Episode 151: Why You Need To Set Boundaries for Your Small Business
If you’ve had other people cross the boundaries you have (or not yet) set for yourself and your small business, this episode is for you. Fiona recommends a book by Dr. Rebecca Ray called Setting Boundaries: Care for Yourself and Stop Being Controlled by Others, and how to use the boundary triangle. Listen now.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Feeling frustrated
Setting boundaries
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to episode 151 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. My name is Fiona Killackey. I am obviously a podcaster. I'm also an accredited business coach, I have a book that was published last year by Hardie Grant called Passion, Purpose, Profit, Sidestep the Hustle and Build a Business You Love, which you can find pretty much everywhere. And I help small business owners really understand where they want to go get clarity, and so they can get confidence and just learn to love their business again.
So today you are listening to a quick tip episode. So there's three episode types if you're new around here, one is quick tip, they are usually 10 minutes or less. Then there's coaching episodes with me that pretty much about 30-40 minutes. And then we have small business interviews, and those are with incredible business owners across the globe. So this podcast comes out twice a week, every Tuesday and Thursday morning Australian time. So if you are new around here, welcome, welcome, welcome. And yeah, hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes.
So today, it is a quick tip episode. And I'm going to be talking about a tool and a tactic that you can use when it comes to I know kind of getting annoyed, getting frustrated, getting resentful, all the things that all people, including small business owners go through, on maybe not a regular basis, but we all go through them. So I'm hoping that today's tip episode really, really helps you combat that or look at a tool that you can use a framework that you can use to help you next time you're feeling any of those feelings.
So before I get stuck in, I just want to acknowledge, as always, the traditional owners and custodians on the land on which I'm recording this podcast, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated. So today, it is a quick tip episode, let's make it quick. Let's get into it now.
So today, I wanted to mention an amazing tool, an amazing book for anyone, especially small business owners, but anyone at all. And it is called Setting Boundaries. And it's by Dr. Rebecca Ray. And I want to kind of be transparent, Rebecca and I are both in the same mastermind in the US. And it's called Setting Boundaries, Care for Yourself and Stop Being Controlled by Others. And we'll link to that in the show notes. And you can also find it at rebeccaray.com.au/books.
But Rebecca came into my group coaching program a few weeks ago now. So part of the group coaching program, and it's a program that runs for 12 months, is a business book club. And that is where I hand select six books based on the group that we have together, and the people in it and the businesses in it. And you are sent a physical copies of those books. And one of those for this year's group is Setting Boundaries by Dr. Rebecca Ray. So we all read it and came together the other night as a group and sort of discussed it. And we had the wonderful Rebecca Ray, join us for part of that. And we were talking about all sorts of things, but one of them kind of parts of that book sort of a line that was in it. And I'm going to paraphrase, because I've actually lent my book to somebody else was about obviously, the book is all about setting boundaries. And Rebecca is a clinical psychologist as well. So it comes with so much evidence based information.
But there was a line in there around the fact that when you want to set boundaries, there will be resistance by some people who have benefited from you not setting boundaries. And it really spoke to me because that has shown up in many different ways in my life and in my business. But I think it's something that small business owners forget, we can often get really frustrated or annoyed or resentful of staff not doing what we thought, you know, we made it clear that they needed to do, we can be annoyed at customers, clients who seem to call us at all hours, all sorts of things, we can kind of build this frustration kind of army I guess in our mind, against all the people around our business and our life that we think are getting too much of us, getting too much for free. Using us I mean any kind of word that you want to create for that
I'm sure that anyone listening will know what I'm talking about. No matter how blissful your life or your businesses, we all have moments where we feel a bit annoyed, frustrated, resentful, and quite often it's because we have not put a boundary in place. So we have not said this is what I'll accept. This is what I won't accept or we haven't had the difficult conversation sometimes or awkward, just confrontational conversation. Sometimes it needs to be had to be able to say you've crossed a boundary. I don't feel comfortable Like, here it is, I'm just reiterating what my boundaries are. And we don't have those conversations very often. And if you are somebody who finds that you've never set a boundary, and that you really need help, I would definitely suggest checking out the book by Dr. Rebecca Ray, Setting Boundaries.
