Author: Cindy Watson

Can you negotiate a boost to your immune system? Many would scoff at the idea. Surely our immune systems are improved (or not) through scientific methods. It’s not something we can negotiate. I invite you to reconsider and reframe the scope of negotiation. Our first and most important negotiation is with ourselves. When we get intentional about negotiation our mindset, we can improve our lives in every way. Boosting our immune systems is no exception.

In my interview with Robin Nielson, founder of Natural Hormone Solutions, she shared some powerful tips on how to boost your immune system. In the wake of COVID, with our heightened awareness about the importance of healthy body defences, I thought I’d share her insights.

Did you know you can grow younger no matter what your age? During times where health has been more discussed more than ever before, healthy habits and natural solutions to developing a healthy immune system is as important as it gets.

When you think of boosting your immune system, the first thing you might think of is “how many nutrients can I take?” or “how can I boost my immune system fast?” The truth is, the biggest immune system suppressors are deep-rooted habits and parts of your lifestyle that you might not even be aware of.

That leads to a core element of boosting your immune system: addressing your stressors, the deep-rooted bad habits or negative aspects of your life that you might not even recognize. You can negotiate powerful new habits. It’s important to start prioritizing things that are good for yourself and to eliminate the things in your life that don’t serve you and end up stressing you out.

Addressing these stressors will pose as a challenge; so, it’s important to start practicing an attitude of gratitude. Being thankful and dismissing stress hormones will steer your mind and body away from its ‘fight-or-flight’ mode, which will in turn boost your immune system. But how do you practice being in a state of attitude of gratitude?

You can simply keep a gratitude journal. The use of this journal can be as simple as listing 3-5 things you’re grateful for each day. A good time for this is right before bed, and it’s important that you think of something new, rather than using the same gratitude(s) every day. This trains your brain to look for what’s right in the world, as the human brain naturally wants to directly go to what’s wrong. As humans we’re wired to stay alive – always looking for what’s wrong, so we can run.

What are some more tools you can use? Another simple, but game-changing option is opposition thinking. When a negative thought comes to mind, turn it around into a positive thought: simply think the opposite. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t get angry or judge yourself for thinking negatively. Those conditioned knee-jerk responses are hard-wired and the immediate reaction is out of your control. You do, however, have control over what you do with the thought.

It’s important to keep these ways of maintaining gratitude a habit for effective results. So, what happens when we express gratitude consistently? You’ll improve sleep, simply through expressing gratitude and turning negative emotions into positive ones. Sleep is a key component for the immune system – like protective armour for your body. Sleep will completely restore and rejuvenate your immunity to viruses, bacteria, etc. – so when you’re against something hurtful, your body is much more resilient. With less sleep, your body will be like a sitting duck waiting to get sick. Being happier, motivated, determined, and having more attention are other important benefits from practicing gratitude in your life.

How you sleep is the other half of the effort. It’s important to get restorative sleep – which means getting unmedicated sleep (meaning no sleep drug/aid). Getting 5 cycles of REM and deep sleep puts you in that restorative state. Unfortunately, sleep medications keep you in deep sleep, skipping the REM cycles that are a great factor in obtaining restorative sleep. Having a consistent sleep schedule and eliminating distractions (no phone in the bedroom) will be great factors in ensuring you will get the sleep that your body needs. While getting your 7 hours of sleep will make you very immune-protected, it is still strongly recommended that you get your 8 essential hours. You’ll feel great and have maximum immune system protection.

Diet is another key component for keeping a hormone balance that will greatly affect your immune system. It’s important to eat a high protein breakfast within an hour of waking up. What you’re eating and when you’re eating is very important to keeping a balanced diet. Eating 3 meals a day with 4-6 hours in-between is the most effective way to being and feeling balanced. Timing is very crucial: with no eating after 7 PM, and at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast. This is so we leave the body to restore and heal during this downtime.

Alongside diet, you’re going to want to make sure you’re nutrient efficient. Nutrient deficiency can be a large part of why your immune system may be compromised. Some examples might be low iron, low zinc, low vitamin D, low B-12 levels, and especially low magnesium. Magnesium is very immune protective, and it can be seen as an epidemic with how many people are magnesium deficient and don’t even realize it.

You may have noticed that much of this recipe for an improved immune system comes down to your habits. The beauty is that you can negotiate your habits. Get intentional in each of these simple suggested habits and you’ll be well on your way to a radically improved body defense system, so next time your body faces a virus or bacteria, you’ll be fully prepared to fight.

 Check out the full podcast interview with Robin Nielson, here.

I’m on a mission to help people elevate their negotiation skills. Part of that process includes reframing how you look at negotiations and how you do it. To that end, I’m always on the lookout for fresh perspectives and insights. I was excited to meet Izzy Gesell, one of the first experts to use improv theatre concepts as tools for personal and organizational learning. Izzy had some interesting thoughts on how we can use improv skills to improve our negotiations and get better outcomes.

Improv is a process-focused art form where you don’t learn the outcome, but you learn how to step into different situations and be prepared for what comes towards you. Hmm. Sounds a lot like negotiating. You don’t know the outcome at the outset of the process, but you need to step into whatever situation presents and be prepared to deal with it in the most effective way possible.

Like improv, when you show up for a negotiation, some people want to be there, some people don’t; you have to influence, persuade and try to keep engagement.

