Personal and Professional Boundaries

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Whether we are laying out client interactions, choosing how we interact with collaborators, or simply creating limits in our personal lives, setting (and enforcing) boundaries are immensely necessary and life-changing in even the smallest of instances. Get inspiration around what boundaries to hold and real life examples of where to hold them in this podcast episode.

The episode:

Hi, everyone it's Katrina here. And today on this episode of the podcast, I am going to be talking to you guys, just me, about boundaries and the importance of setting boundaries, some examples of possible boundaries to set. Looking back at our first year of the podcast, our guest expert Stephanie Domrose came and spoke about boundaries. And that's by far been one of the most popular podcast episodes to date. So I wanted to take the opportunity today to expand a little bit on what we covered in that initial podcast episode and give people some examples of ways that they can enforce boundaries in their lives and in their businesses, and really in whatever relationships they feel that they need that extra amount of boundaries put up.

So oftentimes whether it's in business or not, there are moments when we feel really overwhelmed by our responsibilities, or at least our perceived responsibilities. That can be in regards to relationships with other people or outer expectations in work and life, or even just the way that we view ourselves. So one of the best ways that we can really prepare for these situations is to lay out our boundaries clearly and explicitly. And when I say lay out our boundaries in these areas, I mean both in terms of for ourselves and also when the opportunity arises or maybe the when the need arises, doing it with the people around us as well. And having that open and honest conversation where we can say, "This is what I need, and this is the boundary I'm starting to create for myself. If you can honor that, if you can help me with it even, that's absolutely amazing." And I'll go into detail a little bit later too, about the difference between personal boundaries in our personal lives, and professional boundaries in our professional lives. So right now I'm talking a little bit more in depth about those personal boundaries too.

Which if you're sitting here being like "Katrina, this is a business podcast. Why are we talking about personal boundaries?" That is because literally everything that's going on in your life is related to your business when you are an entreprenuer. If you are having a bad day, you might be less motivated to work. If you are letting your boundaries slide when it comes to personal relationships, it's probably pretty likely you're letting them slide when it comes to professional relationships as well. Whether that's with co-founders, team members, clients, collaborators, et cetera.

So where I normally recommend people start is to be proactive when it comes to setting these boundaries instead of reactive. So when I say proactive versus reactive, what I mean is sitting down and anticipating this before it happens. As opposed to reacting to something that is happening in the moment. It's much easier to be able to say, "Hey, I have this boundary," when something comes up for the moment if we already have decided that beforehand. How do we do that? How do we be proactive in setting our boundaries? How do we go about understanding where our limitations are? What type of boundaries do we need to create? And really that's by sitting down and asking ourselves, in which areas do we feel the most stress? And this can be done both in our personal and professional lives. So if I'm feeling the most stress around money or interactions with other people in conflict, or when I have a client and at what part of their client journey do I feel the most stress? Am I feeling the most stressed because I've asked them to deliver something in advance and they haven't? Or they were wanting me to talk to them outside of my normal business hours?

So it's really first sitting down and doing the journaling of "Where in my personal and professional lives am I feeling the most stress?" and then it's writing out the reminders to provide release for those fears. So if we're asking ourselves the questions of "What thoughts run through my head when I'm laying awake at night? When I get a pit in my stomach, what am I thinking about in that moment? What am I worrying about? What situations or relationships do I avoid moving forward with? Or do I avoid altogether? And why?" And asking ourselves these questions and really doing that inner work where we're getting curious and we're just reflecting without judgment. You're going to be able to, once you've pinpointed those moments, sit down and boil it down to a feeling.

So it's like just hanging out with your family frustrate you because they asked too much of your time and energy? Is it hard to interact with that one particular team member, because they're expecting you to get work done outside of what you would like to be doing? Are you struggling with a client? Having anxiety when you see that they've sent you a message or an email because they are someone who are not respecting your boundaries, right? That's what it really always goes down to. And so once you realize the exact reason why these moments are difficult for you, it'll be easier to answer it and start making your list of boundaries. So if someone is asking too much of your time, you want to write an affirmation to remember when you're around them. And so that's a great way to in the moment when we are being reactive, think about what we decided when we were being proactive.

Here's what I mean. Say you are the type of person who has ongoing communication with your clients. And you have a contract laid out where you've step-by-step explained to everything that's going to happen. These are the meetings that we have set up. This is the communication we have. This is everything that you get. These are my expectations. This is what I need from you. If someone reaches out and asks if you can do an additional meeting, this is when you would remember your affirmation that you wrote down beforehand of "It is okay to say no."