But reading that book and kind of thinking about this concept of the fact that there will be people that are always benefiting when you don't set your boundaries, it made me kind of think of, I'm a very visual person. And I like to draw things out. And so I sort of drew this triangle. And if you imagine, wherever you are listening to this, a triangle, and at the top, you've had a boundary not set. And then on the bottom right corner, you've got the person who has frustrated you by by choosing to go through that boundary that you have not set. And then on the left corner of the triangle, you've got how you now feel, so you're complaining, you're resentful, you're frustrated, and, and that kind of it kind of just keeps going in this triangle of like, well, you haven't set a boundary, somebody's taken advantage of the fact you haven't set a boundary. And now you're feeling resentful. And unless you break any part of that, you know, unless you break the top really, which is to set a boundary, you're going to keep being in this cycle of like, you don't set a boundary, someone crosses an imaginary line that is not there, because you haven't said it. And then you get frustrated and annoyed.
And so my question in today's episode is really to think about that triangle in your life and in your business, and start mapping out the top, what are all the boundaries that you have not set - the things like, for example, answering client emails, when it's just not an appropriate time, such as at 11 o'clock at night, receiving text messages from clients at all sorts of hours, or on the weekend, when you've told them that you don't work weekends? Maybe it's people asking stuff for free repeatedly, like fine, maybe once but repeatedly. So I know that I've had a couple of people, not many, but a couple of people that have that have really crossed the line in my business with that. It could be that people are, you know, constantly trying to negotiate you on your price. And you haven't you've just let that happen. So you've kind of enabled them to think Well, every time she says price, really, it's not really that price, because I always seem to negotiate down.
And so you want to at the top, really just list out? What are all the boundaries that I get annoyed about, like, what are all the boundaries, and then you might list out in the bottom right, where you've got this sort of the person that is, is not adhering to those boundaries, which you have not said. And you might put out some examples. So that you're sort of taking say, one of the things at the top one of the boundaries, and then you put down Sue, because maybe Sue has totally crossed you on one of them. And then the other side, you're going to be putting down all the feelings that you have when it comes to how you feel when people go through that boundary. And I want you to then look at that and think about how can I take one of those things at the top and set a boundary? And what would that look like. And over time, it should be that you can slowly remove the instance of this triangle happening at all. And what will become instead is that you've got a clear boundary at the top, you've got customers and clients that you know, support that and adhere to that boundary.
And then you've got much greater, more positive feelings and emotions rather than these ones that are feeling really crappy and hard and negative. So it's just a simple kind of made up framework. And I don't know what Rebecca would think of it. You know, she is the expert in this. But I found it is a good exercise to just sort of do that triangle and think about where are my boundaries being crossed? Where do I not even have them up? Who are the people that are doing it? And then how do I feel? And then how can I reverse all of that. And it could be as simple as automating some things. It could be as simple as putting something in your email signature that says, you know, I do not answer emails at this time. It could be just saying no, if somebody doesn't have enough money to pay for what it is that you offer, it may just be I'm really sorry, I'm not the best fit. I'm really sorry my product, not the best fit for you. And just leave it at that you don't need to justify your prices.
So yeah, that's it for today. It's really thinking about what could this triangle or what does the triangle currently look like for me in my business when it comes to setting boundaries? And then how might I change things so that it's a really positive triangle, and not this kind of triangle of negativity.
And again, the book if you want to get stuck into this with way more, you know, much more scholarly frameworks and everything else. And just really amazing real talking case studies from Dr. Rebecca Ray, who was, as I said, a clinical psychologist for many, many years. It is called Setting Boundaries, Care for Yourself and Stop Being Controlled by Others. and you can buy that anywhere that they sell books. But you can also check it out at rebeccaray.com.au.
So that's it for today's quick tip episode. If you enjoyed this, I'd love it so much if you could share it with a friend. And if you want to go back and sort of, you know, go over what I've said, including having a look at the little diagram that we sort of made up, you can find that plus all the links at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/151 as this is episode 151
You can also find all the other podcast episodes there if you prefer to look at things in text format, and you'll also be able to play the podcast right on the website so you can find all of them at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. Alright, thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
