How to Set Boundaries in Your Business

Setting boundaries is the key to feeling in control of a multi-faceted business verse feeling pulled in all directions. It helps you stay in control of your time, and in turn improve your organisation and mental health. Keep reading below for practical tips on how to feel confident setting your boundaries.

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Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Wanderlover Podcast. I am recording this abfter such a lovely week in Boston, I was able to go for a full week, enjoy my extended New year’s vacation that I’ve mentally been on. And because this new year has just been so relaxed, so wholesome, I was reflecting and I was wondering why it’s been so easy and I just feel at peace. I feel like my business, everything is running smoothly, everything is going right with my relationships, with my friendships, with my family, and it’s been such a zen January and I realized that it was intentional that I had set the boundaries and acted in accordance to what would make this year truly transformational. 

The Calming Effect Of Boundaries On Your Life

And for those of you who don’t know, my word of the year is transformation. And oftentimes that means making space in your life for bigger things to come.It doesn’t come from a place of constantly being frantic and pulled in all different directions, right? So in this episode, I want to share how to Set Boundaries in Your Business so that you can go from frantic to peaceful and in control of your life. This will be especially helpful for you if you want to call in more peace, more flow this year in your life and business. And by setting the boundaries, by intentionally managing your time better, it’s gonna be so much easier for you. 

What I’ve noticed most of the years, so most of my clients are female, and oftentimes we just aren’t modeled a way to set boundaries in our business or in life in general.It’s harder for us to say no to things we oftentimes feel bad or we feel guilty if we put ourselves first. And with that comes a lot of inner confusion and anxiety when we’re not modeled what to do, right? So my other intention with this episode is to give concrete examples of how I personally set boundaries and how you can model them so that you can easily do so yourself. 

What Boundaries To Set:

Time Boundaries

The first thing that we are going to set boundaries with is your time. Your time is so important. It is what you can’t get back. It is what you need to protect at all costs. And this means in business, you need to be mindful when your clients or people are going over call times when you specifically schedule out an hour or an hour and a half, and they are going over in an unwanted and unproductive way, right?

Like if you have the capacity to serve them longer and that’s fine with you and you want to over deliver, then that’s completely okay. But if it’s at a point in the conversation where you scheduled out 60 minutes, maybe you have a call after or maybe you don’t want to go over for whatever it is, you need to be mindful of that and you need to set your boundary and let them know that the call needs to end. Whatever has not been addressed, we can address at the next call. Or you know, five minutes before the call ends, you can say, we have five minutes left. Do you have any more questions about the program or about whatever it is that we are speaking on? And this is especially relevant if this is a pattern that you notice on your discovery calls or on your client calls if the other party has a tendency to go over your time constantly. Then instead of blaming the other party, blaming the individuals instead, we can take ownership of our faults in that case because if it’s continuously happening, it’s a sign that we can set stronger boundaries. We can not allow them to go over. We are in control of the call so we can end it when the time is up and you don’t have to feel bad about it, you can end it in a really nice way, but you need to be respecting your own time as a business owner because if you don’t, then obviously no one in your community will.

Another way to set boundaries with your time is if you want to take three day weekends if that is something you’ve been wanting to do for years. We have a member in The Business Academy, and she was like, I’ve always wanted to have three day weekends. And I was like, you can. You can literally block off your calendar and introduce that in your business and honor what you want to do with your time. Instead of thinking one day in the future, this is going to happen. You have the power to make it happen right now by setting those boundaries, I give you permission. Your business is not going to suffer. It’s not going to struggle. 

It’s often this like mental burden we place on ourselves. We need to be hustling seven days a week in order to be successful. And a lot of the time we don’t. We make that up as if we think we need to be hustling every single day. Rest is also productive, and this goes hand in hand with having business hours. You can totally have nine to five as your business hours where you are on top of emails, on top of Voxer, on top of community requests, and establish the understanding that after those business hours, you might not respond until the next day. You might not respond until two days later if it’s a weekend. And that is okay too.

