290: Boundaries You Can Actually Stick To

Camille 0:08

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family, and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know. This is Call Me CEO. Welcome back, everyone, to Call Me CEO. This is your host, Camille Walker, and this is a solo episode. Many of these episodes are interview style, where I interview mothers building businesses all over the world, primarily in the United States, who are building families at the same time. And one of the number one things that I have learned over five years now of interviewing these women is that boundaries are the key to success, consistency and boundaries. Because let's face it, if you are building a family, if you are in a relationship, you need to have boundaries in place so that you protect what matters most to you, which is the ones you love, as you build a business, which a new business is like a baby. It requires attention, nourishment, strange hours, times that you're not even sure it's going to work out. And yet, if it's something you love and keep coming back to, which more power to you, there is a reason why that seed and that desire is there. And so creating those boundaries to help protect your dream and also protect your family and your relationships is what this episode is all about. If you are someone who's listening to this episode and you are looking to help build individual boundaries and help with creating boundaries that work for you, I am also a personal coach. I do one-on-one coaching and group coaching to help women find success in the areas of building family life and in building business. I've been doing this for over 15 years. I love it so very much. And watching women succeed is my favorite thing about coaching. So let's dive into today's episode and talk about how creating a boundary will protect you and help you reach your dreams. Now, if you've ever set a boundary and then immediately broken it, this episode is for you because today we're talking about boundaries you can stick to without guilt, burnout, or resentment. Boundaries can be really hard for people. Many of us were taught to be helpful, available, accommodating. We grew up, well, maybe you didn't, but I'm old enough that I grew up in a world where if I called someone, I had to talk to a parent who, in a way, was a boundary keeper of their child's time. I also had to work around other people using the phone. I also had to work around a brother listening into the conversation, whatever the thing was. We went from being in a world where a phone was shared and time, family time especially, was protected in a way that we didn't even understand yet because eventually the world that we are in now requires little of any boundary for someone to text you, call you, reach out to you. And many of us feel like an email, a text, a demand requires an immediate reaction. And it's hard for us to put up a filter or a boundary. That is a very small example of what putting up boundaries can feel like. But there are things that were in place before physically that we now have to put in place mentally. And that is these boundaries that help us to protect the sanctity of our own mental health and also the sanctity of relationships that surround us. Now, if there is one thing that I think has been one of the biggest struggles for myself as an individual, a mother, a wife, is the boundaries of the phone. The phone is always with us, or at least it's always with me. And even creating the dopamine hits that it is literally designed to keep us scrolling forever, we have to put some boundaries in place now with a phone that once used to be something that was stuck to a wall with a cord attached. So let's talk about boundaries. Boundaries can feel selfish, but in reality, boundaries are what makes sustainable leadership possible. This is true for yourself as an individual and for yourself as a family. So let's dive in. Now, boundaries can be hard. That's just the truth of it. We need to decide what our non-negotiables are. And I want you to start with just one or two areas. We could start with your work hours, your email response time, or your family time. Boundaries will fail when they are vague. So we need to be very specific about what those boundaries are. For example, your boundary might be I don't work after 6 p.m., or I check my emails twice daily at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., whatever that situation might look like. Now, depending on what kind of work you're in, whether you're working inside the home, outside the home, or if you're running your own business, which most of you are, I would assume who are listening to this, you have all the hats when you first start a business. You are responding to everything. And it can be a place where out of survival boundaries are thin or non-existent. And that is okay. It is okay to start in a place like that because that is how it starts. We don't have the delegation money to put it on to someone else, and we also might have more time to invest, okay? But that doesn't mean that you can't come up with boundaries that will work for you today. So one of the first things I like to work with when I'm coaching someone is to have them create a grid of important and non-important and something that is an emergency. Well, let's say something that is urgent and not urgent. And as you create this grid, you're going to identify what is important and urgent, what is important and not urgent, what is not important but urgent, and what is not important and not urgent. And I think as you go through, let's say a common day that you're working through what it needs to happen for taking care of your family, for taking care of your business, for taking care of yourself, you will find that common things that you do on a day-to-day basis are going to fit within these categories. And what is shocking, and sometimes something that you need an outsider's perspective on sometimes is helping you to really see that a lot of the fires that you're putting out on a day-to-day basis may not be the most important or the most urgent because the way that our brains work is that sometimes the things that are the most important can be hard. And so we can put them off for the next day, even though it may have been a better way to spend our time. One of the things that I love, and it's a quote that I think is helpful when you're going through this decision process of creating a line of a through line of how to decide the important, non-important, urgent, non-urgent, is to remember that we all have capacity. Okay. So if I do this with people, a lot of times they put things in urgent and important. Everything belongs there, everything's a fire. And a lot of times as a mom, it can feel that way. Trust me, as a mom of four, I get it. Uh, but the trick is identifying truly what are those fires, what are the non-negotiables. Another way that this can be described to you is perhaps if someone explains um the juggling of balls or plates. Let's go with, let's go with balls. Okay. Let's say that we are juggling balls and some are glass and some are rubber. Meaning there are times in your life where something that is a non-negotiable that you must do is a work event. It could be a proposal you're putting together, it could be showing up to something you're speaking for, it could be hiring that next valuable person that you can't move on without. It could be anything. Meanwhile, there are times in your life where glass balls exist for your family. This could be attending a performance. This could be going to a therapy session. This could be going to the doctor for a very important illness that your child might have or you yourself might have. Both of these can exist in the same time. Okay. In that same timeline, you can have balls in your juggling