Episode 238: Are You Ready to Use the Four-Step Checklist to Achieve Decision-Making Clarity?
Does it feel peaceful, or does it disrupt my nervous system?
This is the crux of the matter, which is making decisions that you feel good about—decisions that allow you to love yourself and others at the same time.
When you become overwhelmed, overworked, burnt out, and even the smallest daily tasks can become taxing...there needs to be a system in place for who and what you’re going to allow into your life.
Those moments when your body and your mind are screaming at you to stop, but you keep going because you think we need to...that’s what we’re talking about today.
In today’s episode, Erin gives you her four-step checklist for making decisions with greater clarity and a script for how to actually say no and continue to maintain the relationship.
If you’re looking for a concrete method for making decisions that honor your boundaries and your values – this is the episode for you.
Special sprinkles on top of this episode: the 3 Bs and the 4 Ps (no spoilers!)
Show Links:
Purchase Erin’s book, I See You! A Leader’s Guide to Energizing Your Team through Radical Empathy
Get our free Book Club timeline and checklist here
Did today’s episode resonate with you? Please leave us a 5-star review and drop us any Qs you want answered in upcoming episodes
Connect with Erin Diehl:
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Episode 238 Transcription
Erin Diehl (00:01.782)
Improve it peeps. I am so happy that you are here. Welcome to the show. If you're an OG, improve it peeps. Welcome back. If you are new, I am Erin Diehl, the founder of the professional development company Improve It, who uses improv comedy to train leaders and teams to be their highest self. And for me,
It's really all about reaching higher consciousness through play. So that's what Improve It is here to do. That's what this podcast is all about, is helping you reach your highest level of consciousness through improv, through play, through experiential learning. So I'm so excited to have you here. And if you press play on this show, this episode specifically, you might be wondering, how can I get more clarity in my life?
because this month is May. We're talking all about mindfulness here on the Improve It Show. And we are talking all about how do we make decisions. And today I've got a four step checklist for you. So you might've pressed play because you're like, hey, I'm having trouble making decisions in my biz. Y 'all hold up one minute, big deal. My dog is coming into the show. He's coming into the show right now. All right, you know, we're gonna keep it real around here.
My dog's name is Big Deal. He is an eight pound toy poodle. Middle initials are FN. So if you heard a weird change in audio there, I'm getting Big Deal situated on my lap. Okay, back to you. So maybe you clicked play because your mind is all over the place and you need somewhere to go where you can get a clear sense of direction. And let me tell you this, if you press play on today's show, it was no accident, my boo.
You were meant to be here. I am meant to be here with you. And I'm going to guide you to a space and a place where you feel as clear as day. All right? There's not a cloud in that sky because I have been you. I was you and I am you. Let me just give you a little story, a little background. So if you're new to the show, I just wrote a book called I See You, a leader's guide to energizing your team through radical empathy in March, March.
Erin Diehl (02:15.862)
It marched! It marched on! It launched February 20th of 2024. It was an Amazon bestseller. It is an Amazon bestseller. It was number one in business, health, and stress on launch day. We sold out on launch day. It has been this amazing, wonderful movement. And the premise of the book is love and self -love. And if you give love to yourself, you have more love to give to others. Well, let me tell you this for free.
I launched this book over a period of six months with my amazing team. There is no way you can do this alone. You have to have a team in place and boy, we had the best team. Let me tell you that. But launching a book is not for the faint of heart. We launched in February. We started the pre -launch process in, let's see, September of 2023.
And then we continued that all the way through April because we launched a book club as well with in conjunction with the book. So I knew that launching a book was not going to be for the faint of heart. I also knew that I wanted to commit myself wholeheartedly to this process. I didn't want to leave a single thing on the table. I wanted to give it my all and I did that. I said yes to everyone and to everything.
