera, et cetera. When we're clear in our yeses and nos, we are going to definitely be helping our wellbeing and, and minimizing the risk of something like burnout, which is a really serious thing.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And in practical terms, what we're talking about is when we're talking about, you know, owning your nose, we're really talking about the power of decision making. Kim and I don't just go, here's what we're prioritizing. Here's the, like, five things we're going to prioritize for the year. We go deliberately, okay. And here's the things we're going to say no to. We visually do this. We discuss what we're going to say no to and why. This is important because when you make a decision, you clear up mental space and clear up mental clutter, and it gives you more clarity.
When we are busy, our mind is a storm. When we have a million things we've said yes to, and even when we have things we haven't said yes to, but we haven't said no to, those things are lingering in the back of our minds. They are chipping away at us, even though we might not do them in the, in the, in the end anyway, what we're doing is we're being decisive and saying no.
We're making a list of all the things we're going to say no to. I love using the example of Steve Jobs, who used to wear, everyone knows Steve Jobs, the apple creator. He wore the same clothes every day. He used the turtleneck with the acid wash jeans and the sneakers.
That's all he wore every single day. And his cupboard looked like that. And he was asked once why that was, is this for branding? Is this for this? And he goes, no. I know as a CEO, I have only, my most important job is to make decisions, but I also know that I only have a certain amount of processing capacity in my brain, in my life to make those decisions. And so if I'm wasting that on what, what color t shirt or what sneakers should I, what fashion should I be wearing today, I'm wasting my mental clarity. And all of us know what it's like at the end of the day, at the end of a week when we've been so busy and doing things because we've got so much going on ahead. So by taking control of your nose and saying, I'm saying no, to something, it's done, it's in the waste paper bag, or it's in next year's job list, and you don't have to think about it anymore.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's. It's. It's a great point. The mental clarity that you talked about there, rogue, when we say no, when you and I do what you spoke about, which is go throughout what we are saying yes to, and we conversely go through what we're saying no to, I feel such a freedom because the reality is there are a lot of things we often take on that we just do not have capacity for. And not only are they taking up capacity in our brain because we have to think about them, but the stress associated with actually subconsciously knowing that we're not going to get there and it's going to be too much.
When we're stressed, our brain is fogged, we haven't got mental clarity. So we really want to be giving our brain the biggest help and head start we can, and say, I'm going to take some of that stress and weight off your shoulders, your brain squiggly bits, and say, you know, I'm going to give you some space right now so you can start from a place of mental clarity, at least.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So what we're saying is, it's not just about understand that to say yes to your relationship, for example, you have to say no to other things in your life, which really you deem not to be as important because your relationship should be prioritized above everything else. It really is the foundation of your home and as a result, the foundation of your life. We're also saying it's really important to say no to things you're probably going to say no to or not get done anyway, because you're taking. You're taking the lead and you're taking. It's empowering you to say, I don't need to think about that anymore. So what we're going to do next, Kim and I are going to talk you through three things we have said no to for the next six months for this back half of the year, just as examples. You can understand what we've said no to because we understand that we're a bit busy at the moment. We've gotten to halfway through the year and things are pretty stressful and we need to say yes to us a bit more.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: All right, let's kick off with no to working on Saturdays. So we noticed that we were using our Saturdays for business and life admin quite a bit. And that is something that you can get really caught up on when you run your own business. And so we've been very deliberate in saying we need some time back for us Saturdays, we do have an opportunity to have a few hours together. And so we are being very clear that that is not time for business. We will not be talking about life admin. We will be spending time doing things that fill up our cup and take our stress away.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that was, this was important because we do live, you know, we have a flex, we work from home, we have a flexible business, but sometimes that flexibility can work against you. And so we've just been using our Saturdays to do a lot of business stuff recently. And then we found after our daughter got sick at home for a week, we were like, wow, we really haven't had much time for us, have we? Because everything was about either the business or her. So I think this was something that, you know, we really discussed and said we're going to have to say no to doing that extra work. Sometimes we need to do on Saturdays for our business or for the podcast, and that allow us to go and spend some quality time together, just you and me, on the Saturday. The second thing Kim and I are going to say no to over the next six months is we're going to ring fence an exercise session, an individual exercise session, once every two weeks, so we can go on a walk together. Kim and I believe, for our own health and our own, I guess, sanity, we try to sweat it out and do actual high heart rate or zone two exercise. That, whether it be weights or, you know, tennis or running or swimming or whatever, five to six days a week, this keeps us happy, it keeps us healthy. You know, of course, all the research says it's really important as well. But we're also so busy with work and our daughter that we're not actually spending the time we need to together to talk about really important things. And when Kim and I walk together, and this is also the number one piece of advice we often give to people when they say, well, how do I start talking to my partner? We go, go for a walk. And that's something that we're prioritizing, we're saying yes to. And so as a result, it might mean I have to drop one of my weight sessions every two weeks or I have to drop a run every week. And Kim's the same.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah. We don't just give it up, though, and go for a walk. We'll often go for a run together. We've been running together our whole relationship. And that actually is a different opportunity because when you overcome, when we run together, we generally set ourselves a bit of a challenge. We don't just go for a standard run. And overcoming that challenge together is bonding. You love setting out for a harder run together and saying, you've got this.
