I Did a BIG Thing...

It was mid August 2023. We were prepping for an upcoming busy 6+ weeks at the start of September for the new college soccer season, as we finished up camps and moved into tryouts and prep work for our first season as the new coaching staff of the women's soccer program.

On top of this new role, there was my REAL JOB ~ a Health & Wellness Coach and business owner. ... Oh right! That job!

In the midst of all of this, I had a very unexpected, out of the blue awesome email show up in my inbox; It was a woman named Kate, from Precision Nutrition. PN is the company I am certified through as a Level 1 Nutrition Coach and (soon) a certified Sleep, Stress Management & Recovery Coach. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE PN's approach to health and wellness, so I was incredibly honoured to be asked to speak for an upcoming virtual summit. Kate asked if I would be willing to do up a presentation regarding my experience with the Sleep, Stress Management and Recovery certification and how it's helped me personally and my business. Wow! I was SO excited! As I got more detail from her I learned it was a 30-40min talk (as fancy or basic as I pleased) that I would need to pre-record by mid-September, so it would be presented as part of the summit.

I was offered $500 to do this....

*There was also an option to sit on a live panel with a handful of other professionals. If I chose to do so, this would add to the total amount I would be paid for my time. Though a live segment would be tougher for me to manage in the upcoming weeks with the soccer season, so I knew this option was out right from the start.

Not only was I SO PUMPED to have been asked by a company I admire and love, but to be paid this much for what I considered a fairly straight forward and simple presentation - SIGN ME UP! Not to mention, I just love speaking (mostly when it's sharing stories and experiences). To simply chat about the certification and give my thoughts and share stories, heck yeah!

Fast forward to the last week of August; Crunch time was on. Soccer work was piling on with so much to do and think about to prep the team, I was feeling the busy-ness of the fall weighing in already. By the time mid-week hit, I was NOT in a good headspace at all (just with so much to do - which included this presentation on my plate). I was quickly realizing that although I would LOVE to do this, it may not be good timing at my end.

I love my new soccer job, I love the offer of this presentation ... but I can't do it all.

My belief and love for Precision Nutrition and their philosophies brought me to realization that unless I could give 100% energy and passion to this presentation, I shouldn't do it. And unfortunately I did NOT have enough energy to go into ANOTHER project at that time.

Thursday Aug 31st -"R&R" we'll call it ~ "Reluctant Realization" ~ I pulled the plug. I wrote Kate at PN thanking her profusely for the offer, but sadly I needed to step back due to my prior commitments and to be realistic. In true PN fashion, she was very supportive and understanding.

Saying NO was my BIG THING

If you hadn't figured it out yet, saying NO was my "big thing" I did. I talk to clients often about the power of learning to say NO, to put themselves first, open more time, manage stress, manage energy etc... Knowing I was already in for a big need for all the energy I can muster up taking on this soccer coaching job, it wouldn't make much sense to go against my own advice here.

I wanted to share the story because a factor was in play that TOO OFTEN we jump at without considering OURSELVES and our own WELLBEING first:

Money

Honestly, this presentation would've been a piece of cake to create. I could talk for an hour about this certification and all the positives it's brought me personally and professionally already without even being fully through it yet (almost!). So doing a 30-40min presentation for $500... Talk about enticing. I'm sure it would've been 2hrs or less of work. Seriously. However in this case I had to ask myself:

-Would I portray the positive energy I'd want to doing it (if I was already feeling the 'crunch of the days' between two jobs)??

-Would I do my own energy any good if I'm running on fumes before the season even starts (since this has been a bucket list job since I was a college varsity athlete)??

-Would I be able to give my best self and best work to a company I believe in (and to represent our own brand at Zenergy Health & Wellness well)??

The answer to all of these was a clear - NO.

Since taking on the college job as head coach was a job of passion (and a part time job with full time work), while still working full time in my career job as a different kind of coach I had to LISTEN TO MY HEAD because my HEART HAD ALREADY SPOKEN.

We CAN'T do everything.

We CAN'T be everything for or to everyone.

If we DON'T put our wellbeing first, we will end up being the one to suffer in the end.

Even if it's all good stuff.