I did over 30 podcasts, so I guest spotted on over 30 shows. And in conjunction with building my own content for you here, I did a ton of press. I did book signings where I signed books for maybe three people, and then book signings where I signed books for hundreds of people. I did tons of events. I had a keynote in there that was planned for a while before the book was launching, and it was great. It was awesome, and it was exhausting.
Okay, I got my New York accent in there for that one. It was exhausting. I loved meeting people. I loved chatting with people. I loved having people have epiphanies as they read the book and seeing themselves in different parts of the book. All of it felt so good. But what I found was that I was giving and giving and giving and I didn't really take enough time to give back to me, nor did I give enough time.
Erin Diehl (04:31.638)
to clear my energy from the rooms and the spaces that I was in. I learned so much in this process. I learned what I will do differently for future books because I do have some future book ideas, FYI. I was traveling during this time. There was a week where I was on eight different airplanes and I tried to keep my self -care practice in check. Let me say this, I didn't.
not put self -care as a priority. I still got up every morning and meditated. I did exercise every single day, some form of exercise. I also made sure that I was eating healthy when I was on the road, but all of this energy that I was outwardly giving needed more repercussions to give back to myself. So when it came to coming down off this book tour and off this book launch, let me just tell you that I was burned out.
I'm gonna be honest. The things that I talk about in the book, I was practicing, but I didn't practice them enough. And as a human, we are allowed to make mistakes. And I think I've learned so much in this setting that I learned what I can do differently. And I know what I'm gonna teach you here today is gonna help you do just that. Because when I got off the road, I crashed and I crashed really hard.
If you've been a long time listener of this show, you know I struggled with chronic pain for about a year and a half and that pain did come back and I have since worked through that. It was just the go and the give that my body really started to shut down, which made decision making really hard, which made getting mental clarity even harder, which...
made even some of the smallest decisions really taxing. So I realized that there wasn't an off switch in the six weeks following the launch of the book. I would go from event to event. I usually have Fridays off. There were no Fridays off because I was either workshopping or traveling to the next event or doing a book signing. So there were no breaks. And then when I had downtime, I was...
Erin Diehl (06:54.582)
creating content for Instagram and going on Instagram and connecting with people who were reading the book, which was amazing. But I overwhelmed myself and my brain. And maybe you're listening to this conversation and my own challenge here and you're thinking to myself or to yourself self. That sounds horrible. Why would you do that? Or why would you preach about self care and self love and then go and do the opposite? And I hear you.
But I really wanted to give so much to this community and I'm so glad that I did. However, as I talk about in the book, there has to be an off switch. Your light cannot stay on the entire time. And maybe you're listening and this brings up a situation in your own life. Maybe you've committed yourself to a work project where there are no breaks. You haven't given yourself a day off in weeks or months. Or maybe you're a full -time parent.
and you're at home and you have given and given to everyone in your life except you. Or maybe you're listening and you have a side hustle that you are thinking about nonstop and you have your nine to five and then you're building that side hustle on the side. Or maybe you're listening and you're in the middle of a job search and you're looking for a career change and all of your time spent at your normal job is looking for that new career change.
I get you, I see you, and I understand you. I realized myself that the topic this month of mindfulness is so key. I told myself coming off the book launch, I needed two months of what I call rejuvenation. It's in a brief for rejuvenation, but I needed to be mindful of how I was spending my time, and I created a system called the three Bs.
bees. I needed more breaks in my day. I needed more balance in my life. So I needed more downtime and I needed more boundaries. And that third bee boundaries really stuck out to me because I have a hard time setting them as a recovering people pleaser. I did a meditation in one of my lowest states.
