Recently, I received a message in my DMs on social from a lady who expressed her opinion that it was wrong of me to suggest we should always be women who say YES!. That she was a people-pleaser, and she needed to learn how to say no.

Now, just in case you're listening in for the first time, I'm known as the Queen of YES! for helping women say YES! to themselves and a life they love. And in constantly encouraging women to say that YES!, I do talk a lot in the YES! language. Here's the thing. When you say YES! to anything, you are in turn saying no to something else.

If you are a people-pleaser and you are constantly saying YES! to other people, even though it doesn't serve you or contribute to your happiness and well-being, the problem isn't actually that you need to learn how to say no, you are already saying no. You're saying no to your happiness and well-being, and you are likely very well skilled at saying that no.

So the problem isn't learning how to say no. It's that you need to learn how to intentionally choose your YES!. To shift your disempowering yeses to more empowering ones.

So today, I want to talk about positively yessing your life versus negatively yessing it, and why I will continue to encourage women to be women who say YES! to themselves and the things that help them create a life experience they love. I'm also sharing my tips on how to do a YES! Audit and start positively yessing your life.

I love living in positive YES! energy and the more I YES! myself and my life in the ways that serve me, the more my world says YES! to me right back. So if you'd like your world to say YES! to you in all the ways you dream of and more listen in and let's talk about yessing your life.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I'm your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you're ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Hello, my friend, and welcome to this week's episode of The Self-Creation School podcast. This is a place where I share my Self-Creation secrets to help you create a wildly fulfilling life you love, one YES! at a time.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, I love living in YES! energy. But I do remember a time when, like the lady who messaged me, I was saying YES! to all the wrong things, for all the wrong reasons. And that certainly didn't make me happy. I did not love living the life that came about because of my misplaced yeses.

If you know my story, I said no to me and my dreams for a very long time. And I said that no in order to say YES! to being who I told myself I needed to be, to be loved, valued and accepted in my world, and to create the kind of life that society told me would make me happy.

I spent years, overcame incredible obstacles like so many of us do, and ticked every box only to find the life I had said YES! to didn't make me happy and I didn't love one bit of the woman I was being in that life.

Everything changed for me when I changed my YES!. When I decided to stop saying YES! to the status quo things that were not fulfilling me, to playing out my life by society's rules and other people's expectations. When I decided to stop saying YES! to needing other people's approval and validation and caring what other people think. And start saying YES! to me and my wants, needs, and desires on my time and my terms.

And as women, it is so common that we misplace our yeses to keep our world happy. We are wired to say YES! to everyone else first, and look after our needs last, if we look after them at all.

Unless you've already done a lot of work cleaning up your yeses, I can almost guarantee there is at least one occasion in the past week when you've said YES! to someone or something at the expense of saying YES! to your own needs, wants and desires.

Or perhaps you've said YES! to something like staying in your comfort zone, to avoid taking action towards your dreams when it would have served you better to say YES! to taking that action despite your discomfort. If you're anything like I was, you probably don't even need to look past the last hour to find evidence of these kinds of yeses.

The thing about our misplaced yeses is that they are incredibly draining. Not just on our energy and well-being, and on our dreams, but on our SELF Wealth. What I'm talking about here are all those SELF things like self-love, self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-belief, self-trust, and so on.

Constantly saying YES! to the things that don't serve you, don't lead you towards a life that fulfills you and brings you happiness and joy, will drain your SELF Wealth into negative territory faster than you can write a check.

And when you have negative SELF Wealth, it can feel very hard to change your YES! from those negative disempowering yeses that deny you all your dreams in some way, to more empowering yeses. The yeses that put you and the things that matter to you front and center stage.

But hard doesn't mean impossible. It doesn't mean it can't be done. It does require, however, that you are 100 percent willing to do the work to change your yeses. To move from leaving your yeses run on autopilot, to intentionally choosing them to create the life experience you desire. And by the way, that you are willing to continue intentionally choosing them every single day.

I know it sounds like a lot of work. But I promise, the more you step into positive YES! energy, the more this becomes your default way of being and the easier it becomes to stay on track with the yeses that truly matter.

And the first part of doing this work is to begin to understand the reasons behind your negative yeses. Why it is you say YES! to one thing over another even though it doesn't serve you. So before I move on to share how to do a YES! Audit on your life, I wanted to quickly talk about the most common reasons you might be stuck in negative YES! territory.

There are seven common underlying reasons in my experience, and the first most common reason is seeking external validation or approval. Looking to people and things outside of you to confirm your worth. To confirm that you are accepted, loved and valued. That who you are and what you do is right. This is a very common one for people-pleasers and for those of us who equate our worth with our success in life based on how society defines success.

Here's the thing about holding a worthiness ransom to external validation or approval. Exchanging yeses for validation or approval is a risky game because you might get it and more likely you will not.

