#141: Glin & Tonic - Your Big No is the Key to Unlocking Your Future Self

This week, I’ve had another major aha moment, and it’s freaked me out a little.

The inner transformation I was committing to this year just got even bigger.

I had a major identity shift coming into the new year when I realised I didn’t want to be a business owner but a creator instead.

For most people, it wouldn’t have made much sense because, technically, I still had my own business as a means of generating income to sustain myself. But for me, it was a huge energetic shift because I gave myself permission to create and be exactly who I wanted to be. Not someone constrained by the identity of her business and the expectations that came with it.

This week, I realised my identity shift isn’t over. Far from it.

It started with a question: What is your BIG NO?

Your BIG NO is something you have to say no to in order to say yes to your impossible goal. The one you dream of reaching, the future self you aspire to become.

The reason it’s a BIG NO is that it’s likely something you need to let go of so that you can move forward at a much more accelerated pace toward the future you desire. But it’s also something you’re holding on to, something you think you can carry forward with you into the future.

What we fail to see is that by holding on, we slow our growth. We may never reach our desired future self. We keep playing it safe, and as a result, we compromise the future we know we want to create.

Your BIG NO is going to make you feel uncomfortable because it requires you to let go of parts of yourself that define who you are right now. How people see you, what they have come to expect from you.

Your BIG NO could be a relationship you need to release, a significant part of your business that no longer makes sense, or even the job or company you currently work for. The BIG NO is BIG. Not small, not micro, but BIG.

At the start of this week, I tentatively shared with John that I thought my BIG NO was to having two separate websites, Heart of Human and The Value Negotiator. I thought my BIG NO was about letting go of those so I could say yes to SimplyGlin.

The website I first started with, in 2017, the space I had for my creativity before I created separate business identities and focused on websites that talked about services, problems I solved, and who I helped. I thought surrendering aspects of my digital identity, my business websites, was my BIG NO.

Then I shared with a close friend, and she held a mirror up to me.

The mirror of my desired future self.

A best-selling author. A writer. A creator of passion projects, pursuing whatever my heart wants to explore.

Then she showed me the mirror of my current life.

Consulting. Coaching. Training. Non-exec board roles.

None of it looked like the future I desired.

All of it met my values of contribution, helping others, and making a meaningful difference, but it didn’t match my own wildest dreams. Being a full-time creator, a writer of books, a speaker on the things I write about, a passion and muse follower.

A future where I could retreat into a beautiful space as my creative canvas. Ocean views. My own thoughts and musings. Following wherever my heart led.

Today, I speak to teach.

In the future, I speak to share.

To have conversations about the bigger and deeper questions in life. I’m not teaching, I’m simply sharing, allowing people to take what they need from my words. I create spaces for people to reflect on their own lives by courageously sharing about my own.

My BIG NO wasn’t just about a change in digital presence and external-facing brands. It was deeper than that.

It’s a full identity shift.

It’s letting go of income streams I have today that won’t be aligned with my future self. It’s questioning where I give my time and whether it’s taking away from the time I need to give to my wildest dreams.

The scary but honest answer is yes, it is.

I’ve taken on board roles because I know I can make a meaningful contribution and give back. Also, because I’ve spent a fortune in time and money investing in my board accreditations. Yes, I know this is sunk cost bias, but I’m sharing it because it’s real.

Years ago, I thought my future income stream would come from a board portfolio career. But today, I’m questioning whether that was something I thought I should be doing. Was the role validating my contribution to the community? Did I take it on because I wanted to belong? Or was there a true heart pull toward being a board director?

The truth?

I feel like I’m back in the identity of my corporate role, trying to help people see what they don’t see. I’m often met with resistance to change, inefficiency, differing agendas, transactional vs. transformational thinking, and a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities, leaving some actively contributing and others passively observing.

Do I feel like I make a meaningful contribution? 100%.

But is it bringing me closer to my desired future self?

No.

Yikes.

My BIG NO, I realised, is shedding multiple layers of my identity, and I’m terrified of the magnitude of what I have to let go of to access my desired future self.

Not because it’s wrong.

But because I haven’t yet met the person I’m becoming and I'm stepping into the unknown.

The only way I get to meet her is to stop doing the things that keep me further away.

This means saying no to things I’ve said yes to in the past.

It means disappointing people.

It likely means confusing people because it will look to others like I’m throwing away success.

Only this success is their version of success, not my future self’s version of a successful life.

So this year, my identity shift is going to be very, very visible.

I’m reclaiming myself.

I’m saying no to the life I thought I should live so I can say yes to the life I want to live.

Because the biggest negotiations we have aren’t with others, they’re with ourselves.

The negotiation with our ego, to surrender its grip on our lives so we can honour what our soul wants.

It’s a journey from our head to our heart.

I realised this week that I only had the courage to leave corporate once I’d found myself. I’d gone from being unconscious to conscious. Asleep to awake.

SimplyGlin was my blogging site in 2017. It was where I housed my poetry, my musings. I lost myself when I became a business.

People looked at my website and said they didn’t understand why it included my poetry. That it was confusing. That I needed to be clear about who I was for, what problem I solved, and how I could help someone.

And that’s when the journey of losing myself began again.

This time, I was conscious no longer asleep, but I didn’t yet know how to trust myself.

I thought others were right.

That I didn’t know anything about being self-employed.

It’s taken me seven years to find myself again.

And I am no longer questioning my intuition.

Ironically, in that time, the world has shifted.

People are showing up as themselves. Personal brands are stronger than business brands.

I see now that back in 2017, I was ahead of the curve. My unique contribution was beautiful, I just didn’t have the confidence to own it yet.

I look back and see so clearly, I was never supposed to create a traditional business structure.

I was a creative then, and my biggest joy came from writing and sharing my work.

The benefit of spending seven years coming back to where I started?

I’m ready this time.

No one needs to understand where you’re going.

And if you’re creating a life no one around you is living, it’s best not to seek counsel from people who haven’t walked the path you’re travelling.

BIG NOs are sacred YESes.

And I wonder, if you gave yourself time to reflect on the life you’re living, who’s winning your internal negotiation?

Your ego?

Or your soul?

Keep going and keep growing.

Love Glin x

💛

P.S. Three wins from my week:

1. Recognising I’m in a Quantum Leap Phase. This is a huge shift. It’s not a slow, linear shedding of an identity; it’s happening at a quantum leap level. If you had asked me six weeks ago whether I saw this coming, I would have said you were mad. But here I am, shifting identities at quantum speed. 

2. Choosing trust as my currency. Validation is no longer my currency. My currency is trust. My success is no longer measured by external proof - income, roles, or status. My measure is how deeply I stay devoted to my creative process.

3. Realising my imagination is my pathway to the impossible. My Human Design has shown me that the key to accessing the heart of my soul is through my imagination. Tuning into my visionary energy allows me to create something that feels impossible when viewed through the lens of certainty and realism. The moment I stop needing certainty and let my imagination lead, I unlock the quantum field.