In both improv and negotiation, you need to be able to lead and follow. And in both, the ‘Yes, and’ versus ‘Yes, but’ approach is critical. In other words, even when you don’t agree or you’re taken by surprise, you acknowledge and accept the other party’s position and then you can add to it (which may include giving a very different perspective). ‘Yes, and’ means we can have different opinions without making either person or party wrong, whereas ‘yes, but’ implies that one of us has to give in. ‘And’ opens doors, while ‘but’ closes them. ‘And’ opens the possibility to work together, while ‘but’ pits us against each other, typically triggering an adverse emotional response. That one word shift makes a subtle but profound difference.

This applies in our professional and personal negotiations. We assume we can get away with ‘butting’ our loved ones, yet in family situations there’s usually more triggers than in 3rd party relationships. In our professional life, we tend to be clear about our roles, whereas our emotions have been quashed down over the years in our personal relationships and our roles are much more flexible. This actually increases the need for a ‘Yes, and’ approach to get better outcomes and build better relationships.

Izzy recommends the One-Word Story as an effective exercise for both improv and negotiation. In this exercise, neither person knows where it’s going. Neither can predict or control the other person’s word. It’s key to stay present, suspend judgment and allow the process to unfold. These are all key skills for an effective negotiator to master. I’ve seen many negotiations fail because people come with attachment to a particular process or outcome. They come having pre-judged the other party and/or their position(s). In doing so, they miss gorgeous opportunities that arise, lying on the table for the taking.

The One-Word Story game allows us to practice suspending judgment or expectation and flowing with the dialogue in real time. When we notice judgment arising, it allows us to pause, take a step back and consider where it’s coming from and what we can learn from it. The idea of the exercise is to always go forward.

I invite you to notice the judgment you may even have about the exercise itself. In my interview with Izzy, he suggested we play the game together in real time on air. I agreed but commented that I expected it would be challenging to do a single word at time. I was making a judgment about something I’d never experienced. I assumed it would be harder than what I knew. In other words, I came with a story (as we all do in life) that impacted my perception and my reaction before we’d even started.

Consider how often this happens in your daily negotiations in life. How often do you show up with expectations, judgments and stories before the negotiation even begins? How does this impact on how you show up? Get curious about the stories you may tell yourself and the judgments you may bring to the negotiation table. Pay attention to the state that you show up in. Are you excited, anxious, fearful? Recognize what fears show up. Is it fear of being judged, fear of failure, fear of the unknown?

There is typically a jumbled mix of emotions when approaching a negotiation or any potentially challenging conversation. Learning to recognize the feelings that arise that don’t serve you is a valuable skill.

Likewise, as the negotiation proceeds, you’ll likely have judgments and stories about yourself, the other party, and the process. The One-Word Story exercise was interesting from that perspective as well. I found that I was judging my performance, feeling that I was too slow and disrupting the flow. My inner critic was in full bloom. No doubt you’ve experienced this in your negotiations. We judge ourselves deficient with no data to support that story. And it adversely impacts on our experience and ultimately our performance.

We often impose limitations that have no objective basis. Izzy shared a story about a workshop he led where one woman had the same reaction I had. She felt she had been too slow notwithstanding that no time limit had been imposed, and in fact, Izzy’s instructions had explicitly said there was no limit. The woman acknowledged this, saying “I heard you, but I didn’t believe you, because nothing in my life has no time pressure to it.”

As she said those words, the light bulb went off. She realized why her direct reports were so nervous when she came into the room. She realized she carries and emanates a sense of urgency around with her even when it’s not necessary. This is an important realization. Who we show up as (whether in games, in leadership roles or in negotiations) impacts the emotions, consciously and unconsciously, of the people we deal with. Increasing our awareness about this allows to get more intentional about choosing approaches that will serve to deliver better outcomes.

The exercise is a safe place to explore these concepts without defensiveness. It’s easier to be vulnerable talking about these issues in the context of a game where there are no real-world consequences. You can take more risks and experience deeper learning and insights which you can translate to profound life experiences impacting your relationships and interactions. What you take away from how you play will inform you about how you show up in real life.

For more great gems, check out the full interview with Izzy Gesell, from my Art of Feminine Negotiation podcast. Or if you prefer a visual experience, you can check out the interview on our Women On Purpose YouTube channel.

If you’ve ever complained about a lack of balance or harmony in your life, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to the final installment of our 4-part series on How to Negotiate Balance in Your Life.  We’ve been offering up simple, game-changing strategies you can invoke to introduce more balance.

In Part I, we rekindle your desire to find purpose; addressed the importance of saying ‘no’; explored what you may be tolerating that’s sabotaging your chance at balance; considered who you need to negotiate with; and debunked the myth that there’s no such thing as work-life balance.

In Part II, we uncovered enhanced goal setting strategies, discussed being present, knowing your boundaries, and setting your priorities.

In Part III, we continued on our journey to discover balance by introducing simple time management strategies to up level your productivity and priorities focus. We covered how to engage  time audits, energy audits, and time blocks to bring more harmony.

Today, we conclude our exploration to leave you with enhanced skills to find your personal balancing regime.

XI Recognize Your Blocks

Last week, in Part III, we introduced the idea of time blocks and how you could use them to improve your productivity and efficiency. Continuing with the theme of blocks, let’s turn our attention inward. What internal blocks may be holding you back from having the balance you deserve?

At some level, do you believe you don’t deserve downtime? Or are you resistant to receiving from other people? We often end up self-sabotaging by convincing ourselves we need to take care of everything. Do the inner work necessary to challenge these limiting beliefs or balance will continue to elude you.

Or maybe you’re living in a ‘one day’ mindset, setting self-imposed conditions before you allow yourself to live into your dream (i.e. once the kids are in school, or once the kids are out of school, or once the kids are out of the house, or once I hit this particular target, or once I get this one more degree, or hit that marker). I call that living in a ‘one day’ mindset, because there will always be some other marker. Some other thing that allows you to put your dreams and your vision and your entitlement to balance on pause. I invite you to challenge that. Start living into your best life now.