The reality is the only person who can validate you, approve of you, and make you feel worthy is you. Worthiness is an inside job. Worthiness can only exist when you decide that it exists for you. When you say YES! to your inherent worthiness, and no to needing people or things outside of you to confirm it.

The second common reason you might be negatively yessing your life is a fear of rejection or of disapproval.

How often have you said YES! simply because you fear the consequences of saying no. You've worried that by saying no, you'll be judged or criticized, or maybe fall out of flavor with someone and be put on their blacklist. You say YES!, not because it serves you, but because you're afraid of how others might perceive you if you say no to them and YES! to you, even if it means over committing yourself, which it so often does.

The thing about this kind of negative YES! is that it commonly leads to feelings of resentment and eventually, to overwhelm and exhaustion because of your over commitment. It's also very closely linked to the first reason I shared. And by the way, this one can also look like saying YES! to not taking action towards your dreams because you are afraid of being judged or disapproved of.

The next common reason behind negative yeses is avoiding facing your true desires.

Sometimes, saying YES! to the things that don't serve you is actually a way of avoiding looking inward. It's easier to fill your schedule with obligations, with an internal state of busyness, than it is to sit quietly and confront your own desires and dreams.

You might be afraid of what you'll uncover if you take the time to look within. What your desires might say about you. So you say YES! to distractions that keep you from facing your true self. You might be telling yourself you are not worthy or deserving of the things you desire, and so you avoid acknowledging them and your unworthiness by keeping yourself busy elsewhere.

And remember what I said about worthiness, it is an inside job. You become worthy when you decide to recognize your inherent worth.

Now, the next reason is a little thing called your comfort zone. It's saying YES! to the familiar and avoiding taking the unfamiliar and often uncomfortable action towards your goals, usually because of a fear of failure or sometimes even a fear of success.

Imposter syndrome can play a role here too and make you doubt your abilities. So you stick with the yeses that keep you safe and sound in your comfort zone, that don't risk exposing you as a fraud, even though that means you end up playing life so much smaller than you are truly capable of.

So, we are up to reason number five and reason number five is guilt.

You say YES! to the demands of others because you feel guilty when you put your own needs first. You think that saying no makes you selfish or uncaring, so you say YES! to avoid those feelings of guilt. But when you constantly say YES! out of guilt, you're denying your own right to self -care, well-being, happiness, and joy. And honestly, in the long run, you would be in a position to serve anyone.

So we're up to the final two reasons for negatively yessing your life. The second last reason, reason number six, is the desire to keep the peace.

Again, this can be a big one for so many of us because as women we do highly value connection with others. So keeping the peace in our relationships is a top priority. Because of this, you might fear creating conflict or being the one to rock the boat. So you agree to things that you don't really want to do. Guilt can also play a part here too. Not wanting to feel guilty of causing others to be upset at the expense of your own happiness.

Now this kind of peacekeeping YES! might seem harmless in the short term but over time, it does very often lead to resentment, it erodes your personal boundaries, and it can deplete your sense of worthiness. Of your needs, wants and desires being just as important as everyone else’s.

Which brings me to the final most common reason, habit.

Sometimes saying YES! is simply a habit. It's something you've been doing for so long that it becomes an automatic response. You have your yeses set to run on autopilot. The problem with this habitual kind of YES! is that you say this YES! without ever intentionally considering if it aligns with your goals or well-being. You set the autopilot without choosing the destination. And eventually you will find that you veered a long way from a life that actually makes you feel fulfilled and happy.

And let me just say that you might have a little or even a lot of these kinds of YES! behaviors in the mix. I know I certainly did. And I want you to know it's not that uncommon to be yessing your life in all of these ways.

I also want you to not be overwhelmed if this is you because the good news is that when you start intentionally considering and choosing your yeses, even in just one of these areas, you will find that this consideration and intention will naturally start to flow over into the rest of your life.

And honestly, even if you have been negatively yessing your life your whole life, it's not too late to turn this around and it can happen quicker than you think. But remember what I said earlier. It will require that you are 100 percent willing to do the work to change your yeses.

Personally for me, yessing has become a whole lot of fun. I have friends and clients who will message me and tell me things like, “I had a YES! moment today”, or “I was on fire yessing my life today”, or “I am in YES! energy”. My husband even talks in YES! language from time to time, and recently we were discussing life – okay, I was passionately discussing life – and he turned to me and said, “are you yessing me right now?”.

Anyway, I digress. But yessing your life really can be a lot of fun, if you choose to see it that way.

So, let's bring this back on topic. Now that you have some insight into why you might be negatively yessing your life, let's talk about how to do a YES! Audit. This is about taking stock of your yeses to uncover which ones don't contribute to a long-term positive life experience. The goal is to identify those yeses that drain your energy, keep you stuck, or disempower you in some way, so you can replace them with more empowering yeses moving forward.