Erin Diehl (09:18.39)
just asking the universe and you can say universe, God, source, whatever feels right to you, but just asking what do I do? How do I move forward? How do I get myself out of this mind fog, this brain fog? How do I make decisions? Because things that were happening were coming at me fast and furious. And my go -to response was yes, but sometimes when I said that yes, I had regrets.
and I'd show up to a certain scenario and I wish I didn't say yes. And it was just everything in my body was like, you shouldn't be here. But I did it because I thought I had to. So I needed a system. I needed a checklist. I needed something that I could look at, pen to paper, make a yes or no response and understand if this decision was the right one. And that's what I'm going to teach you today, my friends. OK, it's time for class. Pull out your notebooks, get out your pens because
This checklist has changed my life in the past few weeks. I am proud to say that my pain is gone, that I processed a lot of emotions. I have, my husband and I joke because I have a lot of teams, okay? I have my work team, I've got my glam team, my glam squad, I've got my healing team. So I went to my healing team, which I will say when you heal, most of the work happens internally, but sometimes,
you have to go externally. So I went to my intuitive coach, Michael Frontier, and had a conversation with him about how I got myself in this place. I talked to another medical intuitive that I know who I'm going to have on this show who is amazing about how I continue to just take on others energy and not replenish mine. I did Reiki sessions and I also journaled and meditated and through a meditation this checklist came to me. So I'm going to share it with you now.
This checklist can be applicable to any decision that you have coming up in your life. Now for me, I own a business, as you know, and most of my decisions are, should I say yes to this commitment? So people ask us to do workshops, people ask me specifically to do speaking events, people ask me specifically to give talks to, now with the book, a lot of like book talks.
Erin Diehl (11:43.798)
And what I've noticed in this time span is that when you have more eyeballs on you, you have more eyeballs on you. And when it rains, it pours. And for me, this is everything I could have asked for, but as a recovering people pleaser, it's hard to say no. And so I needed concrete evidence, concrete...
decision -making processes that would help me say no because I knew that no was the right answer. So maybe for you, let's go with a scenario of you're looking for a career change and I'm gonna go through this four -step process as if that's what you were going through, but you can really apply this four -step process to anything. So let's say you're looking for a career change. Okay? And the first step,
that you're gonna look at. They're all P's, okay? Let me just share those with you first. The four -step checklist includes paid, purpose, priorities, and peace. So when you have a decision to make, you are gonna decipher through these four questions. Let's say you are looking to switch careers.
You get an offer from another company, but you're not sure if it's the right fit. Let's go through the four -step checklist and see what your decision would be. So the first step, paid. Are you getting paid fairly? Are you getting paid fairly? If the answer is no, proceed with caution. If the answer is yes, move to step two, or question two.
Number two, purpose. Now, not everyone knows their purpose in life, I get that. I want you, before you answer this question, to, without hesitating, tell me your purpose. What is your purpose here? What is your it, that thing that makes you you? And write that down. What is your it, or that thing that makes you you?
Erin Diehl (14:07.51)
and then ask yourself, does saying yes to this career path or this decision align with my assignment?
Right? Then you go to the third question in our checklist.
Does it align with your priorities? Now, most people have their priorities in check. I'm gonna share mine with you and maybe this will spark yours. But for me, it's do I feel good mentally and physically? I can't do anything unless I feel good. Step two, does it love and support my family? Does it allow me to do that? And...
My priority number three is, does it help me love and support my community? So my priorities are my health, mental and physical, my family and my community. And my community includes you, my amazing and private peeps. It also includes my friends, my neighbors, the people I see on a daily basis. So knowing your priorities, does saying yes to this decision,
make you feel like you've had your priorities checked.
Erin Diehl (15:27.798)
All right, so if you said yes to this job offer, does it make you feel good? Does it help you love and support the people in your life and help you support not only your family, but your community at large? And then the fourth decision is peace. Does saying yes to this opportunity feel peaceful or does it disrupt my nervous system?
You know that feeling like all of the blood is rushing to your head and you just feel all the anger kind of rise up. Those are real hormones. Those are real stress hormones. Talk about those in my ICU keynote called self -love and leadership. But you know when something feels unpeaceful. Does it feel peaceful? Let me repeat this again.
