Skip to content 
Show Notes
Has your year started well? Or have you fallen into that trap of overcommitting? Do you ever wonder about setting boundaries and how to say no without that guilty feeling? Well, not so much anyway. As coaches, we want to help everybody, and quite often we end up doing so, but not helping ourselves.
Don’t Overcommit, Say NO
Why do you think some people are succeeding and why others aren’t? Sometimes, that is because they just don’t overcommit. They’re not saying yes to things that they should. Naughty.
For example, “If the thing they were asking you to do was tomorrow, would you do it with whatever else you’ve got currently scheduled for tomorrow?” And if the answer is no, then should you be booking it for a month, two months, three months or four months? If it’s not that important that you would move something, is it important that you do it? So making sure that you are staying true to yourself and your clients and you’re not overcommitting so that you’re frazzled and running on empty, forgetting things because you’re rushing out the door at the last minute, or you’re not prepared for the session because the meeting before ran over, or any of those kinds of things.
So, make sure that you are saying no and you are not overcommitting. That is one of the ways that can help you become successful. This was Episoe 272: Why Some People Succeed
Set Boundaries
Overcommitting and saying yes to things that you shouldn’t can also cause burnout. Well, it can be one of the causes of burnout. It can cause you a lot of stress. It can really start to make you question why you are doing things, and have you gone back to your “why”? Have you given yourself the space to imagine?
The lack of imagination is killing us in more ways than one. It’s causing depression, illness, and all sorts of things. It is actually causing physical harm because we don’t have space to think and do nothing, really, so that we can let our bodies recharge and make sure that we’re not that stressed and causing burnout symptoms, that sort of thing.
So boundaries are really important. And there can be boundaries with the client, right? If they’re asking you to do things that are outside of your coaching agreement, or things that you don’t want to do, sometimes you just have to say no. And saying no to a client is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you’ve not overcommitted and changed your mind later on.
Why Set Boundaries?
Having boundaries make you more focused, make you more productive, and can also enhance your personal and work-life balance. They can also help you deliver much better quality of work too. And that’s what we talk about a lot, isn’t it? Making sure that you’re not trying to be everybody to anybody, or anybody to everybody, whichever way you want to say it. Making sure that you’re really looking at the people that you’re targeting and being able to serve them because it’s so much easier when you’ve had that issue before or that problem, and you know how to solve it. You can help somebody else do it rather than having to reinvent the wheel every single time. Sometimes it’s just a mind shift.
It’s just like, “Okay, Kathy always does this, but now she doesn’t.” Giving some leeway sometimes can be really good. But I’m not going to do that next year. I’ll run it until the end of this year, but after that, you’ll have to find somebody else. It might be a case of bringing on someone to shadow you or oversee you if it’s something like an association or volunteer work, things like that, so they know what you’ve been doing and it can be an easy transition.
Other times, it’s just a case of saying, “Hey, I just really can’t do it,” and being true to you as well as them. So making sure you are setting those boundaries, being fair about it, and giving leeway if you can. But making sure that you’re not saying yes to things that really should be a no. As we’ve discussed, if you wouldn’t do it tomorrow.
How to Set Boundaries?
Okay, so boundary setting: what else can we do to make sure that happens? Put it in a diary. Communicate with your friends and family and let them know that on Sunday afternoon, that’s the time you’ve slated to do some study. You can help in the morning, you can help afterwards, but you need those two hours for yourself to do study or whatever it happens to be. But communicate. Don’t get mad at them when they come to you at 1:00 on Sunday and say, “Hey, let’s go for a bike ride. It’d be great to do a family activity,” when you haven’t let them know that 1:00 was when you were going to do something else. Keeping those clear lines of communication and thinking about the timing of things too.
There are lots of different ways that you can set and use boundaries. Have a little audit of your current commitments before you say yes. If you’re absolutely jam-packed and you’ve got no room for any more clients, then it’s no point saying, “I’ve got clients.” You might have a waitlist for a great program name, but if there’s no room, there’s no room. Or conversely, if you’ve got lots of room, don’t fill it up with busy work. Make sure that you do actually have those allocated hours when you could fit a client in, if they come your way.
So, look at the commitments you’ve got and do a bit of a time audit. Have a look at your diary. What are the things in your diary that you’re actually doing? Are there things in your diary that you’re not doing? Do a 24-hour audit of what you’ve actually done in a day and get really specific
Links
Contacts
The Power of Saying No: Setting Boundaries to Grow Your Coaching Business
So, there are lots of different tips and tricks to make sure that your boundaries stick and that you’re saying no. So until next time, just have a little bit of time to yourself and think about what it is that you really want to do. Say no when you need to, and also say yes to opportunities when you’ve got the capacity. Alright? Until next time!
Listen to the full episode of Small Business Talk episode 279.
You can also find the video versions of the Small Business Talk Episodes on YouTube.
