It’s ok to say No
This past week I was in SF again for client meetings. I had my entire week planned down to the hour, factoring in uber rides, traffic, and every other possible scenario that could pop up and hijack my perfectly planned trip.
What I didn’t factor in was my overall health and wellbeing. I’ve been on the road almost full time since the last time I was in SF, in April. I was in SF, then LA, then Melbourne, then NYC, then back to SF, with only 1 weekend at home in 2 months. This trip started off with my flight being re-routed to another airport and causing major delays. I actually don’t mind the delays, because it allows for some white space time, where I literally can’t be on a call or zoom and I can just think. So that wasn’t the worst of it.
The first day of meetings went well and things wrapped up with a nice team dinner in the Hayes. Day 2, it hit me. Almost, as if I laid in cement, my body was just so worn down, exhausted, running on empty. I had to cancel my entire day, cancel all the meetings, candidate calls, updates, zooms, slacks, texts, call backs etc. I had to allow myself some time to be disconnected. Oddly enough, I usually run pretty well on empty. Once you’re a mother, I think you can pretty much do anything on little to no sleep or self-care. So that day, I stayed in bed, did as much partial work as I could from my slack on my phone and tried to get some rest, since Wednesday was another long day of meetings.
Wednesday got a bit derailed with moving schedules, and meetings running over time, but in the end, it was a great day with some of my team and clients and new partners, but I was still feeling a bit off.
I was supposed to fly home red-eye on Friday after my final happy hour meeting with a partner company, but I woke up on Thursday and wanted nothing more than to be back in my office in NJ and back in my own bed. I cancelled my Thursday afternoon meetings, re-booked a red-eye, cancelled Friday meetings and got home this morning. I began having guilt about not sticking to my perfectly planned agenda and not packing in all the meetings to the max, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like this week was a lesson. My body telling me to slow down, I don’t have to always say yes to everyone, everything, and every meeting. I can protect my time, my calendar, and my health. If I don’t have my health, then I don’t have anything.
On this trip, I decided to make some changes to my routines and my weekly schedule, to allow for my quiet/thinking time, which in turn will allow me to be more creative and strategic when I need to be. I am going to start unapologetically saying no to things and valuing myself more. The work will always be there, my health may not be at this rate.