You want to be mindful of how much of your time you’re putting outside of business hours in an aligned way. Like obviously, if you really want to check your emails one day after work, you can and you can reply if that feels aligned. But if after work you get this email and you’re like spending all of your time trying to respond, and that happens every single day and you’re getting stressed from it, you need to set those Boundaries. And I guarantee you, people aren’t going to call you out if you don’t answer immediately. You can totally just wait until normal business hours. It’s almost like an established thing, I feel like in our society because when I was working in corporate, we had business hours and you weren’t expected to work after.

So you can establish that in your own business as well. This is the reason that I fully enjoy my vacations, my time off, my time when I am traveling because I set those boundaries. So last week for a full week when I was in Boston only working business hours and those days where I wanted to be checking emails and be responsive in the Facebook communities, but I didn’t want to have calls, I blocked off my calendar so that no one could schedule calls with me on those days. And years ago when I first started my Calendly and when I first started accepting calls, I probably would’ve been like, oh my God, no What If. They can only talk to me this one time after work.

I need to open up my calendar like 12 hours a day every day. But now I’m like, there’s no such thing as a business emergency. if you have availability. In the next two weeks, people can book in and their questions can be answered. There truly is no such thing as they need to schedule immediately or else their business or whatever it is, is going to crumble down. And by honoring that, by understanding that I can be mindful of my time on top of theirs, it just leads to so much more balance because I’m able to enjoy my time in Boston without feeling like, oh my gosh, in two hours, I need to like go to a Starbucks so that I can connect to the internet.

This also goes for schedules far out in advance. So if you know that you have a trip coming up next month or in two months, block off your calendar now, don’t expect to take calls at the airport or when you first arrive. Give yourself time to settle down after many years of traveling, I know that when you first get to a new location, you might be jet lagged, you might be tired. The last thing you wanna do is show up to a call when you’re not a hundred percent because you can’t pour from an empty cup, right? So it’s going to serve you and your clients better if you let them know months in advance, ‘Hey, I’m gonna be off this week. Don’t book with me.’ Okay? 

Energetic Boundaries

The next thing we are going to set boundaries with in business is energetic boundaries or boundaries on your energy. This looks like when you give an unfair amount of energy or an unprecedented amount of energy dedicated to one person, maybe they have so many requests, maybe they have an anxious attachment style to you as a mentor. Maybe it’s a random stranger on the internet who left you a nasty comment. Maybe it’s someone who put through a refund request or is being really rude as a client or in your communities, whatever it is, people who suck your energy and the situations that arise that continue to suck your energy.

We need to set boundaries with, I know as women we tend to get more emotional when it’s like conflict with another human being. We always feel like we need to overextend our energy in order to make them feel better, but honestly, it is not our jobs. And we can set boundaries on how much energy we dedicate to those people. So if someone’s being rude in your community and they want a refund, I will process the refund. I am not going to argue, I’m not going to try to get money or take money from this person that clearly doesn’t value what I do, and I just send the refund and I delete them from our programs and communities.

Same thing with nasty comments. You’re not going to please everyone and they’ll longer you let that affect you, the more power you’re giving it. So just delete the nasty comment. if you have an over anxious client or customer, you are able to set your boundaries with them and limit the contact with the person. Many times, it’s not even one incident that sucks away your energy. It’s this continuous kind of like day-to-day thoughts, these anxious thoughts that are eating away at your energy, right? So the more you can protect that, the more boundaries you can set, the more at peace you will be in.

And honestly, like it doesn’t happen often, right? like I get thousands of amazing comments versus like one nasty comment. Once in a while, it used to affect me so much more, but I realized like why? Why bother? Like why am I wasting my energy on this? I have so many amazing clients and customers I’d rather think about and serve, and I get to choose where and who I invest my energy in. Is it going to be reciprocated? Is it going to be fruitful? And the other thing is, when you do get, let’s say a nasty comment or someone who is rude, very rarely is it something you did. I like to think about it as they are coming from a place where they’re either yearning to be seen, whether they need to be validated, they’re going through their own shit, and it’s not my responsibility to accommodate for whatever it is they’re going through and however they’re treating me.

