Grab the free, printable habit tracker we mention here: https://makingiteasy.substack.com/p/interesting-things-from-december

Takeaways

• Boundaries are essential for healthy relationships.
• Setting boundaries is a skill that requires practice.
• Self-boundaries are foundational for personal growth.
• Healthy boundaries lead to deeper connections.
• Self-reflection is key to understanding boundary challenges.
• Start with small, manageable boundaries.
• Building self-trust is crucial for maintaining boundaries.
• Effective communication is crucial for boundary setting.
• Boundaries can help regain control over our lives.

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by AI so please ignore any weird errors. If there is anything really terrible, let us know.

Pam (00:00)
Boundaries is one of those topics that comes up in almost every single episode that we have. But I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it in depth. And I was trying to think about why, like I haven’t like read a book on boundaries or like seen it come up in a lot of other podcasts, like in depth. People obviously like mention it a lot like we do, but I think that it’s not like a sexy topic.

Sarah (00:21)
Mm.

Pam (00:28)
You know, it’s not like we could give five tricks and hacks to building boundaries. Like it doesn’t, it’s not a topic that lends itself to that kind of content. It’s just like trial and error and like working to figure out what you need and how you thrive and building your skill at identifying boundaries that you need, communicating them, and then holding the line. Would you agree?

Sarah (00:29)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (00:58)
with that.

Sarah (00:58)
100

% and I think boundaries are so nuanced. As I was giving some thought to this episode, I was thinking they’re so complex because they necessarily involve other people or systems, right? Unless, yeah, unless one kind of boundary that we’ll be talking about, which is boundary with the self. So I think that it’s complex, it’s nuanced, and I think it’s ever-changing. So I love what you said. It’s about developing a skill or a muscle.

Pam (01:03)
Yes.

Sarah (01:27)
So I think that’s a really great place to start and I’m super excited. I mean, it’s the beginning of the year at the time of recording, mid January, 2025. And so what a great time to think about boundaries and fresh boundaries for this year.

Pam (01:45)
I think that’s a great point because like you said, as we’re recording this, it’s the middle of January, by the time it comes out, it’s gonna be towards the end of the month. So we’re already past that part of the year where everyone has made resolutions and committed to something and then given up on it. Right? Most of us have by now already. So this is a really good time to rethink that and identify maybe areas where you…

Sarah (01:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (02:15)
don’t have the boundaries that you need to achieve the things that you want to achieve or to make the changes that you want to make because boundaries are the foundation that you need to have to be able to do all of these other things that we’re talking about in, you know, in all of our episodes, whether it is shifting how you communicate with others, whether it is, you know,

Sarah (02:33)
Yeah.

Pam (02:42)
being more productive or identifying what makes you happy and what doesn’t and cutting out those things that you don’t want. Every single thing that you need to do to achieve the kind of life that you want relies on having a boundary, whether that boundary is with yourself or with someone else.

Sarah (02:43)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

100 % or more than one boundary. Okay, so Pam, let’s start. What’s your definition of a boundary?

Pam (03:01)
Yes, absolutely.

I was not prepared for that.

Okay.

Sarah (03:09)
Good thing we’re not live. We

didn’t mean to shock you.

Pam (03:14)
Yeah,

that’s okay. No. Okay, so I’m going to say that my definition of a boundary is a limit that you put in place with yourself or others that allows you to be your best self.

Sarah (03:39)
Okay. I like it. So, I researched this. I was like, what is the definition of a boundary? And I was reminded that it’s based on a metaphor of like a fence or like a physical boundary, right? So it’s putting, it’s drawing a line in the sand, so to speak, between yourself and the outside world. so I like that, like, yeah, this is, this is a metaphorical sort of

Pam (03:39)
How about you?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah (04:08)
fence that I’m putting around myself and the outside world and It’s creating sort of a rule for yourself about what’s out of bounds and what’s acceptable or in bounds for yourself

Pam (04:21)
so I think we’re both saying the same thing. I just went a little more vibey with it that Right, yeah, so Yeah, we are saying the same things that basically we’re setting limitations either in how we are going to behave or how we are going to accept other people’s behavior or

Sarah (04:29)
You were vibey, I was literal.

Pam (04:46)
you know, requests that we will accept from others, you know, basically just what we’re gonna accept in our world and that having those boundaries allows us to do more of the things that we want to do or need to do for ourselves and creates a healthy relationship. I think that’s like ultimately the key here is that boundaries are not just saying, nope.