So you have a decision to make for the purpose of this example is should I take this new job? Step one, question one, am I getting paid fairly? If the answer is yes, move on to two. Does it align with my purpose? The answer is yes, move on to three. If the answer is no, proceed with caution. Number three, is it aligned?
with my priorities? Does it support me mentally and physically? Is it going to support my family and my community? And then if so, proceed to number four. Does it feel peaceful or does it disrupt my nervous system?
If the answer to all of those is yes, make the decision and feel great about it. If you have a two out of four of those, I would really question whether or not this decision is right for you. And if you have one out of four or zero out of four, do not do it. Proceed, no. Stay the course with where you are at. Now, let me say this. I created this for myself because,
Erin Diehl (17:46.646)
I am a leader in a company like I said, who asks or gets asked a lot to do speaking engagements. And I'm just going to share my own example here to help you decipher through this even more. As a speaker, a lot of times people don't understand how much work actually goes into the speaking process.
Yes, I have a keynote that I know from the back of my hand, but I have to accommodate it and customize it for a company. I can't just get up there and just say the same thing to every audience. And I know the keynote, but guess what? I need to make it make sense for you. So that's gonna make me take time and practice. And it took me hours and days and weeks to create this thing, not to mention if I'm doing a keynote.
I am going to have to miss out on a day of being in the office, which is productivity for my team, sometimes two to three days, depending on the location. So I don't really usually get asked to keynote for free, but I do get asked to do speaking engagements for free. And I will tell you this. This checklist has helped me in so many scenarios. First and foremost, I...
only do paid events now. I will do one free event for a charity per year, and that's only if I believe wholeheartedly in the association. But other than that, there is a fee. And that is because number one, it takes me away from my desk, which is important to my internal team and helping things run smoothly. It takes me away from my family. Number two,
And it also takes a lot of time and effort to plan and prepare. So I'm gonna go through this scenario with something that happened to me recently. A contact of mine asked me to do a local speaking event for free. And I thought about it and I said, okay, I don't have to jump on a plane. However, this is my time, this is my craft, this is my art. And what's hard is that,
Erin Diehl (20:02.23)
When you go into an artist's studio, you don't say, hey, can I have that painting off the wall for free? I'm a trained speaker. I've been doing this 18 plus years and I've been doing improv even longer than that. This is my art. This is what I get paid to do. So I was having a really hard time with this decision because I like this contact of mine, great person, great human.
I wanted to do it because I liked them, but I knew that this was gonna take time and effort. I was gonna have to prepare for this. I was gonna have a call or two calls to prepare. I was gonna have to drive to the event. It was gonna be a two and a half, three hour event, an evening away from work, away from my family. And so I sat down with this four step checklist and I said, am I getting paid fairly? The answer was no. So I proceeded with caution.
Does it align with my assignment? And my assignment is helping humans reach their higher consciousness through play.
And I thought to myself, you know, it does reach an audience that I love. It is impacting people. Okay, so that's a yes. So I was one out of two. Then I got down to my priorities. Does it feel good mentally and physically? And right there I stopped myself because no, it doesn't. Because I felt like I was getting taken advantage of for my time. Does it love and support my family? Well.
This is my art. I'm not getting paid for my art. So it's taking me away from my family. Okay, no, it doesn't align with that. Does it love and support my community? Yes, but the other two override it. So it's not in alignment with my priorities right now. So that's, I am now two for no, one for yes. And then I moved to the fourth question, peace. Does it feel peaceful or does it disrupt my nervous system?
Erin Diehl (22:04.758)
And the answer to that was, yes, it disrupts my nervous system. It does not feel peaceful because every time I spend an hour of my day for three days before the event practicing the keynote, knowing that I'm not going to get paid for it, I'm going to be angry and I'm going to resent the fact that this is taking me out of my business and I'm not getting paid for my art. So I said no. And I said no with ease and with grace. And I said, thank you so much for thinking of me.