It’s not my responsibility to pull them out of that hole. And their actions, their words are just a reflection of like the inner turmoil that they’re going through. It has nothing personal to do with me. And so if you know, you get your first nasty comment or a rude customer or a client, don’t take it personally. It’s truly just a reflection of what they’re going through. And sometimes I just like feel bad for them. I’m like, I cannot believe you went through all of this to type out that comment. So think about what it would take for you to be in those shoes where not only are you thinking the thoughts, but you feel so strongly that you need to verbalize and let the other person know when they’re not doing anything wrong.

Maybe it stems from jealousy, maybe it stems from they’re just going through a really hard time. Whatever it is, it’s not your job to figure out what they’re going through. And you have the power to either block, to delete, to send refunds and just remove that member from your energetic field. Honestly, sometimes I’m like, my energy is just so sacred, it’s so important. If you’re gonna make me feel any type of like anxiousness or anything less than a hundred percent, I don’t need to serve you. I don’t need to talk to you. I know people in my community feel elevated by me and I wanna continue attracting other people who respect what I do and who allow me to elevate them instead of trying to attack me. So yeah, that is what you should be embodying as well. 

Knowledge & Expertise Boundaries

The last thing we are going to set boundaries with in business is your knowledge and your expertise, especially If. you are a coach or a creator and you’re making money from your knowledge and your expertise because the bigger you get, the more people are going to want to source personal information or they’re going to want to learn. But at expense to your time, at expense to your business, if you are uncomfortable sharing or helping someone else because they’re just getting free information and you don’t know them that well.

Like let’s just say they’re a new follower and they’re genuinely interested in learning from you and they just expect you to give away information for free. I mean, if you feel inclined to help them do so, but oftentimes like if you get a lot of requests, you’re not gonna be able to give everyone an hour of your time for free. Especially If. you have like paid one hour consultations where people can get even better help from you in a more customized way. And so if you feel uncomfortable sharing or helping in that specific scenario. Don’t feel obliged to, don’t feel the need to answer every question or overshare.

They’re not entitled to free information, especially if it’s your job. What you can do instead is direct them to a lead flow. Whether it is a freebie that you’ve created, let’s say many people ask you questions about the same thing, you can guide them to a free resource that is automated so they can sign up to your email list and learn from you that way. I have the Wanderlover Podcast and my Blog, so I direct a lot of the questions to either a specific episode or a Blog post. But very, very rarely do I just hop on a call with them and give away tons of free info unless they’re like a dear friend. 

Or other times if I do have the time, I will ask them to book a virtual coffee date. I love to meet different members in my community. And it sets the tone that there is a time limit come with questions. But at the same time, if you want more support, you know, here are my other programs and ways to work with me so that you can see the results. I’ll answer your questions, but you’re probably not going to achieve what you want in like the 25 minutes. So when you are aware of the transformation you provide, when you are honest and reasonable, you can set boundaries on your knowledge and expertise. You don’t have to answer every single question. You don’t have to try to solve their life or business or whatever problems they’re going through in a dm.

It’s not effective for either parties. It’s somewhat an inefficient way to work with people. And so the more you can kind of set boundaries on your workflow, the more at peace you will be and the larger the results they will see. Of course, all of this, you know, feel free to modify the actions and thoughts to whatever feels most aligned for you. This is just how I set my boundaries and what I do when I feel like I’m being pulled in all different directions and how I’ve been able to kind of efficiently group everything together, realize what is important, and make sure everyone is happy. I hope you feel empowered to at least act on some of these that you know will give you back so much sanity.

Cheers to a peaceful, prosperous, transformative 2024 and I will see you guys in the next episode.

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