Amanda Griffith

Amanda Griffith

Amanda Griffith has graciously offered to share her experience with a real world time management challenge.  I’ve written briefly about Amanda’s challenge in a post exploring setting and maintaining boundaries (read it here). Amanda is a consumate professional.  She continues to push herself to acheive more in both her personal life and her professional life.  I consider Amanda to be one of my favorite clients, and am oh so fortunate to call her a friend.

If you are looking to bring more abundance into your life – I cannot recommend strongly enough to take Amanda up on her offer at the conclusion of this post.

Everyone Wants a Piece of Me!

By Amanda Griffith, Everyday Light

Oops.

I wanted local clients, so I started putting myself out there more. I worked on my Personal Presence, my Networking, and my Listening Skills. And voila, I got a ton of clients, and great contacts who want to go to coffee and help each other out. But then it seemed to backfire on me!

I would run into someone I hadn’t seen in a while, and she would say “We just have to get together- I need my Amanda time!”

Now, I know this is meant to be a compliment. I know people use this phrase to say “I miss you, I want to spend time together.” But thy way it hit me many times was “I need a piece of you. I deserve my slice of the pie. You owe me time.”

Not too fun.

And I tried to get over that feeling many times. After all, these are my friends and contacts that I truly do care about. But somehow by their words they were claiming a piece of my time, instead of requesting it or inviting me to join them. This had to stop.

I talked with Lisa about it, as it was an area in which I was clearly losing my personal power. In fact, when I would give in to these demands on my time, I wouldn’t feel like myself the whole time I was with them. One day, I had TWO different friends derail my planned workday by 3 hours…. EACH! It was horrendous! But every time, I went to stop the conversation, I got tangled up in guilt and my tongue got tied.

So Lisa asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks.  In fact, this question turned into a wonderful phrase that I can use in the future to stop this downward spiral before it starts. I have used it quite often, however, I notice that I have never had to use this phrase TWICE with any one person. It stops that nasty time-claiming dynamic right in its tracks!

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The next time a girlfriend said, “Can you meet this week? I really need my Amanda time!” I responded “Don’t we all!”

Short, sweet, and simple – and it works like a charm!

(You see when I shared the challenge I was having with Lisa, she asked me, “Don’t we ALL need our Amanda time?”  Which caused me to realize I do feel committed to “being there” for a lot of people.  Since there really is only so much time each day, I need to be proactive in how I chose to allocate this time. )

The main thing this does is remind ME how valuable my time is, and to make sure I’m getting my needs met first. Oh, and that my family and clients are getting the best of me.

And secondly, it seems to let them know that others are also requesting my time. It’s a light way to do this playfully for now, and if they continue to lay claim to my time, I can set more concrete and clear boundaries at that time.  Now I realize, his phrase is a little flippant (so there may be instances where I say it in my head and not out loud – it depends on my relationship with the person) I always say it with a smile to diffuse any potentially hurt feelings, and I’ll often follow up with some comment to schedule an appointment.

I hope this is helpful to you as a business owner, or as just another fabulous female out and about enjoying her life! If you have any other wonderful responses to the time-claiming statements, I’d love to hear them!

Oh, and if you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum, and you’d like to to be attracting more people to you without trying, please reach out. There is a simple method to having an Attractive and Radiating Presence that lifts others up and makes getting local clients easy as pie! I’d love to show you the roadmap in a 20-minute Being Unforgettable Assessment.

Special thanks to Lisa for her Words of Wisdom! They have saved me countless hours of resentment of my dear friends who mean well, and have given me back my power in sticky situations!

 

AWESOME job, Amanda!

And now you, yes YOU – what do you do to reclaim your valuable time from others? Comment below and share – you might help someone else!

And sometimes outside guidance can help, just as it did with Amanda.

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