What are your internal blocks? Identifying them is the first step to eradicating them. Flip the stories you’ve been telling yourself that hold you back from stepping into your most empowered self and life.

XII Control Your Environment

Are you intentional about managing your environment? First, look to your physical environment. A cluttered space can cause a cluttered mind which makes it challenging to find that gorgeous, elusive balance. Be mindful of your space. Create a space you enjoy being in. Spoil yourself. Treat yourself. Have an environment that inspires you to show up as the best version of yourself. Have somewhere in your house you love to unwind and relax. Be very mindful about your physical environment.

Also, as part of your environment, be mindful about who you have in your life. Ensure you surround yourself with people who are both inspired and inspiring, who inspire you to reach higher, to be better. I invite you to take a look at your inner circle. It is said that our success reflects the five closest people in our inner circle. Are the people currently in your inner circle people who may be holding you back?

Sometimes these are people who do it out of love, with the best of intentions, but they make us question ourselves, doubt ourselves, stop us from taking risks. They stop us from growing, keeping us in a comfortable space thinking they’re keeping us safe when in fact they’re holding us back from achieving our full potential.

Be mindful of your environment. Surround yourself with people who challenge you, who stretch you, who encourage you to grow, because it’s only when you do that, that you’re going to be able to find balance.

XIII Push Outside Your Comfort Zones

Some of us convince ourselves that we’ve achieved a state of balance when we’re really just sitting in our comfort zones. We don’t feel challenged and so it feels safe. In fact, though, those comfort zones are self-imposed prisons. They keep us small. They constrict us. They shrink us. This is not balance – this is withering on the vine of life.

Instead, I invite you to be brave. Take your foot off your psychological emergency brake. As you take risks to learn new things, you gain competence. With that competence comes confidence. With that increased confidence, comes increased willingness to try more new things, which breeds ever-increasing competencies, in a gorgeous upward spiral. These increased competencies and confidence will allow you more choice, which in turn will allow you to better maintain a state of balance and harmony in your life.

Final Thoughts

Remember that you get what you tolerate in life. You get to determine your boundaries and your non-negotiables. And as you practice being able to give positive no’s in your life, you can open up more space, have more flexibility and start to practice the act of balancing of your life. This involves a negotiation with yourself, with those in your workplace, and with those closest to you in terms of family and friends.

I’d be remiss though if I didn’t point out that we are not machines. You’re human. Allow for that. This series is designed to give you some tips to step into a life with more balance. Take what works for you. This isn’t an all or nothing approach. Acknowledge that life happens. There will be necessary unanticipated interruptions. For example, my mom was diagnosed with dementia this year. There are times when I have to drop everything and tend to her needs. Or our one-year-old German Shepherd pup gets into mischief and I may have to deal with it in the moment (or my important documents may become his snack). I get it.

Life is for living, not sticking rigidly to a mandated compliance regime. Be sure to allow down time to just ‘be’. Schedule time for pleasure activities and also allow time for unscheduled moments. You don’t want to be scheduled 100% of the time. Give yourself the grace to be human and to enjoy this human experience.

I invite you to go forth and start negotiating the flexibility and balance you deserve. Maybe you haven’t thought of it as a negotiation before. And if so, I have done my job at the very least in reframing the issue and increasing your awareness to better equip you to step into your new state of symmetry, stability, and steadiness.

If you find yourself lamenting the lack of balance in your life and are beginning to believe it’s a myth, an unachievable fantasy, then read on! In this series, we offer up simple, game-changing strategies you can invoke to introduce more balance in your life. The key is getting intentional and negotiating this balance so you can focus on the things that matter most to you.

In Part I, we debunked the myth that there’s no such thing as work-life balance; considered who you need to negotiate with; explored what you may be tolerating that’s sabotaging your chance at balance; addressed the importance of saying ‘no’; and rekindled your desire to find purpose.

In Part II, we uncovered enhanced goal setting strategies, discussed being present, knowing your boundaries, and setting your priorities.

Today, we continue with advice on how you can maintain that seemingly elusive and delicate balance by tackling how you can better manage your time.

VIII Time Audit

In the last article I shared the vase experiment and reminded you of the importance of ensuring that you get your ‘big rocks’ (priorities) into your vase of life each day. To help you out with that, I invite you to do a time audit. It may feel awkward or uncomfortable but it’s worth the effort.

For one week, take an audit of everything that you do. Audit your time like a lawyer – track it in six-minute increments (yes, we actually do that). Every hour has 60 minutes. So, every six minutes is 0.1 of an hour. Diligently track where you’re spending all your time. Include the time you work, sleep, run errands, do dishes, housework, surf the internet, watch T.V., entertainment time, etc. Whatever you do, audit and record it for a full week.

At the end of the week, examine where your time is going. If you’re looking for more balance and harmony in your life, it’s critical to know where your time is currently going. If you’re like most people, you’ll be shocked at the inordinate amounts of time disappearing on things you would never have characterized as priorities.

Then I invite you to break down your audited time into three categories: (i) things you love to do, (ii) things you don’t mind doing, and (iii) things that you really do not enjoy. Take each of the entries from the week prior and place them under the appropriate category. Again, if you’re like most people, you’re in for a rude awakening about the amount of time you spend doing things you don’t enjoy at all.

To redress that disconnect, find a way to eliminate, delegate or automate those items under the ‘don’t like’ column. Get them off your list. Learn to say ‘no’. Free up time for more yeses to things you love.