repertoire, let's say, that are rubber, meaning there are some things at work that could be dropped for that day and it can bounce. And there can be things in your family that can be dropped the day of and it can bounce. Meaning, I'll give you an example. So let's say for work, recording solo episodes for me is important. It is something that I try to do so that I have enough that it's every other episode with an interview versus a solo. It is also a rubber ball for me sometimes because other things are more demanding that require my attention first. So if I drop it today, it doesn't mean I can't make up for it later by recording in bulk at a different time. Okay. An example of a rubber ball for my family, let's say a practice. Sometimes there are practices that have to be skipped because there are demands that come from illness or um even from work that if we can't make it to one practice, it's not the end of the day. It's not the end of the world. That ball can bounce and life can go on and move forward. So as you're deciding your non-negotiables, maybe make a list too of your glass and your rubber balls of what can be dropped and what can't be dropped. And these will change day to day, week to week. And one of the most important and impactful interviews I was doing once on this podcast, I had interviewed someone who was talking about her mother who was an entrepreneur. And she said, My mother always made it clear to me that I was very important to her. And that if there was a performance or an event that I wanted her to be to, I needed to very clearly communicate what it was that I wanted her to be to because I knew she couldn't make it to everything. But I still knew she loved me. What she did do was communicate that her business was also important to her. And so she needed me to communicate with her clearly so that I knew that she knew what really mattered and when they were a rubber ball, for example. And I thought that that was really cool, that it wasn't something I think so often is moms, we carry guilt around with us when we think we have to be to everything, we have to do everything perfectly. If we miss one event, their childhood is doomed. And that is just not the case. Children who watch parents build business understand that there are times when things have to be coordinated differently. Maybe someone else needs to drive the child, or maybe grandma needs to see the performance that time, or whatever the situation might be. But communication is key. That's actually step number two. Communication with any boundary is one of the most important things that you can do in any relationship, whether it be in business, in your personal relationships, or with your children. You don't need a long explanation. A simple kind statement builds respect. So, for example, if you're building boundaries around work, you can simply say, I'm offline in the evenings, but I will get back to you tomorrow. That could be, I've seen this done in an email signature that states what the hours are, especially if you're a service-based business and lines can get a little blurry, is to say, I'm offline in the evenings, but I can get back to you tomorrow. I check my email at X time. This is also an important thing to put in place if you were to hire a virtual assistant or an assistant that works with you, creating very clear boundaries between yourselves and with them so that they know that their time is respected and they will do the same for you in return. This is something that can easily be overlooked, but it is so important to communicate, communicate, communicate. This is, I can't say enough about it. So thinking about your non-negotiables and communicating them is step one, step two. Step three is to expect discomfort. Staying steady, and the hardest part is holding a boundary, is that people will test it and that you may feel guilt and that you will possibly second guess why you put the boundary in place in the first place. And it doesn't mean that it's wrong. It just means that it's working because putting boundaries in place is something that we are having to do more than we ever did before, especially where we are literally carrying around in our pockets a way for people to access us at almost any hour of the day. And so if we do not put those boundaries in place, no one else is going to do that for us. So as you are doing this, expect that it will be uncomfortable. There are ways that you can set this up, like I said, in a voicemail, in an email, in your code of conduct, on your website, whatever it might be, but no one is going to know your boundary until you define it first, you communicate it effectively, and you stick to it in a way that's going to feel uncomfortable. It just will, because it's different. And anytime we're growing or changing, things can be uncomfortable. It doesn't mean that it is wrong. Step four is to build systems that build support around your boundaries. So this can look like autoresponders, scheduling tools, and delegate delegation to help you stay in your willpower. Sometimes boundaries are easier when systems back that up. It could be that you have an assistant that plays liaison between you. It could be if you don't have an assistant at first, that you could write a me email as if you are one, just to practice having that in-between buffer. I know of people that have done this when maybe they had someone working for them and then they didn't for a time. But for some reason, having a buffer can help because it shows that you are not always able to respond at the drop of the hat. And there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, I've noticed and respected women, especially that have put boundaries in place when it comes to their families and their children and really communicated that effectively. And it's helped me to do that better for myself. So as you're doing that, and it may feel a little uncomfortable, perhaps, just know that that is probably making it easier for that next person to say, oh, it's okay to say that we need to reschedule. As a business owner and as a mother, there are so many times that things come up. And in fact, I have two sick kids home today. I had to reschedule some things around. We had to make do. My kids are used to seeing me navigate and negotiate and cooperate with them and with other people to make it work. So if that's something that you're having to do, it doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make it wrong. It just means that you have to be a little creative and you will find solutions together. So my challenge for you today is to choose one boundary this week and practice holding it. This could be a way for you to clear up more defined working hours. Perhaps you theme your days of what it is you want to do on specific days and how you want to get that thing done. Or perhaps it's communicating more effectively with the people around you, whether that be the people you work with, your family, or both. Any of these bridges will make it more healthy and more sustainable for you to continue to protect your mental health, which ultimately protects the mental health and the space for your family. And I know that is what you all want. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you haven't, please subscribe. And I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me on Instagram at CamilleWalker.co or on my website at CamilleWalker.co and schedule a free discovery call. If putting some of these boundaries into place are something that you need help with, I would love to help you. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll see you next time. Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment in a five star review. You could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at CallMeCEO Podcast. And remember, you are the boss.