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  • Marie:     Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be

  • if you want to create a business and life you love. And this is Q&A Tuesday. Today’s

  • question comes from Kelly and she writes:

  • Hi Marie. A local civic group I'm involved with asked me to write curriculum for a girl’s

  • mentorship program. I agreed because I was only going to school and working part time

  • and I thought I had enough time to do a great job. But since then, I was offered a great

  • full time job and between that, school, the internship associated with my school program,

  • I'm burned out. I barely see my friends and family, my waistline is steadily growing and

  • that damn curriculum is staring me down in the face. I don’t want to flake on a commitment

  • I've made and potentially harm my professional reputation, but I'm completely overwhelmed.

  • How do you know when to suck it up and try harder or to call it quits? Gratefully, Kelly.”

  • Kelly, this is an awesome question, something all of us can relate to. I don’t know anybody

  • who hasn’t overcommitted including myself. Now every situation is so different. I don’t

  • know your timeline, I don’t know your history, I don’t know a lot of facts besides what

  • youve shared, so while I can't tell you what to do, what I can do is help you make

  • the right decision for yourself, I can give you a script to back out gracefully if that’s

  • what you really want to do, and most importantly I can teach you a simple trick to stop overcommitting

  • in the first place.

  • Lets start at the top. Is backing out a habit for you? Are you always flaking on your commitments?

  • In other words, are you the cancel queen? You need to look inside and get real honest

  • with yourself. If you are always pulling this kind of thing, it’s time to stop flaking

  • out and just get it done. If you choose to go this route, you just have to suck it up

  • and make it happen; that means don’t procrastinate and no dramatization. Set yourself an amount

  • of time and just do it. If you need a little help with this, I've got a great article below

  • called How to Double your Results and Work Less. It’s an article that I actually wrote

  • after creating a webinar for Tony Robbins and I know it'll help you.

  • When those times come that you do need to back out gracefully, remember that honesty

  • is the best policy. I know it’s really tempting to tell those little white lies in these kind

  • of situations, but don’t do it. Everyone’s done that, including myself, but I have a

  • policy now of only telling the truth. Why? Because you can never go wrong with the truth.

  • People respect it and you respect yourself. Remember this and you bet your bottom dollar

  • it’s a tweetable:

  • Honesty is the best solution for cleaning up a sticky situation.”

  • Most of the time I prefer to have these kind of conversations in-person or over the phone,

  • but email may be best so use your own judgment. Here's a little script as a guideline to get

  • your started.

  • I'm writing with a sticky situation today.

  • As you know, back in September, I agreed to write the curriculum for the girlsmentorship

  • program. When I said yes, I fully believed I have the bandwidth to do a great job.

  • In October, though, I was lucky enough to get a full-time position. While this is amazing,

  • it also drastically changed my schedule.

  • It pains me to say this, but I need to step down from this commitment. The girls deserve

  • an incredible curriculum and I’m sorry I’m not able to deliver as I thought I would.

  • I apologize for causing the program an inconvenience and, likely a delay. Let me know if there

  • any questions I can answer, or any other way I can support the program moving ahead.

  • Finally, here’s how to stop getting yourself into these kind of situations in the first

  • place. This is one of my favorite pieces of advice of all time, especially if you're addicted

  • to overcommitting. You need to pack your bags and get yourself a first class ticket on the No train. If

  • you haven't heard of the No train, all it means is that you give yourself permission

  • to make no your first response to requests on your time. You can do this for a set amount

  • of time or you can do it forever, as long as it takes for you to break the pattern of

  • overcommitting. Sometimes just saying no out right isn’t really appropriate, so you can

  • say this: “You know what? Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

  • Kelly, thank you so much for asking. Let us know how it goes. Now I would love to hear

  • from you. Have you ever struggled with whether or not to back out of something really important?

  • How did you make that decision and what was the outcome? For bonus points, I would love

  • to hear what's the silliest white lie that youve ever told to back out of something?

  • As always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at MarieForleo.com so go

  • there and leave a comment now.

  • Did you like this video? If so, subscribe to our channel and of course share it with

  • all of your friends. If you want even more awesome resources to create a business and

  • life that you love, plus some personal insights from me that I only share in email, get those

  • sweet buns over to MarieForleo.com and sign up for email updates.

  • Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special

  • gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll catch you next time

  • on MarieTV.

Marie:     Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be

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