     Eliminate

               Delegate

                       Automate

Your calendar ought to reflect your priorities. Once you start acting with more intention in this regard, you will become more equipped to say ‘no’. It’s empowering to have your priorities scheduled in writing. And it allows you more comfort to say ‘no’ based on scheduled prior commitments consistent with your real-life priorities.

IX Energy Audit

In conjunction with the time audit, I also like to recommend an energy audit. As you explore those activities that take up your time in the week, also make note of which activities give you energy versus those that drain your energy. Evaluate whether the energy expenditure is worthwhile and if it adds value to your life.

Ensure that you are leaving energy for those priorities that most matter to you. And at a minimum, get intentional about building in time to replenish energy between activities. In other words, build in proactive recovery time to ensure you can always show up as the best version of yourself, not depleted or exhausted. In addition to allowing for rest time, ensure you build in re-energizing activities into your schedule. In that way, you can increase the balance and harmony in your life.

X Time Blocks

As you’re getting more intentional about your time and how and where you spend it, I also recommend you consider building time blocks into your routine. For most people 90-minute blocks are the optimal stretch to remain at full focus and productivity. Beyond that, our attention and effectiveness begins to dwindle. You can use that knowledge to your advantage.

In addition to determining your life priorities (as discussed above), each day, determine your daily priority projects. Once you’ve determined those priorities, set 90-minute blocks of time for each. This allows you to remain focused on each project and allows breaks between projects to replenish and re-energize.

Note that they’re called time ‘blocks’ for a reason. During each time block, ensure you do not allow any other distractions. Do not answer your phone. In fact, turn off the ringer. Silence notifications on your computer, laptop, and other devices. Notify everyone that these are ‘do not disturb’ times.

For every distraction or disturbance, it takes the average person ~20 minutes to refocus according to studies. It’s amazing how much more productive you’ll be when you allow yourself the luxury of blocked time. With more productivity and efficiency comes increased balance and harmony.

This week we focused on simple tricks for time & energy management to help improve your balancing act. We’ve offered some tools so you can make conscious, guilt-free choices about where you spend your time so you can manage your schedule with greater ease and fulfillment.

Stay tuned next week for our final installment as we tackle internal blocks, environment and comfort zones to leave you better positioned to find more balance and harmony in your life.

If the teeter-totter of your work-life balance always seem to have you at one extreme or the other and the prospect of finding the sweet spot seems out of reach, then this series is for you. In Part I we kick-started the path to negotiating balance and harmony with some simple strategies to allow you to take control of your life so you can focus on the things that matter most to you. In addition to debunking the myth that there’s no such thing as balance and considering who you need to negotiate with, we explored what you tolerate, saying ‘No’, and finding purpose. Today we continue with more hot tips on how you can maintain better balance in your life.

IV  Setting Goals

In Part I, I mentioned our Purpose Planner as a valuable tool to help you achieve purpose (and with it balance). One of the things we cover in our Purpose Planner to ensure a balanced life is categories for goal setting. For most of us, there’s one area in our life where we focus on goal setting (i.e. career or romance or health). We tend to approach the task with a narrow focus. I invite you to start broadening that lens. Get intentional about setting goals in every category of your life.

If you’re looking for balance you need to ensure you are growing, and fully living into every area, including:

• health & fitness,
• wealth & finance,
• mission & vision,
• emotional & mental wellbeing,
• growth & learning,
• intimate or romantic relationships,
• family & friends,
• experiences & quality of life,
• spiritual,
• career (if that’s not already covered under mission & vision).

Set achievable goals in each of these areas and check in regularly to ensure you’re on target. In this way, you’ll notice if you’re lacking in one or more areas before it’s too late.

V  Be Present

As you seek to maintain a state of balance, I invite you to be fully present in the now. Be mindful. We live in a very ‘to-do’ world, where we’re often rushing here and there, grabbing fast food on the way. We don’t take the time to be present, to fully experience each moment and enjoy the journey. This week I challenge you to be more present. Experience and enjoy each meal, focusing on the flavours in each bite. When you have conversations, be present, be there, be fully engaged as you listen. As you drive, truly take in your surroundings along the way. Invoke and tune in to all five senses.

Allowing yourself to be engaged in each moment will create a sense of balance in and of itself. When you live each moment in that way, a state of balance becomes a way of being.

VI  Know Your Boundaries

In Part I, we talked about the importance of being able to say ‘no’. An important part of that is knowing your boundaries. What are your non-negotiables in life? Those things that you are not going to give up on, not going to compromise on. We often forget to be intentional about that. If you don’t know them you will get what you tolerate and it can be a slippery slope, easy to lose the balance necessary to live into our fullest lives.

Often, we overextend ourselves out of fear of being seen as not able to handle it all, judged deficient. We want to be seen as superwomen. That motivates us to say ‘yes’ to people and things that do not serve us and that we don’t even enjoy doing.

Also, consider that you don’t have to be the person who responds positively to every request. You can move the goal back onto the lap of the person who raised it. You can refer them to someone else who could benefit from the referral and opportunity in a classic win-win.

Think of each request you get as a negotiation. Recognize that you can say ‘no’. We often complain that we don’t have enough time. It’s a choice. Gaining time back means negotiating with ourselves and others. Always consider if saying ‘yes’ moves you forward toward your own goals and vision.

I invite you to schedule time in your calendar this week to contemplate your boundaries. You also need to know your priorities to set appropriate boundaries. So, let’s talk about that next.

VII  Know Your Priorities

Do you have a clear sense of your priorities? Do you ensure that you live into your priorities each day? If you’re like most people, you likely spend most of your time doing things that you would not list as priorities in your life.

