Why You need Daily Non-Negotiables
I was at a women’s conference the first time I heard about the concept of intentionally including non-negotiables as a part of every day life. The speaker, Irene Collins, shared that she must have 3 non-negotiable hours of self care every week. I didn’t adopt it right away, but I’ve never forgotten it. This year I’m using the concept of non-negotiables to help me crush my goals!
Daily Non-negotiables are tasks that you complete every day, without exception. Obviously as a mom or homemaker circumstances will inevitably arise that are beyond our control, but these things are (hopefully) few and far between. Having non-negotiables will help to define how you spend your time because these tasks MUST be scheduled. Let’s say that your non-negotiable is exercising for 20 minutes every weekday. Once you’ve included this in your schedule it will become a part of your daily routine. Anything that you do routinely will become a habit. If one of your goals is to create a new habit, why not make it a non-negotiable?
How to Create Daily Non-Negotiables
My suggestion for setting daily non-negotiables is to look over your goals and think about how you can break them down into smaller daily chunks. For example, if you want to read 15 books this year, think about how long you’ll need to read every day in order to reach that goal by the end of the year. Once you’ve figured that out, make a non-negotiable of reading for a certain amount of time each day. (Check out my YouTube video on making time for your goals. Or click HERE to read the blog post)
The Secret Sauce of Daily Non-Negotiables
Creating non-negotiables can seem really big and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. I have what seems like a natural tendency to become extremely overwhelmed quite easily, but my approach to creating daily non-negotiables hasn’t been the slightest bit overwhelming. Here’s why: I started small; really small. That’s it. That really is the secret sauce. When I read Atomic Habits, by James Clear (click here), I learned about how you can form a new habit by introducing it in very small chunks. If I wanted to lose weight, I could start off by exercising for just 5 minutes a day-no more. That’s totally doable right?
Well I applied that concept to setting my daily non-negotiables. I want to be a successful blogger so I know that I need to be writing daily. I set my daily non-negotiable to writing for 10 minutes every single day (no holidays or weekends off). I can write for longer than 10 minutes if I want, but I refuse to write any less. My other non-negotiable is 10 minutes of time with reading my Bible and/or praying FIRST THING every morning. Again, I can definitely do more, and this is a daily commitment. I’m not adding any more non-negotiables until at least the second quarter. If you have too many daily non-negotiables, you’ll have to start negotiating, and at some point something will have to give. Remember that the secret sauce is in beginning with small, ridiculously easy to accomplish chunks.
Final thoughts
Non-negotiables can be weekly rather than daily. They can be on what ever rotation works well for your life. What’s most important is that you show up for yourself consistently. Imagine what a confidence boost it will be when three months or six months, or even an entire year goes by and you realize that you didn’t negotiate on what matters to you the most.