There are five steps all up, starting with tracking your yeses, both the positive and the negative. You can't change what you do not know exists. This is something I say a lot and my friend, I say it because awareness really is the key to change.

So for 48 hours or longer, if you feel comfortable to do so, I want you to become a YES! Detective in your life. Your job is to observe yourself and write down every single time you say YES!, remembering that no's are also yeses.

When you say no to one thing, you are effectively saying YES! to another. So, looking for your yeses will include the obvious yeses like saying YES! to a dinner that you don't really want to go to, or YES! to having some self-care time. I hope you will find some positive yeses, by the way.

And it will also include looking for the yeses hidden in your no's. Like saying no to your daily workout because you said YES! to sleep in. Like saying no to working on that dream project like you said you would because you said YES! to avoiding your fears and staying safe in your comfort zone. Are you with me?

The key here is to be a YES! Detective and look for all the ways you are saying YES! in your life, positive or negative, which may mean digging a little deeper into your no’s.

And I want you to keep this nice and simple. Use a small notebook or the Notes app on your phone, whatever works for you, as long as you have it easily accessible at all times. And when you notice yourself saying YES! or no, note down these three things.

One, what did you say YES! to? Again, remember, this could look like saying YES! to not going to the gym for your daily workout.

Two, how did it make you feel afterwards? Were you energized, drained, resentful, disappointed, happy?

And three, what did you say no to in the process? When you said YES! to this thing, what did you have to give up? Did you sacrifice self-care? Perhaps time to work on your dream business? Increasing your health and fitness, or maybe much needed rest.

Now there's no need for lengthy descriptions here by the way, just make quick notes. But you may find it helpful for later in this process to divide your page into three columns, one for each of those questions. So what you said YES! to, one for how you felt, and one for what you gave up.

After you've finished observing your yeses, Step 2 of the YES! Audit is to go back through your yeses and highlight the yeses that left you feeling drained, conflicted, resentful, disempowered or negative in some way. These are your negative yeses and we're going to focus on these yeses moving forward in this audit process.

A tip here is that some negative yeses will almost seem like they are positive yeses. For example, staying in your comfort zone and not risking putting yourself out there on social media. Saying YES! to avoiding conflict, because let's face it, no one enjoys conflict, so that could almost be seen as a positive. Except in doing so you might have ended up eating yet again at your least favorite restaurant.

So to help you evaluate your yeses more effectively, for every YES! you wrote down, I want you to ask yourself these two questions. Did this YES! move me closer to a life I love, or did it take me further away? And was I saying YES! to someone else's expectations or happiness at the expense of my own needs, wants or desires?

Then once you have highlighted your negative yeses, the third step is in the YES! Audit is to look for patterns within your negative yeses to help you understand where you may need to make changes. This is where noting down your yeses into those three columns I mentioned will really help you.

Here you want to look for two different types of patterns.

The first being the areas of your life where negative yeses are showing up in. For example, are your negative yeses always showing up in your relationships? In your work environment, for your health and well-being, your personal goals.

And the second pattern to look for is, are there any common costs or sacrifices? Are you always sacrificing your time, energy, self-care, your hobbies, your dreams?

So, what areas of your life are repeatedly showing up with negative yeses? And what are you repeatedly sacrificing in saying these yeses?

And I recommend that you summarize your findings into some simple bullet point statements like, “I often say YES! to work requests at the cost of my self-care”. “I often say YES! to other people's plans and sacrifice time for my creative projects”. “I often say YES! to not putting my work into the world and sacrifice growing my business”. “I often say YES! to not going to the gym at a cost of my health and fitness”. You get the idea.

At the end of this step, the idea is to have a very clear list of specific areas of your life and specific activities within those areas that you can start shifting from negative to positive yeses.

So, step one of the YES! Audit is to track your yeses. Step two is to identify your negative yeses. And step three is to connect the dots and summarize your findings.

Step four is where we take this information and consider what new standards and boundaries you can put in place to help you shift your disempowering negative yeses to more positively empowering ones.

But we are going to do this one area and one YES! at a time, my friend, because if you try to change everything at once, you will end up changing nothing at all. Small progress over time makes for long term transformation. And as you get more comfortable in shifting your yeses, this process will become easier and faster.

So, choose one thing on your summarized list from the last step that feels the easiest to work on, because I am all for quick wins. And I want you to create a new non-negotiable standard you will uphold for yourself moving forward that will support you in shifting your negative YES! to a positive YES!, and importantly, protect your time, energy, and well-being.

I find this particularly powerful to do in an I AM format. For example, if the area you chose to focus on is, “I often say YES! to not going to the gym at a cost of my health and fitness”. Your I AM standard might be, “I am a woman who prioritizes my health and fitness”. Or if you chose to focus on, “I often say YES! to other people's plans and sacrifice time for my creative projects”. Your I AM standard might be, “I am a woman who values creative expression”.