I love the vase experiment as a beautiful metaphor for life. If you haven’t seen it, here’s how it works. Take a large vase and place big rocks in it until you hit the rim. You’ll think the vase is full. But if you add smaller rocks, they find their way around the big rocks and fill to the top. You’ll think the vase is full. But if you dump in little pebbles, they work their way around the rocks until you’re convinced the vase is full. If you pour in a bucket of sand, sure enough it can fill the cracks and crevices until it appears impossible to add anything more. Yet if you pour in a jug of water, the sand absorbs the water and takes it in.

If you think of those rocks as the priorities in your life, those big rocks are things you most value, your top priorities. If you don’t put those big rocks in first, every day, you won’t have room for them. Because when you do the vase exercise in reverse (i.e. start with the water, then put in sand, then pebbles, then smaller rocks) you will not have room for the big rocks.

I invite you to think about applying this principle in your life. Know what your priorities are, your big rocks, and make sure you make and take time to get your big rocks into your vase, this one life you’ve been given, every day. Otherwise, you’ll fill your days with sand and water. To kickstart that process, take a few moments now to list those things in your life that you consider your priorities. Contemplate whether you are giving them the attention they deserve each day. If not, what can you do to correct that? Stay tuned next week for some practical exercises for how you can manage your time to help live into your priorities.

I hope you’re finding these simple strategies to be helpful on your journey to negotiate balance in your life. If you missed Part I, be sure to check it out so you don’t miss out on any hot tips. And I invite you to join us for next week’s instalment in this series as we continue with life-altering tips and tools to negotiate your well-deserved balance.

Do you feel like you have achieved balance in your life? If you’re like most people, this is probably an area where you struggle. Balance often seems elusive, and it can feel like there’s never enough time. Sound familiar? If so, stay tuned for some insights on how to better achieve balance and harmony so you can focus on the things that matter most to you. The key is to get intentional and negotiate this time and balance. Don’t fret if that sounds unfamiliar. I’ll walk you through it. In this series, we’ll address a few game-changing strategies you can invoke to introduce more balance in your life.

Who you need to negotiate balance with?

The starting point is negotiating with yourself. Sadly, that’s the ‘who’ that’s most often overlooked. You need to believe you deserve balance in your life. It’s critical to dig deep and do the inner work to recognize and own your internal value. Push past blocks that have you believing you don’t deserve and/or that you need to be superwoman (taking care of everything for everyone except yourself).

Recognize that we sometimes use time as an excuse to protect ourselves from doing things that scare us or where there’s internal blocks or resistance. The danger of using these excuses is that we start to believe the lies and they become insidious limiting beliefs that hold us back.

Get comfortable negotiating your mindset. You can choose whether to approach life with a scarcity or abundance mindset. Most people think of these concepts in the context of money, but they also apply to time. You have all the time in the world. We all have the same 1440 minutes each day. You get to choose how you use them. [We’ll be digging deeper into priorities and other time management strategies later in this series.]

We’re all here on this earth to live the life of our dreams. If not now, when?  What is your relationship to time? Decide what you want it to be.

After you’ve done the inner work and negotiated with yourself, turn your attention to those you work with. Let’s face it, we spend a lot of our waking hour at work, so this is definitely a key area where you’ll want to negotiate boundaries to make sure you have balance.

Also consider friends and family who are probably used to you jumping in and handling everything. It takes intention to break those old patterns.

Is there such a thing as work-life balance?

There’s a lot of talk now that there’s no such thing as a work-life balance. That it’s a myth. I don’t accept that. Rather, instead of seeing it as some idealized state that you aspire to, I invite you to think of balance as a verb i.e. where you’re actively balancing your life every day in every moment and every decision you make.

I think that approach helps us take more accountability and responsibility for having balance in our life rather than a ‘one day’ mindset, where you dream there’s some elusive nirvana state that you may be able to achieve one day and once you get it, you’ve got it for good. Balance takes ongoing intention. That’s why I like the idea of thinking about balance as a verb, where you’re intentional about how you engage in your personal balancing act.

Let’s dig in to some simple strategies you can adopt to start achieving greater balance:

I   You Get What You Tolerate in Life

One starting point self-reflection about your tolerances. Recognize what you are currently tolerating in your life that perhaps you ought not. What habits and patterns are you creating that do not serve you? Much of our time is dedicated to people and things that do not serve us or our vision. Getting balance starts with recognizing those tolerances we’ve become accustomed to that interfere with the highest and best use of our time.

I invite you to start with a consideration of what you are tolerating of yourself. In what areas of your life have you settled for mediocrity? What stories have you been telling yourself that hold you back from stepping into the full force of your power? What limiting beliefs have you bought into that have you feeling unentitled? Are you blocking yourself from receiving? Does fear stop you from setting boundaries?

Once you’ve explored tolerances you need to change for yourself, then expand the lens to consider what you’re tolerating of other people in your life that perhaps you ought to reexamine? What expectations have you created in your relationships that interfere with your ability to achieve balance?

If you want to dig deeper on this issue, check out my article You Get What You Tolerate.

II  Just Say ‘No’

Learning to say no is a key skill in maintaining balance in your life. It’s important to teach yourself to get comfortable with the word no, because every time you say yes to one thing (to one engagement, to one appointment, to one task, to one favour) that means you’re saying no to something else.

As noted above, we all have the same 1440 minutes in every day. You have control over how you spend those minutes. Every time you say yes to something you don’t really feel like doing and/or that doesn’t serve you, you’re actually taking that time away from something else you could be doing that may better serve you in moving towards your personal goals, instead of taking care of everyone else’s.