If you're having a conversation with someone who is trying to put the blame on you, because they were surprised by something, this is a moment to sit down and remember the affirmation of, "It is not my job to take responsibility for other people." And really what we're doing here is we are creating these neural pathways that are new from what we've operated from beforehand.

So boundaries are really great to put out there and be explicit about, and this is why we have contracts. And this is why with my clients, I recommend writing everything on the website, having a welcome packet, having everything laid out in the contract. So if for instance in my coaching with my clients, if you're a VIP group coaching member of the Badass Business Squad, or for the few one-on-one clients that I do take, they have access to me Monday through Friday via voice message during business hours. I have that language of "Monday through Friday during business hours" on my website when they signed up. I talk about it in our intake and in their initial consult. I have it listed out in my contract with the additional caveat that I have up to 24 hours to respond to a voice message. And also in the welcome packet. So those are four to five different areas, where it is very very clearly laid out exactly what the expectation is around voice messages. So that way, if someone chooses to reach out to me on a Saturday morning and is like, "Hey, I sent you this voice message an hour ago. You didn't get back to me. What's going on?" I can remember my affirmation, "It is okay to say no." And then I can respond to them and say, "Per the language that we agreed upon before we started, I do not respond to these messages on weekends," and move on with my life.

Whereas if I didn't have this affirmation decided beforehand to self-regulate myself, when that comes up and I start feeling stressed out or whatever the feeling might be and if I didn't have that boundary laid out very, very explicitly in my contract, on my sales pages, talked about it in my consult, in the welcome packet, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, I might feel more stressed around the area. And I might feel more stress around enforcing my boundary on the area. And this is why we really want to work on setting up these boundaries from this proactive place. And you can always, always, always add more to your list of boundaries as time goes on. Right? You have something show up in a relationship or you have something show up with a client and you can add to your list of affirmations. You can add, with a client relationship, something to your contract or to your expectations, your membership agreement, whatever that looks like. And we learn more as we go, right? It evolves as we go on. But I wanted to give you guys some examples of these possible boundaries and affirmations to set for yourself.

So we talked about the idea of, "It is okay to say no," or "It is not my job to take responsibility for others." Another example is "It is not my job to fix others." So for all of those coaches out there, this could be a big one. Or Enneagram type two, "It is okay if others get angry." So that's a great one to remember when you have boundaries set up with clients and they try to push back on them. "It's okay for them to get angry." It doesn't affect you or the way that you're operating.

"It is my job to prioritize my own happiness." So this is a great boundary for you and yourself, right? Reminding yourself that, "Hey, I am the one who's in charge of prioritizing my own happiness and no one else is going to do that." So this is a boundary that is going to come up when maybe someone's pushing you on something you want to do. Trying to convince you, guilt trip you, shame you, right? We've all experienced that shame. And it is my job to choose to prioritize my own happiness.

Another great one is that "Nobody has to agree with me." This is one that's really tied to a lot of the alignment work I do with my clients. This idea that I get to choose my own path and I get to do it my way and nobody has to agree with me. Some other ones that I love are "I have a right to my own feelings. It is not my job to meet others expectations. It is my job to express my feelings as they arise." and then one of my personal favorites is "I don't have to anticipate the needs of others at the cost of my own emotions."

And all of these are ones that can work both in our personal lives or in our businesses. Right? If we take that last one, "I don't have to anticipate the needs of others at the cost of my own emotions," that's with our clients, right? We don't have to go above and beyond to make them feel as good as possible in our interactions if it's at the cost of our own emotions. We don't have to say, "Oh, I did have this laid out in my contract, but you know what? I appreciate you letting me know that it was frustrating to find out later on. And I'll do something about that, right?" No, you're able to just say, "Hey, I appreciate it's probably frustrating to feel like this was sprung on you. I do want to remind you though, that we talked about this in the contract and in these other areas." Right? But it can also be something that's personal, where we are anticipating how other people are gonna feel around us as opposed to ourselves.

So, I really wanted to talk about this and really bring this up because I do feel that is something that's important for us as entrepreneurs and as human beings to work on our boundaries and to be able to say, "No. This is where I draw the line. These are the things that are important to me." And the approaching it as affirmations also allows us to say "I'm taking charge and choosing things for myself," as opposed to "I'm saying no and doing things against other people." Which I think that's a great place to land on because if you're remember, the very first boundary that we came up with is "It is okay to say no."

I hope that you guys enjoy this episode of the podcast. If you have any questions on this, or if you'd like to talk over any other possible boundaries, please, please, please come and find me on Instagram or email me. And I would love to talk this through with you or help you create boundaries for you and your business.