NO!

I’m a people-pleasing-oldest daughter, so saying ‘no’, ‘nope’, or ‘no way, ugh ugh’ is excruciating for me.

My natural tendency is to put others before myself. I hate confrontation and will do everything I can to avoid it.

When I realized that by putting everyone else ahead of myself, I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of life. HolyShip. Ah ha moment for sure.

My BIG goal is getting ‘The Birthday Interview Project' manuscript out.

And my hard deadline is April 30,2023 - before I meet with Laura Belgrey in person. (If you haven’t seen Laura’s new book ToughTities, you can pre-order it here.)

https://www.talkingshrimp.com/book

There it is, my commitment.

The Birthday Interview Project written and ready for publication by April 30, 2023.

In order to do this, I have to free up my time.

I can’t add anything more to my plate, so I have had to take things off my plate and not commit to new ones.

I started small building my ‘say no’ muscle.

“No” I can’t go with you to that intriguing LA event. (She was TOTALLY understanding, but it still took courage.)

“No” I don’t want your old coffee table. (I don’t need a coffee table and his doesn’t work with my vibe, but I still felt bad saying ‘no.”)

I’m even saying ‘no’ to myself.

My morning one-hour ritual of meditation and journaling 3-pages in on HOLD.

I overslept one morning and had to choose to follow my morning ritual or write my book. I chose to write my book because if I didn’t do it then, there really was no other time that day... I realized how much I could get done on my book by actually spending that time writing my book. LOL.

Who knew?

Seems so obvious but we get into our patterns and our habits, even super good ones sometimes need to be put on HOLD to focus on bigger dreams.

So I’m focused on getting this book out because it feels URGENT to get parents started interviewing their kids.

Everytime I tell someone that I interview my kids on their birthday, now going on 16 years I get the same reaction. “Wow.”

Then either there is some regret that they didn’t start earlier or excitement that they want the questions and will start.

I want to encourage everyone to do this NOW.

As the Chinese proverb says, ““The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” So I encourage them to start today, or get a time blocked in their calendar for this week…

If you haven’t started doing your birthday interviews with your kids, please do it for you.

I promise you you’ll be happy you did.

Xo Bethany