When you learn the power of a positive no, you start the path to increased balance in your life.

As women in particular, ‘no’ is a word we often fear and resist. If you have resistance to saying ‘no’, I invite you to desensitize yourself to the word, get rid of the fear and the angst that’s associated with the word ‘no’.

For that reason, I loved Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton’s book Go for No. They suggest a simple process where you actively ‘go for no’. Let’s say you’re in sales, for example, and you need to hit a target of 10 sales/day. If you know your conversion rate is 10% (i.e. you’re going to have to ask 100 people to get those 10 sales) then instead of thinking, “I need 10 yeses,” instead think, “I’m going for 100 no’s.” And so starts the loss of inhibitions around the word.

For a deeper dive on the idea, check out my article Overcoming Fear of Negotiation by Going For No.

III   Finding Purpose

If you want to fast-track your path to balance, find purpose. I’m the founder of Women on Purpose. I feel passionately about helping people find their purpose. That mission started me down this journey to help people negotiate their best life. And I invite you to do that. Do what you love, love what you do.

Rediscover and tap into your unique gift so you live into your purpose every day. This allows you to find that seemingly elusive balance.

This is one of the reasons we created our Purpose Planner. It was total passion project. This is not your typical ‘to do’ planner. Instead, every day it inspires you to design the life you deserve, prioritizing what’s most important and moving towards living a more purposeful life.

If you’ve never looked at our Purpose Planner, I encourage you to check it out. It is worth the investment to live your best life more intentionally.

Be sure to join us for next week’s instalment in this series as we continue with life-altering simple strategies to negotiate balance in your life.

Have you ever backed down in a negotiation or felt your power dwindle because someone tried to shame you, or guilt you? Is it easy to trigger you and get you off course from achieving your objectives? Is self-esteem an issue that holds you back? It wasn’t long ago that we rarely heard negotiation experts or academics talk about the role of emotion in negotiations. The focus was primarily on tactics, strategies, and skills. Emotion was thought to have no role in negotiations.

Now, much attention is given to the role of emotion in how we negotiate and the outcomes we achieve. EQ – or emotional intelligence – is the new buzz term in the industry with good reason. Our emotional state can profoundly impact on our success (or lack thereof) in our negotiations.

Confidence is key in negotiations. When our self-esteem is under attack (either internally or externally) and/or we buy into feelings of shame or guilt in a negotiation, our fight, flight or freeze fear response is triggered. This blocks the clarity required for best negotiated outcomes.

In fact, studies on the impact of anxiety in negotiations showed that those experiencing anxiety were easier to manipulate and engaged in a range of self-sabotaging behaviour including accepting advice from those known to have a conflict of interest, leaving more on the table, leaving negotiations earlier and generally being more tentative.

Some negotiators may feel shame or guilt themselves and attempt to project it onto you. Some, however, intentionally seek to guilt, shame or otherwise undercut the self-esteem of their negotiation counterparts as a tactic to gain advantage. Women, in particular, have been subject to shaming for advocating for themselves. Note this doesn’t just come from men as against women, but also includes women attempting to shame or guilt other women, and even our own self-shaming and guilting.

It’s important to do the inner work to own your own value and practice unconditional self-love. Give yourself permission to be wholly, authentically who you are. Seek to get the goal you’re looking to achieve while staying true to yourself.

This issue of authenticity sometimes shows up in whether we bring our masculine or feminine energy to the table. We all have both masculine and feminine energy. For too long though, we’ve been conditioned to define success based on masculine, competitive models. This can result in us showing up with a ‘take no prisoners’ competitive style that may not be natural or authentic to us. I was guilty of this approach for many years. I got great outcomes, but at a high personal cost. At the other end of the spectrum, it can cause us to back away from negotiations altogether, fearing the potential conflict. Added to that, we’re also conditioned as women to be selfless nurturers and caregivers, so advocating for ourselves can seem taboo. For more on this, see my TEDx talk on the Rise of the Feminine Voice.

Recognize the fears and triggers that show up for you and be intentional about how you choose to react. Be intentional about who you choose to show up as. Consider this part of your preparation process. Additionally, consider who the other party may show up as and prepare how you’ll address it. That way, you’ll be less likely to end up in reactive mode and better able to maintain the clarity you need to stay focused on best outcomes.

If you have struggled with self-esteem, shame, or guilt issues in your negotiations, don’t beat yourself up about it. Awareness is always the key starting point to effective change. Recognize that you’re not alone. There is deep generational conditioning that contributes to feeling ‘less than’ or undeserving. Heck, it’s only recent history that women were able to hold property, vote or even be recognized as persons in the eyes of the law in many jurisdictions.

The beauty is that it’s never too late to choose a change, to make a decision to push past the conditioning to a more empowered state. The more we push outside our comfort zone, the more competence we acquire. As we get more competence, we increase our confidence. With more confidence comes more willingness to push even further outside our comfort zone, and so we acquire ever-increasing competencies, and with them, increased confidence. This is known as the competence-confidence loop.

As we trust in ourselves to try new things, we continue to grow. As we grow, we move from unconscious incompetence, to conscious incompetence, to unconscious competence, to conscious competence. Knowing that this is a natural progression, helps us stick with it when we hit the conscious incompetence stage to push through to the conscious competence.

And don’t be afraid to try on some power poses in the meantime to get you through. Amy Cuddy’s work on this issue is particularly helpful. If you find yourself feeling insecure or suffering a momentary self-esteem dip, simply adopt a power pose for two minutes. i.e. raise your arms in the victory pose, or put your hands on your hips in a Wonder-Woman pose, or any posture that exudes confidence and power. Studies show taking these poses increases our testosterone levels and decreases cortisol levels.