I’m not going to put up with this or I’m not going to do this or you can’t do that or whatever. It’s really that boundaries are necessary for a healthy relationship with yourself, a healthy relationship with your partner, with your friends, with your parents, with your coworkers. Like everything, every relationship, every interaction that you have requires healthy boundaries.

Sarah (05:35)
Yes, the one sort of challenge I put to what you said, and this is based on what I was reading about boundaries before today, was the fact that the healthiest boundaries I’ve read are around changing our response to a situation versus expecting somebody to do something different for us.

Pam (05:51)
Yes.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, and that I think that’s a really key thing because I think I did this when I first started trying to become more forceful with boundaries, trying to build boundaries for myself because as a people pleaser, I spent the majority of my life having pretty loose boundaries and saying yes to everything or allowing

Sarah (06:12)
Yeah.

Pam (06:25)
relationships to be one-sided maybe or me feeling like I was doing more than the other person. So at the beginning when you start like you’re like I’m gonna set boundaries, I’m gonna be stronger. You do or at least I did say okay I’m not gonna allow you to do this, you need to change this, you have to stop. And it really is

when this happens, this is how I am going to react. Yeah.

Sarah (06:55)
Exactly. Yeah,

yeah. Because as soon as we expect people to comply with our sort of set of expectations, we’re sort of setting ourselves up for failure because we can’t actually control people. But we can be clear, we can make requests, and then we can choose to handle however other people or the world is behaving in a way that

fits with the criteria we’ve set for ourselves.

Pam (07:30)
So we talked a little bit about how boundaries are with others and with yourself. And I think that kind of to this topic of like where you start and that your reaction to situations is where you need to have the boundary. Let’s start with talking about boundaries with yourself rather than opening this up to, you know, the…

Sarah (07:46)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (07:55)
the the myriad boundaries that we have with people in the world and at work and everything, like, let’s start with that foundation of having boundaries with yourself and building that ability to, you know, whether it is how you handle your time, or how you handle your emotions or

Sarah (08:13)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (08:20)
you know, they’re even like building habits, like committing to yourself doing what you say that you’re going to do. These are all kind of, we call them boundaries, but it really is like commitments to honoring what you need and what is healthiest for you.

Sarah (08:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I love it. mean, this is something we talk about so often because there is so much that’s outside of our realm of control. And so one thing that we do have a lot of influence over is developing our muscle to kind of keep our own promises to ourselves. So I love what you’re saying around time management. And so I think it’s a great time to…

to look at, okay, well, what are the things you and I have talked about some of our habits for the year that we want to develop some passion projects and hobbies, know, singing and dancing and things that we find fun. how can we, how can we create boundaries around these new additions to our lives?

Pam (09:22)
Yeah, and this is a great opportunity to talk about how all of this stuff layers on to each other, right? So one of the things that I’m doing for myself in the new year is I’m starting to take singing lessons. So that requires me to do 15 minutes of practice three times a day. So that’s 45 minutes of time that I have to find every… It is a lot of practice. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Sarah (09:44)
That’s a lot of practice.

Pam (09:50)
But that’s now 45 minutes that I have to find in my day that was already, you know, pretty, pretty busy as a business owner and, you know, the cook in the house and I’ve got side projects and all this. So, so now I’ve made this commitment to doing these singing lessons. So now that means that I have to be, I have to have greater boundaries with my time and what I’m going to say yes to in the calendar, because if I say yes to something that I may be

Sarah (09:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (10:18)
don’t actually want to prioritize, then all of a sudden that is taking the time away that I should have been spending on the singing, which was the thing that I committed to doing. So it’s time boundaries, it’s a boundary with myself that I’m going to hold this commitment. It’s learning to say no to other opportunities that come up. It’s not just like all of a sudden saying, okay, I’m going to have this commitment to do the singing lesson. It brings up

Sarah (10:47)
Yeah. Five other places. So how are you doing that? Like logistically, what are your strategies for that?

Pam (10:47)
five other places that I need to have boundaries.

Yeah.

So the base one is that I use a habit tracker. I’ll grab it here because I keep it right on my desk. I literally just have a basic, like I built it in a spreadsheet habit tracker where I have the things that I want to do every day or multiple times a week. And I put it on there so that I have to look at it. And, you know, I think that we’ve probably talked about building habits, but the

you know, just the act of like seeing it on there and seeing that I have completed or I haven’t completed it. But it reminds me that this is a priority and this is something that I need to have the time and space for so that when I maybe like pick up my phone and want to scroll Instagram for an hour or something stupid like that, I look at the habit tracker and I’m like, no, you have not completed your singing lesson yet today. You made a commitment to do that. So make the choice right now to honor that.

