Learn to Say No to Yourself.

Saying no to others is tough, but saying no to oneself is even more challenging. To become more self-disciplined, you have to consistently say no to immediate gratification, doom scrolling social media all day, and say yes to all invitations or anything that catches your fancy. As Lin Yutang, observed in The Importance of Living, “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” Knowing life’s non-essentials is tricky, as one can categorize everything as essential. You could doom-scroll the internet all day while telling yourself, “I am building my brand,” or focus on vanity metrics instead of focusing on actionable metrics.

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” – Lin Yutang,

To achieve my fitness goals and train for the multiple marathons I run yearly, I engaged in a cross-training strategy involving various sports, such as badminton, volleyball, tennis, swimming, pickleball, cycling, and basketball. Although I enjoyed most of the other sports, I had to stop them as they took a lot of time. After experimenting with these other sports for six months, I had to stop all except running, swimming and cycling. These three sports are the essentials I need to help me build stamina, endurance and consistency. It was tough to eliminate those other sports, but I had to say no to myself and not engage with them, at least for a particular period. Streamlining the essentials in one’s life is extremely tough, but it is worth exploring.

Life is a series of trade-offs. If you say yes to one thing, you invariably say no to another. By gradually eliminating the non-essentials in your life and saying no to yourself when you are tempted, you build your self-discipline muscle. It will be tough to execute, but you’ve got to realize that your time here on earth is minimal, and wasting it on activity or people who are not taking you to the next level of your greatness is not a good use of your time. We stay in toxic relationships, go to draining gatherings and engage in low-level interaction because we are scared of what others will say and the consequence of following our gut feeling. As May Oliver said in her poem Summer Day “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?“

“It’s only by saying NO that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.” – Steve Jobs

Meditations

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. It is different from sympathy, which can feel judgmental and doesn’t always feel supportive. When we offer sympathy, we are, in a sense, saying, “Poor you.” Empathy involves connecting with something in ourselves that helps us relate to someone else’s experience. It makes people feel understood and supported, even if our circumstances differ.

Empathy involves letting people know that they aren’t alone without trying to fix them or offering advice. It’s being with someone and feeling with someone. Rarely can a response make something better; what makes something better is a response.

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Cooperation Over Competition

Daily Trip with Jeff Warren – Home base

The homebase is a simple sensation that we focus on, it could be the breath, it could be sounds or might be some point in the body. The idea is to hold your attention here. Wondering and coming back is what meditation is all about. Anytime we do this, we build up our muscles. Meditation teaches us how to pay attention; what do you want to fill your attention with in life? What you pay attention to becomes your life.

Podcast