In order to be fair to all of my paying clients, I cannot do speaking events for free. Thank you so much. If things change and you find a budget, let me know. And we are still friends. And I have that evening of my night to do whatever I want. And I have those hours of my life back, not being angry and feeling more alignment within my assignment. Sitting here today, I could have been rehearsing for that keynote, but I'm able to give this love and pour out to you, my community.
So that is how the checklist comes into play. That is how the checklist plays out in my day to day. And I have done this time and time again, decision after decision. And it helps me, the recovering people pleaser, feel as though I'm not letting anyone down. Because if I said yes to that commitment, to that free unpaid keynote,
I would have been saying no to myself, which takes me out of alignment, which puts me back in the dark place, which gives me chronic pain because I know that my pain is due to emotions in my body, to my anxiety. So if you're listening today and you struggle with saying no or setting boundaries in your life, let me repeat these four steps for you one more time.
Are you getting paid?
Erin Diehl (24:05.718)
Does it align with your purpose? Is it in alignment with your priorities? And do you feel peaceful doing it or does it disrupt your nervous system? Now notice in my example, I had one of those out of the four as a yes. Okay, it did align with my purpose. However, the other three were nos.
And so you have to go the majority vote. I'm telling you, you can use this as a tool when your brain is foggy, when you're feeling out of alignment to pull yourself back into alignment because that no is a yes to you. And that yes to you is a reminder of your own power, your own strength, your own commitment to the most amazing human in your life, you.
I know if I said yes to that event, I would have beat myself up about it. And if I'm being honest with you, the reason I got myself out of alignment after the book launch was because I said yes to some commitments I should not have said yes to. I have since forgiven myself, which is a huge, huge thing that I've been working on. I'm not beating myself up about it anymore. But I want you to stop yourself before you get that far.
This checklist is gonna do that for you and then some. So, remember that life can get messy. You can fall off the wagon. You can fall off so many times, but it's not about how many times we fall. It's about how many times we get back up. And that's what this checklist is going to do.
wherever you're at with family or life or even a relationship and you have a struggle with a decision, I hope that this checklist gives you peace. That is my hope.
Erin Diehl (26:16.854)
Take today's episode, save it. I want you to save today's episode and write down these four steps somewhere that you will remember them in your phone, in your planner, put it on the desktop of your computer, make it a Word doc. But I really want you to remember these four steps in
any decision. It could even be, should I sign my child up for this activity? And you can change the paid and that scenario to, am I being asked to pay a fair price? Okay, it can be flipped. And if the decision is something about a not work relationship, maybe it's just a personal relationship, should I commit to going to this party for my friend? Take away the paid.
Because you're not going to get paid to go to a party, that would be cool. But take away the paid and ask does it align with my purpose, is it alignment with my priorities, and does it give me a sense of peace? And if the answer to two of those three is yes, you go. If one of the three is a yes, you don't go. And if zero of three are a yes, it's a heck no. Or sorry, if zero of three are a no, it's a heck no.
but I want you to use this checklist in any area of your life. And here is my final ask. If today's episode served you in any way, I would love a quick favor. Hit pause on this episode. If you're on iTunes, scroll to the bottom of the Improve It podcast, hit five stars and write a comment.
We are in need of getting more reviews for this show to share with the world this amazing community I hear from you. Please don't understand how much a review goes such a long way. So please leave a review and if this really moved you, please take a screenshot of this episode and share it on your Instagram stories so we can bring more people to the Improve It fam, the Improve It Peeps fam and know...
Erin Diehl (28:17.014)
that I have so many amazing guests coming up for you, so much more great content, and I'm so glad that I was able to share this checklist with you because I know it was given to me to share it with you. So you know what I'm gonna say? I want you to keep failing, keep improving, because this world needs that very special it that only you can bring. And I know when you bring this checklist to life, you're gonna bring it.
life even more. I see you. I'll see you next week.