Now, if that feels too strong and your storyteller kicks right in and says, “Who are you kidding? You are not that woman”. Try reframing it like this, “I'm the kind of woman who”. So, “I am the kind of woman who prioritizes her health and fitness”. “I am the kind of woman who values creative expression”.

What I find with this is that your storyteller is much more likely to get on board with that because you're simply associating your identity with being a woman like that. You're not saying you always get it right, but you're saying it's my intention to be this way. Your storyteller might find that interesting. It might say, well, this is a new approach. But because you are not stating it in the definitive, I AM this woman, your storyteller is likely be a little more open to going with you on this.

Again, if you feel good with a straight, “I am a woman who” standard, I'd go with that. But if there was any niggle of doubt, then do try reframing this to, “I'm the kind of woman who”.

And once you have your I AM standard, I want you to think about what boundary or boundaries can you put in place to protect this new standard.

Boundaries are the rules you set for yourself and others to ensure that the standards you want to uphold for yourself are honored. So, it's important to identify what you will and will not allow in your life regarding your new standard.

For example, if your new standard is, “I'm a woman who prioritizes my health and fitness”, your boundaries might be something like, I will not take any work calls or respond to emails before 9am so I can have uninterrupted exercise time, and I will not watch Netflix after 9pm to ensure I get a good night's sleep so I can wake early for my workout. If your new standard is, “I'm a woman who values creative expression”, your new boundary may be something like, I will not schedule social activities or errands on Sunday afternoons because this is reserved as my creative time.

Next, I want you to think about how you will express each boundary to others and make a plan for doing so.

For example, if my boss asks me for an early meeting, I'll say “I'm available to meet any time after 9am”. If my husband wants me to watch a late-night movie with him, I'll say “I'm heading to bed right now, but I'd love to watch this with you, so let's take a rain check for Saturday afternoon”. If a friend invites me out for coffee on a Sunday afternoon, I'll say “I've set that time aside for myself, but I'd love to catch up another day”.

Planning in advance how you will enforce your boundary when it is challenged will help you uphold it. Now I don't have time to go into a whole lot of detail about implementing new boundaries, it is a topic for a whole episode on its own, but here are a couple more tips on boundaries that I've found to be helpful.

Number one, block off time for your non-negotiable activities and set reminders for this time.

I have personal care time blocked off in my schedule, even if I don't yet know what I'll be doing in that time. And even if I get an invitation for during that time and I haven't booked a facial or planned how I will use my self-care time, I'll still uphold my schedule and my commitment to myself.

Okay, you've got to treat these time blocks as non-negotiable appointments that you show up for, just like any other appointment.

This one tip, by the way, has been how I've scheduled my dream life onto my calendar, my friend. So, block off time for positively yessing your life, and upholding time for the things that matter.

Following on from that, you've got to hold yourself accountable first and foremost.

Respect your boundaries like you would respect your best friend's boundaries. Respect them how you would like other people to respect them. And when you attempted to bend them, remind yourself why the standards these boundaries uphold matter. Remember, “I'm a woman who prioritizes her health and fitness because I want to age powerfully and strong”.

Now, I like to add my I AM statements as a note attachment with my time block so that when the reminder comes up for that time, I am straight up reminded of why it's on my calendar in the first place. So that could work for you as well.

And finally, be consistent. Communicate your boundaries clearly and consistently, both with yourself and with others.

Now you won't always get it right. But the more you practice, the easier it will become, and the easier it becomes for others to understand and respect them. Over time, trust me, people will learn when you are available and when you are not, as well as what you are available for, and what you are not available for.

So, what Step 1 of the YES! Audit is to track your yeses. Step 2 is to identify your negative yeses. Step 3 is to connect the dots and summarize your findings. Step 4 is to choose one negative YES! and create a standard that shifts this to a positive YES!, and then decide on the necessary boundaries to protect it.

The very last step of the YES! Audit is to rinse and repeat the last step, one negative YES! at a time, until you've gradually shifted all of the negative yeses on your audit list to new, more empowering yeses.

This whole process is about getting intentional with how you say YES! in your life just one YES! at a time, one day at a time. The more you practice this, the more naturally you'll start yessing your way to a life you love.

And listen, transforming your yeses does take practice. But I promise, the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more empowered you'll feel to tackle those bigger yeses that really will change your life.

So with that, I'm bringing this episode to a close. Thanks for sticking it out with me to the end. I know this has been a long one today and we've covered a lot of ground. But I hope the YES! Audit will find a place in your Self-Creation toolkit because changing who and what I say YES! to has positively changed my world in ways I can't even begin to describe. I know the same can happen for you too.

I'll be here next Wednesday to share more Self-Creation secrets to help you create a life you love. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that episode is queued in your library and ready for listening.

Until then, be the woman who (intentionally) says YES!

Hey, want to know what's stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what's standing in your way today and I'll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That's https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.

