We answer your questions - Determining what to say yes to will greatly affect the quality of your life.  Learn to say NO!     Episode_42_QA_June_19_2016 Thor:    The question of the day is… FS:    This question of the day comes in from Diane from Ann Arbor, and Diane writes she’s heard you talk about taking your commitments very seriously and only saying yes to things once you’ve given it some real thought. She’s having trouble deciding how to know what to say yes to, what to say no to, and just in general how to go about the decision making process. Thor:    Great question. This comes up a lot with my clients, and I’ll tell you this. What a lot of people do is they follow the crowd or what other people are doing. A lot of times, that’s not the action you want to take or the direction that you want to take.     Here’s how I do it and here’s how most peak performers do it. First is we have an inner standard – an inner compass. We have a guideline in which we make decisions. I’ll give you a great example. After my divorce, I found myself single and I found the process of who I wanted to date and who I didn’t want to date kind of confusing. I think a lot of people enter into that area and go, “Okay, what does he or she look like? I want chemistry.” I kept hearing that word chemistry.  I said, “I want to get some idea of – how do I break that down so I’m not going through kind of a trial and error.” I said, “What’s important to me in a person?” I came up with six I’s. The first one is Identity. The second one is Interest. Third one, Eye Candy (I know it’s an E, but eye candy) – and these are in no particular order: Intimacy, Intellect, and the last one is Invisible – just kind of that gut feeling. So very quickly, as soon as I came up with this, I could very quickly go through, “Okay, is this someone I could see myself with long term? Are they intelligent enough? What are their interests? She has to have her interests and I have to my interests, but at some point, we have to have shared interests of course. As soon as I put that together, it made the process very easy, because I go out on a date or two and I’m like, “You know what? Our interests really aren’t aligned here. What her identity is showing up – and again, that one takes a little bit longer – is not the type of individual that’s going to be a good fit for me long term. So without that, it was kind of a trial and error and quite frankly, what do most guys lean towards if they don’t have any guidelines? FS:    The eye candy. Thor:    Exactly. FS:    Did you feel pressured to go that way initially? Thor:    Well, I didn’t have any other guideline or anything else to go by, you know? FS:    Yeah, so you talked to yourself. You consulted with yourself. Thor:    I stepped back and I said, “There’s got to be a better way of doing this.” FS:    You’ve talked about that before about having an inner dialogue that pushes you in your own direction, because that’s what peak performers do. They force their own path. Thor:    Absolutely. This way, we can make decisions quickly. You know, you don’t want to spend 50 dates trying to figure out if this is a good fit for you. FS:    Right. Thor:    And again, it wasn’t like, you know, black and white, check the box or something. But it gave me the guidelines and very quickly allowed me to move through that process. This needs to be a written process – and again, I’m not just talking about dating here. You’ve got to have a set of standards of what you’re willing to do, what you’re not willing to do, where you’re going. You’ve got to be focused on whether this action is going to move you closer to your goals or further away from your goals – The Ultimate Success Map – that’s what I use all the time. I go through that system: what do I want? What do I need? What’s an effective plan to get there? It’s got to be quantifiable, which is another aspect of it. How do I say yes and no to things? Is it moving me closer to my goals and do I have these inner dialogues that I have standards for, and this is the way that I proceed in life. FS:    And really you could make like a 6 I’s. Your 6 I’s were specific to relationships, but you could make a 6 I’s for anything. Thor:    You should! Absolutely. FS:    What business to purchase. Thor:    Yes. FS:    What weight loss program to choose. Thor:    Yeah, absolutely! Look, there’s many paths to success, okay? This is just not one path. But you’ve got to make sure that this path is going to get you to where you want to go. Too often, people spend too much time doing things that aren’t moving them in the right direction. The reason they don’t know that in many cases is because they have no inner standards. FS:    No inner set of guidelines and they commit too early. They commit before they’ve decided if they even can do that thing. Thor:    Absolutely. FS:    Yeah. Great, thank you so much. Thor:    All right. Question of the Day: Where in your life are you missing the standards – the guidelines? Call to Action: Figure out what those standards, those guidelines, that inner map. Quantify it, write that down, and use that in the decision making process. If you’ve not already subscribed, please head to iTunes, subscribe, leave us a 5-star rating, please share this episode with friends, family, coworkers, or anyone that could utilize this information. Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, at thorconklin.com. The website is thorconklin.com. Also, please feel free to send us any questions to info@thorconklin. We answer your questions on Sundays. Remember, consume these episodes during DOT Time: Doing Other Things – commuting, walking, jogging, working out. 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Until tomorrow, have an awesome day.     Thank you once again for listening   Please follow us on:   Facebook: Thor Conklin      Twitter: @ThorConklin    Website: http://www.thorconklin.com       ThorConklin.com Thor Conklin Media Peak Performers Podcast Peak Performance Nation     #1 Podcast on how to get things done.  Learn from Peak Performers in all areas of life and Business.  Do you know what to do but can't figure out why you are not executing what you already know?   If so, this Podcast will give you the tools, strategies and psychology to not only break through the choke point but to truly become a Peak Performer.   Thor will be sharing his tools and strategies as well as interviewing inspiring Peak Performers that are Entrepreneur's, Professional Athletes, Business leaders, Military, Technology guru's, Health and Fitness masters, Relationships Experts as well as Music & Entertainment superstars.   Mission and Purpose - To engage, educate, entertain and inspire listeners to excel in any area of life through mastering the science of execution and Peak Performance.  You will learn the necessary road map, strategies, tools and psychology to win this game.