Let's keep going. Get up the hill. Great job. At the top of a really steep staircase, giving each other a high five and then sort of shuffling your feet for the next 300 meters together while you get your breath back. It's enjoyable. It's bonding. So we've taken that opportunity to say, let's give up one individual exercise session in a fortnight and do something that really benefits us as a couple.
All right, next. Our third thing we're giving up and saying no to for our relationship is we're taking on no more extra projects. I am a lover of ideas and I have a lot of them and I get a little bit excited, which is my ADHD brain in full flight every few mornings.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Rog, I've got this amazing business idea.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Problem is, I don't just have the idea. I am off to the races. And they're fun. It's really fun thinking like that, but it takes up a lot of my time and energy. It takes up a lot of Roger's time and energy. And we've said that we are just not even going to be thinking about it in the next six months. Anything new that comes up, anything that, that I've been thinking about for a while and I'm desperate to push go on, it's just going to have to wait because we don't have the capacity for it right now and we really, really want to be focusing on us. And if we put any extra projects in those Saturdays that we've designated for ourselves. We'll start slipping away, or even Sunday afternoon, we'll start talking about the projects, because I can always find time if I want to, and that's not what we want. We want to be focused on downtime together. That's a real focus for us, is getting some downtime, some time together, where we're really just hanging out as a couple and as friends.
And so, yeah, no more extra projects in the next six months.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is what strong businesses do. Right. They don't try to do everything. They try really focus down on a few key projects and activities, because if they try to do everything, they try to please anyone, please everyone, they're going to fail. So they really get laser focused. And that's what Kim and I are trying to do. And when you say no to things, you're able to laser focus on other things. So we're not just going to leave you with three things that Kim and I are saying no to this next six months. We're just going to give you some ideas about maybe some things you can say no to over the next three to six months. Up to you. We just thought we'd put a few out there.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: All right, so if you have heard today's podcast and you're feeling like, yep, I would like to. I would like to say yes to my relationship more, but that means saying no to something else. Here is the first three ideas we have for you. As Rog mentioned, the first idea would be saying no to relaxing in front of. And I've used the word relaxing. Not helpful. Saying no to relaxing in front of Netflix or on your phone when the kids go down and instead saying yes to a board game or a game of cards together, or even just heading to bed together and having a chat in bed together before you go to sleep at the same time together.
The second idea we have for you is to say no to the group holiday. Say no to going away with your friends and being deliberate in acknowledging when you say no to the group holiday that you're going to instead use that time and money to do a night or a weekend away together. You're going to make that happen. That's what you're going to be saying yes to. The third example is saying no to Friday night drinks so that you can go home and spend some time with your spouse.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Get a babysitter and organize a babysitter.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: Or, you know, meet up in the city for a bit.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Up in the city together. Yeah, it might. It might seem like it's a bit of a ritual routine to go have drinks with your team on a Friday. And it's important for team environments at work. But do you know what's more important? The team you have at home that your wife and your. And your husband. Okay, so another idea, idea number four is say no to volunteering at every social or parent committee. If this is something that is important to you or have expected, you say yes to one thing and then go, I'm saying yes to this, which means I'm saying no to everything else. I think that can be really powerful important when we're always so busy. Another thing is, and this might be a big one, is say no. Especially with the current cost of living, say no to a new house or renovations, so you aren't taking on a larger mortgage, or you aren't increasing the financial stress on the house. So maybe you don't need to work weekends, or you don't need to work late, or you don't need to feel that you constantly have to progress or climb the ladder at work.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good one. I like that.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: So, sweetie, what was your gold nugget for today?
[00:24:04] Speaker B: My gold nugget for today? I think it's really the yin and the yang of the yes and no. It's the. You very much need both in this world. You can't just be saying yes, and you wouldn't want to just be saying no to everything. So finding that space where you accept that the no is necessary to say the yes is a really peaceful zone.
It's very empowering, I think, understanding that it gives you more control in your life, it gives you more mental clarity, and those benefits are significant. So, yeah, it's, for me, the balance between yes and no and the absolute power in becoming someone who can say no to the things that they deliberately do not want so that they can say yes to the things they deliberately do want.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll agree with that because I love the example you just gave before, which is say no to a group holiday with your friends. Group holiday to Rottnest or Byron Bay or the Whitsundays or Barley.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Noosa.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Noosa. So you can say, we're gonna say yes to a romantic or activity holiday or weekend or night away together.
So instead of just saying, I'm saying no to a group holiday with friends and feeling a bit of guilt and shame of it, you're then replacing that with. But that allows me to say yes to something really special and cool that's going to connect us.
You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living the team life relationship insights and conversations, head over to Keith kimandroj.com, where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: And if you like today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy, and it'll make us really happy.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