I also advocate that my clients create a ‘Brag List’. Start by listing 25 things you love about yourself. Include attributes, qualities, accomplishments, characteristics, etc. Every night, just before you go to sleep, when your subconscious is most receptive to take in information and process it, read over your ‘brag list’ and add 5 new things you can brag about. Imagine the cumulative power of allowing your unconscious 8 hours to bask in celebration of yourself. It’s a beautiful way to retrain our brains to embrace more empowering beliefs about ourselves.

All of life is a negotiation. It’s important to get intentional about showing up in your most empowered state to get what you want and deserve. Recognizing where shame, guilt or self-esteem issues are standing in the way of your best outcomes is the first step in redressing the issue.

All of life is a negotiation, but sometimes those negotiations go sour. Are you the type of person who puckers up when faced with those lemons, or do you make lemonade? We can’t control everything in life, but we can choose how we react to unexpected circumstances. Choosing to show up with equanimity, creativity, and composure will go a long way to ensuring you get better outcomes and more of what you want and deserve.

Preparation is important (as we discussed in our series, The Perils of Failing to Properly Prepare for Negotiations). When we prepare, we’re less likely to face surprises that throw us off track. Having said that, things don’t always go as planned. Sometimes things go sideways in a negotiation and no amount of preparation can have us anticipate every possible eventuality. Being able to handle these situations with grace and ease is key to negotiating your best life. Better yet, being able to find the silver lining and come up with an even better solution in these situations is the goal.

To do that requires a positive mindset. Negative reactivity will almost always interfere with your ability to maintain the required clarity to ‘make lemonade’.

Let me give you a few examples for context.

Almost a decade into my career as a lawyer, I had the opportunity to meet the head honcho of one of my relatively new clients. He was the long-time International President of a large international union and I had just started doing work for one of their locals. I was excited about the opportunity to meet him, as it could open the door to much broader prospects for work within the organization which had been difficult to secure up to that point.

I was visibly pregnant at the time. When I was introduced as the local’s lawyer, the President looked at me in confusion.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

It was immediately apparent that he couldn’t reconcile the idea of this 9-month’s pregnant woman standing before him in the bar where we’d met, as a lawyer at all, let alone for his union.

“Yes, I am,” I responded with a smile. “I’m due any day.”

He looked to my client. “I thought you said she’s the lawyer.”

“Yes, I did,” replied the business rep, his voice wary. “She’s done some great work for us on some really challenging cases recently.”

“Shouldn’t you be at home, getting ready for your baby?” the President asked me without a trace of irony.

I won’t bore you with the play by play after that. Suffice it to say, things got deadly quiet for a moment, and then erupted as everyone talked over each other trying to salvage the situation and it became belatedly apparent to the President that he’d stepped into the proverbial muck.

More importantly for the purposes of this article, instead of becoming irate, defensive, and/or reactive, I was able to capitalize on the moment by touting the benefits of new approaches to old problems as the key to viability of the union’s future. I ended up being appointed as Canadian Counsel to the International, it’s Canadian Council, and most of the provincial locals of the organization – a far more lucrative outcome than I could ever have hoped for. Truckloads of lemonade from that initial pucker-worthy lemon.

Another occasion when negotiations were not going as planned and I was able to turn lemons into lemonade was with an insurance company following a house fire (after our dishwasher had burst into flames one morning due to faulty component parts). The adjustor who’d been appointed by the insurer, kept trying every possible angle to deny us the coverage we were entitled to. When I jumped his head and he’d presumably been directed to ‘play nice’, he ostensibly cooperated, consistently assuring me that a beneficial global settlement was imminent. Yet he still kept balking at multiple line items and stalling the process as the statute of limitations (and with it our right to pursue the matter at all) loomed closer.

Again, rather than sucking on lemons by playing his game and getting mired in the muck (recognizing that he was trying to nickel and dime hoping to gain favour with the insurance company by saving them money) I simply filed a notice of intent to litigate (which would be more costly for the company). Literally the next day, we got a call with a settlement for 100% of the claim we’d submitted with no questions asked (which was more than I had expected to secure in the circumstances as my claim had erred on the generous side to say the least).

Likewise, in another scenario, after successfully bidding on a year-long car lease at a local fundraiser, we faced a series of interminable delays by the car dealership, who seemed to be trying to wiggle out of their commitment to honour the vehicle offered. Rather than getting angry, or demanding, or confrontational, I instead chose to show up with empathy, building rapport and trust, trusting my intuition, and remaining flexible, while still being assertive (my ARE FIT model). In the end, it paid off. I was able to purchase a new luxury version of the car at a steal of a deal – a far better outcome than the initial one-year lease I’d bid on.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that sometimes deals that don’t come together at all can be blessings in disguise (as Garth Brooks reminds us in his “Unanswered Prayers” song). Many times, the deal I thought I wanted (or a client wanted) turned out to be total lemons. Recognizing the blessing of those deals going south, and trusting that another (better) deal is around the corner, is another way to make lemonade in your negotiations.

I invite you to think of a negotiation you’ve had where you were able to make lemonade out of lemons. Think of negotiations you have on the horizon. How might you apply the skills you brought in those cases or lessons learned to be ready to make lemonade no matter what gets thrown your way.

As I was writing my Art of Feminine Negotiation book, people challenged me about focusing on women. But I felt strongly that women have faced unique challenges in the realm of negotiation that men have not experienced … or at least not to the same degree. I hope to even the playing field by speaking to the elephant in the room. To that end, in interviewing other negotiation experts, I often ask what special advice or tips they have for women as negotiators. Here is a brief summary of some answers that I thought might serve you.