Recently, I received a message in my DMs on social from a lady who expressed her opinion that it was wrong of me to suggest we should always be women who say YES!. That she was a people-pleaser, and she needed to learn how to say no.

Now, just in case you're listening in for the first time, I'm known as the Queen of YES! for helping women say YES! to themselves and a life they love. And in constantly encouraging women to say that YES!, I do talk a lot in the YES! language. Here's the thing. When you say YES! to anything, you are in turn saying no to something else.

If you are a people-pleaser and you are constantly saying YES! to other people, even though it doesn't serve you or contribute to your happiness and well-being, the problem isn't actually that you need to learn how to say no, you are already saying no. You're saying no to your happiness and well-being, and you are likely very well skilled at saying that no.

So the problem isn't learning how to say no. It's that you need to learn how to intentionally choose your YES!. To shift your disempowering yeses to more empowering ones.

So today, I want to talk about positively yessing your life versus negatively yessing it, and why I will continue to encourage women to be women who say YES! to themselves and the things that help them create a life experience they love. I'm also sharing my tips on how to do a YES! Audit and start positively yessing your life.

I love living in positive YES! energy and the more I YES! myself and my life in the ways that serve me, the more my world says YES! to me right back. So if you'd like your world to say YES! to you in all the ways you dream of and more listen in and let's talk about yessing your life.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I'm your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you're ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Hello, my friend, and welcome to this week's episode of The Self-Creation School podcast. This is a place where I share my Self-Creation secrets to help you create a wildly fulfilling life you love, one YES! at a time.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, I love living in YES! energy. But I do remember a time when, like the lady who messaged me, I was saying YES! to all the wrong things, for all the wrong reasons. And that certainly didn't make me happy. I did not love living the life that came about because of my misplaced yeses.

If you know my story, I said no to me and my dreams for a very long time. And I said that no in order to say YES! to being who I told myself I needed to be, to be loved, valued and accepted in my world, and to create the kind of life that society told me would make me happy.

I spent years, overcame incredible obstacles like so many of us do, and ticked every box only to find the life I had said YES! to didn't make me happy and I didn't love one bit of the woman I was being in that life.

Everything changed for me when I changed my YES!. When I decided to stop saying YES! to the status quo things that were not fulfilling me, to playing out my life by society's rules and other people's expectations. When I decided to stop saying YES! to needing other people's approval and validation and caring what other people think. And start saying YES! to me and my wants, needs, and desires on my time and my terms.

And as women, it is so common that we misplace our yeses to keep our world happy. We are wired to say YES! to everyone else first, and look after our needs last, if we look after them at all.

Unless you've already done a lot of work cleaning up your yeses, I can almost guarantee there is at least one occasion in the past week when you've said YES! to someone or something at the expense of saying YES! to your own needs, wants and desires.

Or perhaps you've said YES! to something like staying in your comfort zone, to avoid taking action towards your dreams when it would have served you better to say YES! to taking that action despite your discomfort. If you're anything like I was, you probably don't even need to look past the last hour to find evidence of these kinds of yeses.

The thing about our misplaced yeses is that they are incredibly draining. Not just on our energy and well-being, and on our dreams, but on our SELF Wealth. What I'm talking about here are all those SELF things like self-love, self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-belief, self-trust, and so on.

Constantly saying YES! to the things that don't serve you, don't lead you towards a life that fulfills you and brings you happiness and joy, will drain your SELF Wealth into negative territory faster than you can write a check.

And when you have negative SELF Wealth, it can feel very hard to change your YES! from those negative disempowering yeses that deny you all your dreams in some way, to more empowering yeses. The yeses that put you and the things that matter to you front and center stage.

But hard doesn't mean impossible. It doesn't mean it can't be done. It does require, however, that you are 100 percent willing to do the work to change your yeses. To move from leaving your yeses run on autopilot, to intentionally choosing them to create the life experience you desire. And by the way, that you are willing to continue intentionally choosing them every single day.

I know it sounds like a lot of work. But I promise, the more you step into positive YES! energy, the more this becomes your default way of being and the easier it becomes to stay on track with the yeses that truly matter.

And the first part of doing this work is to begin to understand the reasons behind your negative yeses. Why it is you say YES! to one thing over another even though it doesn't serve you. So before I move on to share how to do a YES! Audit on your life, I wanted to quickly talk about the most common reasons you might be stuck in negative YES! territory.

There are seven common underlying reasons in my experience, and the first most common reason is seeking external validation or approval. Looking to people and things outside of you to confirm your worth. To confirm that you are accepted, loved and valued. That who you are and what you do is right. This is a very common one for people-pleasers and for those of us who equate our worth with our success in life based on how society defines success.

Here's the thing about holding a worthiness ransom to external validation or approval. Exchanging yeses for validation or approval is a risky game because you might get it and more likely you will not.

