Fredrik Grahn is a serial entrepreneur, now working on his third company Pyzzle it. This company was started by Fredrik’s wife and now he took over it to keep the great idea growing when Therese went on for other career challenges.
I started working with Fredrik because I really liked his approach to life and to entrepreneurship, and one of his main focus areas in work with me is self-care since he’s already burned himself a bit with the previous businesses when it comes to it. Fredrik’s work on his lifestyle, mental and physical health is very intentional, and I’m happy to be supporting him on that journey.
Normally, my clients get some sort of homework from our sessions. Fredrik exceeded all of my expectations and I was glad to hear that the homework was fun, interesting and useful for him. One of the things Fredrik remarked about the homework is that it’s very important to have someone who says that what you have to do is a good thing and that you should practice it more regularly.
One of the exercises that I’ve been doing with Fredrik is the energy budget throughout the day. This exercise, Fredrik says, was one of the most beneficial from our work so far. When we just started working together, he was working or planning for 110% to 130% of the energy he has, when the limit was 100%. He says that when you run your business every day, you might be aware of what you spend your time on, but you don’t always think of where you’re spending your energy. He has his calendar, so he’s pretty aware of what he is doing each hour. But when he put a percentage on how much energy he spends for those activities, he realized that he easily was getting up to 120-130% per day.
Doing the energy budget exercise made it very clear for Fredrik that some scaling back and reprioritizing was needed, so we brainstormed about the ways to do so. We identified the things he’s been doing that were not serving his business and life, or distracting him from the long-term transformations he is seeking, and set strategies to focus on things that are helping. Which led to him saying “no” to some things and commitments.
This doesn’t mean that now he always says “no” when a person comes to him for help, but he realized that the day has only 24 hours, and if you will spread out so thin for others you will never be able to focus on your own work and have enough time to do it.
Instead of just making impulsive decisions, the energy budget exercise helps Fredrik to become more aware of himself and his decisions. Fredrik started analyzing his actions and why he is making them and giving more weight in his answers to people he communicates with. This cleared out his day and helped to avoid panicking when everything is falling from all directions on you.
One more point I want to emphasize in the context of saying “no” is that a “no” can have many different forms. You can say that you have no resources right now but will be able to help at a certain point in the future. You can say “yes” to a particular part of the help you are asked for, but not the whole “package”. You can explain that you are not the best person to provide this help at the moment and refer the person to someone else. Be creative and explore different ways to protect your boundaries. That will save your sanity and help make your progress quicker and more sustainable.
You can read more about the energy budget exercise on my blog here: https://annaliebel.com/2020/04/28/make-your-energy-budget-and-stick-to-it/
If you are interested in learning about the importance of saying “no”, peeling away some layers of your ambitions to stay sustainable, and going back to basics, listen to the whole conversation with Fredrik here.
Stay tuned and be genius!
