Boundaries

Boundaries. The characteristic that sets the most successful people apart from the rest of us. Without boundaries, those of us who are ambitious would find us with a flood of obligations, a calendar without room for our priorities, and a never ending list of work. Sound like anyone you know? Yes, we all can be victims of our own productivity and willingness to say yes!

While goal-setting and focus are the key to determining what our priorities should be (what we should say yes to), boundaries are how we enforce those priorities.

“Show me your calendar and I’ll show you your priorities”

I’ve had my own struggle with boundaries – something I didn’t even recognize were of importance until 10 years ago, when my husband pointed out how I was letting some friends take up more time than I should, and nicknaming them “time leaches.” Back then, before I had kids, I didn’t really place so much value on my time, but I have since understood the importance of picking and choosing how I spend my time carefully, as it has gotten much more scarce.

But boundaries are something I’ve had trouble with beyond just how I spend my social time. I tend to be an all or nothing girl – I go all in and would prefer to put every ounce of my energy into one major project, and while that may make me happy with how I perform on that one task, the reality of my life is that I can not just be about my career, travel, my kids, new business projects, artistic creations, or fun time out with my husband, family or friends. I need a balance of all, or many of these things, to make me happy in any given month or year. That takes a deep understanding of how much of each makes sense for me, and then it takes boundaries to enforce those.

My biggest failure in enforcing boundaries has been with my work with the PTO and my own business. The former, because there was so much need, the latter, because its hard to turn away a good-paying job. But I am becoming increasingly aware of the importance, to my overall health and sense of fulfillment, that there are other priorities that supersede my willingness to give up boundaries in these areas in the short term. I am also realizing, that if I just put up more boundaries for volunteer work and my business, but don’t learn the fundamentals of setting boundaries in all cases, that I will simply let other things take up too much space.

Boundaries mean sticking to your priorities even when something “comes up”

Boundaries mean prioritizing what you said you cared about, even when something else you care about seems important too.

Boundaries means turning people down, even when its uncomfortable.

Inspiration

Last year, I met a business owner who was doing consulting work for us. From the start, she told us she only worked certain days. Then, when she got pregnant, she told us she was taking an entire month off during her pregnancy, and after the baby was born, once again she took off several weeks, and then provided us a short list of dates she was available after that period. What boundaries, I thought! Here I was, completely believing in not checking work email after a certain hour even when most of society was getting more and more glued to their smartphones and responding to work requests at any time of the day, but here was a successful business owner showing me up, on how to set boundaries. The truth is, most people can wait for what they’ve asked for if you just set the expectation. “Sorry, I only do volunteer work on Tuesdays,” or “I have only 30 minutes to meet with you, then I have other obligations with my time,” or “We can only attend one birthday party per month” are all acceptable boundaries and ways to enforce them with coworkers, business associates, peers, family and friends. We all need to feel comfortable setting boundaries and letting others know what to expect from us.

I read recently that there’s something we can all learn from vegetarians. It doesn’t matter where they are, how inconvenient their choices for how they restrict their diet may be, they *always* follow through with the boundaries they’ve set. Imagine if those of us who diet could be so strict with ourselves – as a true vegetarian, there is no “oh well, they don’t have any vegetarian items on the menu, I guess I’ll just eat meat.” It’s a true source of inspiration for me, to think about how clear cut choices can be when we truly commit to them.

Time – the ultimate thing to protect

My own concern about boundaries comes up not because of the old culprits that take I’ve let my boundaries fail for (volunteer work and my client work), but with an entirely new, out of the blue concern. My daughter is being recruited to go on the path with gymnastics towards competing at the team level. While at first this sounds flattering and intriguing, I am quickly realizing the importance of determining our family’s priorities and our boundaries for our kids sake. 6-9 hours of practice per week hardly seems reasonable at my daughter’s young age. Add on gymnastics meets and weekends of travel, and there’s quite an obligation of time that doesn’t fit in with my picture of how my kids should spend their time or our family (me) would want to spend our time. So, once again, it’s time to consider boundaries and balance it with our priorities. What should my family’s boundaries be when it comes to kids activities?