The reality is the only person who can validate you, approve of you, and make you feel worthy is you. Worthiness is an inside job. Worthiness can only exist when you decide that it exists for you. When you say YES! to your inherent worthiness, and no to needing people or things outside of you to confirm it.

The second common reason you might be negatively yessing your life is a fear of rejection or of disapproval.

How often have you said YES! simply because you fear the consequences of saying no. You've worried that by saying no, you'll be judged or criticized, or maybe fall out of flavor with someone and be put on their blacklist. You say YES!, not because it serves you, but because you're afraid of how others might perceive you if you say no to them and YES! to you, even if it means over committing yourself, which it so often does.

The thing about this kind of negative YES! is that it commonly leads to feelings of resentment and eventually, to overwhelm and exhaustion because of your over commitment. It's also very closely linked to the first reason I shared. And by the way, this one can also look like saying YES! to not taking action towards your dreams because you are afraid of being judged or disapproved of.

The next common reason behind negative yeses is avoiding facing your true desires.

Sometimes, saying YES! to the things that don't serve you is actually a way of avoiding looking inward. It's easier to fill your schedule with obligations, with an internal state of busyness, than it is to sit quietly and confront your own desires and dreams.

You might be afraid of what you'll uncover if you take the time to look within. What your desires might say about you. So you say YES! to distractions that keep you from facing your true self. You might be telling yourself you are not worthy or deserving of the things you desire, and so you avoid acknowledging them and your unworthiness by keeping yourself busy elsewhere.

And remember what I said about worthiness, it is an inside job. You become worthy when you decide to recognize your inherent worth.

Now, the next reason is a little thing called your comfort zone. It's saying YES! to the familiar and avoiding taking the unfamiliar and often uncomfortable action towards your goals, usually because of a fear of failure or sometimes even a fear of success.

Imposter syndrome can play a role here too and make you doubt your abilities. So you stick with the yeses that keep you safe and sound in your comfort zone, that don't risk exposing you as a fraud, even though that means you end up playing life so much smaller than you are truly capable of.

So, we are up to reason number five and reason number five is guilt.

You say YES! to the demands of others because you feel guilty when you put your own needs first. You think that saying no makes you selfish or uncaring, so you say YES! to avoid those feelings of guilt. But when you constantly say YES! out of guilt, you're denying your own right to self -care, well-being, happiness, and joy. And honestly, in the long run, you would be in a position to serve anyone.

So we're up to the final two reasons for negatively yessing your life. The second last reason, reason number six, is the desire to keep the peace.

Again, this can be a big one for so many of us because as women we do highly value connection with others. So keeping the peace in our relationships is a top priority. Because of this, you might fear creating conflict or being the one to rock the boat. So you agree to things that you don't really want to do. Guilt can also play a part here too. Not wanting to feel guilty of causing others to be upset at the expense of your own happiness.

Now this kind of peacekeeping YES! might seem harmless in the short term but over time, it does very often lead to resentment, it erodes your personal boundaries, and it can deplete your sense of worthiness. Of your needs, wants and desires being just as important as everyone else’s.

Which brings me to the final most common reason, habit.

Sometimes saying YES! is simply a habit. It's something you've been doing for so long that it becomes an automatic response. You have your yeses set to run on autopilot. The problem with this habitual kind of YES! is that you say this YES! without ever intentionally considering if it aligns with your goals or well-being. You set the autopilot without choosing the destination. And eventually you will find that you veered a long way from a life that actually makes you feel fulfilled and happy.

And let me just say that you might have a little or even a lot of these kinds of YES! behaviors in the mix. I know I certainly did. And I want you to know it's not that uncommon to be yessing your life in all of these ways.

I also want you to not be overwhelmed if this is you because the good news is that when you start intentionally considering and choosing your yeses, even in just one of these areas, you will find that this consideration and intention will naturally start to flow over into the rest of your life.

And honestly, even if you have been negatively yessing your life your whole life, it's not too late to turn this around and it can happen quicker than you think. But remember what I said earlier. It will require that you are 100 percent willing to do the work to change your yeses.

Personally for me, yessing has become a whole lot of fun. I have friends and clients who will message me and tell me things like, “I had a YES! moment today”, or “I was on fire yessing my life today”, or “I am in YES! energy”. My husband even talks in YES! language from time to time, and recently we were discussing life – okay, I was passionately discussing life – and he turned to me and said, “are you yessing me right now?”.

Anyway, I digress. But yessing your life really can be a lot of fun, if you choose to see it that way.

So, let's bring this back on topic. Now that you have some insight into why you might be negatively yessing your life, let's talk about how to do a YES! Audit. This is about taking stock of your yeses to uncover which ones don't contribute to a long-term positive life experience. The goal is to identify those yeses that drain your energy, keep you stuck, or disempower you in some way, so you can replace them with more empowering yeses moving forward.