Isaac Betancourt

Former Hostage Negotiator & Trainer

Isaac Betancourt had this to say about his advice when training women hostage negotiators:

“Just be a human being. Be yourself. At that point, you’re more relaxed because you’re being your authentic self. You’re thinking about the goal, which is to save lives. If you’re trying to be somebody else, you’re making it about you. You’re concentrating on having to keep this persona, to give a particular impression, and that becomes your first goal. And whatever you actually want to obtain becomes the second goal. When your first goal is to keep up a persona at all costs, you’re already taking away from the real goal.”

Note: this advice applies equally whether in hostage negotiation, corporate negotiations or personal negotiations.

Always be your authentic self, don’t make the negotiation about you, and keep your focus on the outcome sought.

Paul Nadeau

Former Hostage Negotiator and International Peacekeeper

When asked what advice he had for women as negotiators, Paul Nadeau said:

“I have two things to say about that. The first one is that we are more similar than we are different. The person sitting across from me laughs, loves, leads the same way, may have a family just like me, may have a different colour skin, different religious beliefs, different whatever, but they are more similar. They are human beings. They’re my brother and my sister. So we are more similar than we are different.

The second one is, we get what we give. Don’t focus on the things that you can’t control. Focus on the moment, the things you can control: how you ask questions, how you deliver, how you engage. The pivot point is believing in yourself and believing the world is going to work out because you’re going to make it work out.”

Dr. Michele Williams

Business School Negotiation Professor

“I like to remind women that women are smart. It’s not so much that they don’t ask, it’s that they’ve learned in the corporate structure not to ask. They’ve been getting backlash, told they’re too pushy or too greedy or too selfish, and they learn not to ask. Then they’re disadvantaged by that.

I think that a lot of times women just need to draw on their innate strength because when they negotiate on behalf of others … for their children, family, community organizations … they’re tough negotiators.

Set high aspirations in the workplace and realize there are negotiation strategies that can really help them be effective. One of my favorite strategies (from Amy Cuddy’s work on presence) is using strong non-verbals. Women get more pushback for their language than they do for their non-verbals. When women come confidently into the room and speak calmly, that show of assertiveness is very helpful.

The second thing I have them do is think about themselves as if they were their friend and list all the things they would argue about why this person needs the raise or should have this challenging role. When they think of it that way, they have the list, arguments, and confidence in recognizing, ‘Yes, I’ve really contributed a lot to this firm. I’ve hit these metrics. I’ve contributed this to the bottom line. I’ve satisfied these really difficult clients,’ and being able to have that in mind when they come for the ask.”

Pam Lester

Former Sports Attorney

“The trick is not to show your fear, and not to feel that you have to fill the air. So, if you need time to regroup and to think, I think that’s fine. And the other thing is that if you don’t know something, I believe it’s okay to say you don’t know. That’s much better than talking, and you might end up getting yourself in trouble. And, of course, be open to calling in help. You can always take a break. It’s like calling a time-out on the sports field and get advice or regroup or do what you need to do.”

Joanna Shea

Negotiation Consultant

“In project management, there’s something called RACI. It stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, informed. When you run a project, you need to know who the stakeholders are. I take the RACI template and apply it to negotiations. You need to have a process to track your data because you need to keep it organized.

Also, begin with the end in mind. Consider what you want this to look like in the end.”

Jacqueline Twillie

Salary Negotiation Coach

“We’re taught to believe that if you want to be successful, you’ve got to be the toughest nail. You can’t be kind and empathetic because the nice woman gets the short end of the stick. So that unconsciously plays in her mind. And it’s not true.

Think of it as if you’re negotiating for someone else. When you’re negotiating your salary, think about your family or whatever makes you tick. That has proven to help women really move the needle. But it comes down to mindset. It goes back to unlocking our cultural norms and these unconscious things we picked up generation after generation.”

Leah Murphy

Executive Career Coach

Asked about advice for women negotiating salary increases, Leah Murphy had this nugget to offer:

“I think you have to understand what the priorities of the organization are. If the priority is bringing in new business and that’s a top priority, see how you can align the work you do with the organization’s priorities. Make a really clear association between what you do and how it benefits the organization. Focus on how your work associates directly with something that is of value to the organization.”

Tej Brahmbhatt

Wall Street Investment Banker

“For females negotiating with males, if they’re not respecting your space simply because you’re female, assume they’re outdated or archaic. Treat them like you would a narcissist, a bully, or someone with power who is not in your best interest. You want to somewhat acquiesce to their ego.

Here’s an example of how to approach them, so you’re calling it out, but tactfully, so you can get buy-in. As a woman pitching a male-dominated firm, say:

‘Listen, if we can do this venture, here’s something we noticed from our research. I know it’s not a direct result of your policies and procedures and how you operate, but you folks have done so many deals with male dominated companies. We wanted to work with you because we have so many ideas that would fit your ethos for the next generation. You folks talk about sustainability. What better sustainable approach than to get involved with our firm, a 100% female owned and operated business? It does two things. Think about the marketing you get from our entire following of empowered women all over the globe. Two, you folks can bring so much to the table because you’ve been around longer than us. I think that’ll be a powerful JV.”

These are just a few gems from my interviews with negotiation experts and their views on tips for women in negotiations. As all of life is a negotiation, I feel passionately that this skill is necessary to negotiate your best life. I hope this brief share has helped inspire you in some way to show up as the best version of yourself in your next negotiation.