There are five steps all up, starting with tracking your yeses, both the positive and the negative. You can't change what you do not know exists. This is something I say a lot and my friend, I say it because awareness really is the key to change.

So for 48 hours or longer, if you feel comfortable to do so, I want you to become a YES! Detective in your life. Your job is to observe yourself and write down every single time you say YES!, remembering that no's are also yeses.

When you say no to one thing, you are effectively saying YES! to another. So, looking for your yeses will include the obvious yeses like saying YES! to a dinner that you don't really want to go to, or YES! to having some self-care time. I hope you will find some positive yeses, by the way.

And it will also include looking for the yeses hidden in your no's. Like saying no to your daily workout because you said YES! to sleep in. Like saying no to working on that dream project like you said you would because you said YES! to avoiding your fears and staying safe in your comfort zone. Are you with me?

The key here is to be a YES! Detective and look for all the ways you are saying YES! in your life, positive or negative, which may mean digging a little deeper into your no’s.

And I want you to keep this nice and simple. Use a small notebook or the Notes app on your phone, whatever works for you, as long as you have it easily accessible at all times. And when you notice yourself saying YES! or no, note down these three things.

One, what did you say YES! to? Again, remember, this could look like saying YES! to not going to the gym for your daily workout.

Two, how did it make you feel afterwards? Were you energized, drained, resentful, disappointed, happy?

And three, what did you say no to in the process? When you said YES! to this thing, what did you have to give up? Did you sacrifice self-care? Perhaps time to work on your dream business? Increasing your health and fitness, or maybe much needed rest.

Now there's no need for lengthy descriptions here by the way, just make quick notes. But you may find it helpful for later in this process to divide your page into three columns, one for each of those questions. So what you said YES! to, one for how you felt, and one for what you gave up.

After you've finished observing your yeses, Step 2 of the YES! Audit is to go back through your yeses and highlight the yeses that left you feeling drained, conflicted, resentful, disempowered or negative in some way. These are your negative yeses and we're going to focus on these yeses moving forward in this audit process.

A tip here is that some negative yeses will almost seem like they are positive yeses. For example, staying in your comfort zone and not risking putting yourself out there on social media. Saying YES! to avoiding conflict, because let's face it, no one enjoys conflict, so that could almost be seen as a positive. Except in doing so you might have ended up eating yet again at your least favorite restaurant.

So to help you evaluate your yeses more effectively, for every YES! you wrote down, I want you to ask yourself these two questions. Did this YES! move me closer to a life I love, or did it take me further away? And was I saying YES! to someone else's expectations or happiness at the expense of my own needs, wants or desires?

Then once you have highlighted your negative yeses, the third step is in the YES! Audit is to look for patterns within your negative yeses to help you understand where you may need to make changes. This is where noting down your yeses into those three columns I mentioned will really help you.

Here you want to look for two different types of patterns.

The first being the areas of your life where negative yeses are showing up in. For example, are your negative yeses always showing up in your relationships? In your work environment, for your health and well-being, your personal goals.

And the second pattern to look for is, are there any common costs or sacrifices? Are you always sacrificing your time, energy, self-care, your hobbies, your dreams?

So, what areas of your life are repeatedly showing up with negative yeses? And what are you repeatedly sacrificing in saying these yeses?

And I recommend that you summarize your findings into some simple bullet point statements like, “I often say YES! to work requests at the cost of my self-care”. “I often say YES! to other people's plans and sacrifice time for my creative projects”. “I often say YES! to not putting my work into the world and sacrifice growing my business”. “I often say YES! to not going to the gym at a cost of my health and fitness”. You get the idea.

At the end of this step, the idea is to have a very clear list of specific areas of your life and specific activities within those areas that you can start shifting from negative to positive yeses.

So, step one of the YES! Audit is to track your yeses. Step two is to identify your negative yeses. And step three is to connect the dots and summarize your findings.

Step four is where we take this information and consider what new standards and boundaries you can put in place to help you shift your disempowering negative yeses to more positively empowering ones.

But we are going to do this one area and one YES! at a time, my friend, because if you try to change everything at once, you will end up changing nothing at all. Small progress over time makes for long term transformation. And as you get more comfortable in shifting your yeses, this process will become easier and faster.

So, choose one thing on your summarized list from the last step that feels the easiest to work on, because I am all for quick wins. And I want you to create a new non-negotiable standard you will uphold for yourself moving forward that will support you in shifting your negative YES! to a positive YES!, and importantly, protect your time, energy, and well-being.

I find this particularly powerful to do in an I AM format. For example, if the area you chose to focus on is, “I often say YES! to not going to the gym at a cost of my health and fitness”. Your I AM standard might be, “I am a woman who prioritizes my health and fitness”. Or if you chose to focus on, “I often say YES! to other people's plans and sacrifice time for my creative projects”. Your I AM standard might be, “I am a woman who values creative expression”.

Now, if that feels too strong and your storyteller kicks right in and says, “Who are you kidding? You are not that woman”. Try reframing it like this, “I'm the kind of woman who”. So, “I am the kind of woman who prioritizes her health and fitness”. “I am the kind of woman who values creative expression”.

What I find with this is that your storyteller is much more likely to get on board with that because you're simply associating your identity with being a woman like that. You're not saying you always get it right, but you're saying it's my intention to be this way. Your storyteller might find that interesting. It might say, well, this is a new approach. But because you are not stating it in the definitive, I AM this woman, your storyteller is likely be a little more open to going with you on this.

Again, if you feel good with a straight, “I am a woman who” standard, I'd go with that. But if there was any niggle of doubt, then do try reframing this to, “I'm the kind of woman who”.

And once you have your I AM standard, I want you to think about what boundary or boundaries can you put in place to protect this new standard.

Boundaries are the rules you set for yourself and others to ensure that the standards you want to uphold for yourself are honored. So, it's important to identify what you will and will not allow in your life regarding your new standard.

For example, if your new standard is, “I'm a woman who prioritizes my health and fitness”, your boundaries might be something like, I will not take any work calls or respond to emails before 9am so I can have uninterrupted exercise time, and I will not watch Netflix after 9pm to ensure I get a good night's sleep so I can wake early for my workout. If your new standard is, “I'm a woman who values creative expression”, your new boundary may be something like, I will not schedule social activities or errands on Sunday afternoons because this is reserved as my creative time.

Next, I want you to think about how you will express each boundary to others and make a plan for doing so.

For example, if my boss asks me for an early meeting, I'll say “I'm available to meet any time after 9am”. If my husband wants me to watch a late-night movie with him, I'll say “I'm heading to bed right now, but I'd love to watch this with you, so let's take a rain check for Saturday afternoon”. If a friend invites me out for coffee on a Sunday afternoon, I'll say “I've set that time aside for myself, but I'd love to catch up another day”.

Planning in advance how you will enforce your boundary when it is challenged will help you uphold it. Now I don't have time to go into a whole lot of detail about implementing new boundaries, it is a topic for a whole episode on its own, but here are a couple more tips on boundaries that I've found to be helpful.

Number one, block off time for your non-negotiable activities and set reminders for this time.

I have personal care time blocked off in my schedule, even if I don't yet know what I'll be doing in that time. And even if I get an invitation for during that time and I haven't booked a facial or planned how I will use my self-care time, I'll still uphold my schedule and my commitment to myself.

Okay, you've got to treat these time blocks as non-negotiable appointments that you show up for, just like any other appointment.

This one tip, by the way, has been how I've scheduled my dream life onto my calendar, my friend. So, block off time for positively yessing your life, and upholding time for the things that matter.

Following on from that, you've got to hold yourself accountable first and foremost.

Respect your boundaries like you would respect your best friend's boundaries. Respect them how you would like other people to respect them. And when you attempted to bend them, remind yourself why the standards these boundaries uphold matter. Remember, “I'm a woman who prioritizes her health and fitness because I want to age powerfully and strong”.

Now, I like to add my I AM statements as a note attachment with my time block so that when the reminder comes up for that time, I am straight up reminded of why it's on my calendar in the first place. So that could work for you as well.

And finally, be consistent. Communicate your boundaries clearly and consistently, both with yourself and with others.

Now you won't always get it right. But the more you practice, the easier it will become, and the easier it becomes for others to understand and respect them. Over time, trust me, people will learn when you are available and when you are not, as well as what you are available for, and what you are not available for.

So, what Step 1 of the YES! Audit is to track your yeses. Step 2 is to identify your negative yeses. Step 3 is to connect the dots and summarize your findings. Step 4 is to choose one negative YES! and create a standard that shifts this to a positive YES!, and then decide on the necessary boundaries to protect it.

The very last step of the YES! Audit is to rinse and repeat the last step, one negative YES! at a time, until you've gradually shifted all of the negative yeses on your audit list to new, more empowering yeses.

This whole process is about getting intentional with how you say YES! in your life just one YES! at a time, one day at a time. The more you practice this, the more naturally you'll start yessing your way to a life you love.

And listen, transforming your yeses does take practice. But I promise, the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more empowered you'll feel to tackle those bigger yeses that really will change your life.

So with that, I'm bringing this episode to a close. Thanks for sticking it out with me to the end. I know this has been a long one today and we've covered a lot of ground. But I hope the YES! Audit will find a place in your Self-Creation toolkit because changing who and what I say YES! to has positively changed my world in ways I can't even begin to describe. I know the same can happen for you too.

I'll be here next Wednesday to share more Self-Creation secrets to help you create a life you love. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that episode is queued in your library and ready for listening.

Until then, be the woman who (intentionally) says YES!

Hey, want to know what's stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what's standing in your way today and I'll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That's https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.