Sarah (11:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (11:50)
commitment, have the boundary that I’m not going to waste time looking at my phone. I’m going to mark this off on my habit tracker.

Sarah (11:54)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, so does your habit tracker have everyday three slots for your three singing sessions or how does it work?

Pam (12:03)
So it doesn’t the way I do it is I just fill out a third of the box when I’ve done it the first time and then second third when I’ve done it the second time. So if I fill up the whole box, then I’ve done it three times.

Sarah (12:13)
Okay, and so how successful have you been so far? Just out of curiosity.

Pam (12:17)
So far, yeah.

So I missed two days while we had a very full weekend with family events. Other than that, I’ve only missed one practice out of 14 days. So I had 12 days where I only missed one 15-minute session.

Sarah (12:35)
And do you get like the dopamine hit of like completing the tracker? Is that reward and motivating enough for you?

Pam (12:45)
That is a reward and it is motivating and I like coloring it off. I use my favorite pen, you know that is. But, so dumb, but it is. But the other part, the actual like rewarding feeling is, you know, sometimes before you do something, even if it’s something that you want to do or something that you’ve committed to doing.

Sarah (12:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Pam (13:13)
you start to build up excuses of like, well I can skip it today and I don’t really have time for it today. And actually doing it, like once I get over that, like I’m gonna skip this one or whatever and I force myself to do it because it’s on my habit tracker, two minutes in, I’m enjoying myself. It’s fun to sing even though I’m terrible at it. I enjoy the exercises and when I’m done, I feel more energetic and happier. And so just doing the thing.

Sarah (13:18)
Mm-mm.

Pam (13:42)
becomes the reward itself.

Sarah (13:43)
Awesome, so I’m similar to you that I like paper and pen and I love a beautiful day timer and I actually switched this year I’ve been using a passion planner for the last three years, but I switched to a new brand this year It’s very beautiful. It’s hardcover. It’s called Hemlock and Oak Have you seen those? Beautiful Canadian brand.

Pam (14:05)
Okay. Huh.

Sarah (14:09)
They have a little habit tracker in there. So for the month of January, I’m tracking two habits. One is filling out my personal budget spreadsheet every day. And the second is committing to daily exercise. So I do fill it out every day that I’ve done it. So that’s one thing. And then the second thing that I do to make it, I thought, okay, how can I make this as easy as possible for me?

Pam (14:19)
Hmm.

Sarah (14:36)
And that is like my budget is very easily seen on my computer. It’s kind of like right there. I created the bookmark. I bought a really pretty one. I like the colors. So that makes it more, as you’re saying, you like the pen. I like the spreadsheet that makes it easy. And then the other thing I do is I organize my workouts on the weekend. So Monday and Friday, I go out. I go to a place where I do.

Pam (14:55)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (15:00)
yoga or Pilates and then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I stay in and I do a specific Peloton workout on those days. So knowing that in advance has been helpful for me. I mean it’s week, week two, but so far it’s going well.

Pam (15:17)
That’s great. Yeah,

absolutely. And so do you find that having that habit tracker and having your budget visible, that that helps you to make decisions about your time and say, like, I’ve got this marked off in my calendar, so I’m going to say no to this other thing. Yeah.

Sarah (15:29)
100%.

Yes, yes,

yeah, very much so. So yeah, those are some examples of, I think those are great examples of some of our new activities that feel important to us and how do we create sort of structures or systems to honor those boundaries.

Pam (15:55)
Yeah. And I touched on this a little bit, but one of the things that you have to do to overcome or to hold these boundaries with yourself is overcoming that voice in your head that tells you either, like I just said, you can skip this today or

Sarah (16:09)
Mm.

Pam (16:16)
you know, like with my singing lessons, I could very easily start to go, I don’t really know if you’re improving at all. like, why are you wasting the time on this? You know, or, you know, maybe you don’t even deserve to spend this time on yourself, or it’s selfish for you to be doing this, or you should spend that hour working and making money instead. Like I could rattle off 10.

Sarah (16:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Or,

my gosh, or mine would be, did you pick the right one? Did you pick the right budget spreadsheet? Did you pick the right lessons? Did you research it enough? Is it perfect? Should you be doing a different exercise instead?

Pam (16:44)
No.

Sure. Is it perfect?

Yeah, yeah, so you really have to like set a boundary with the voice in your head that says, have committed to this and I’m not going to listen to you. Really.

Sarah (17:02)
Yes.

Yeah,

that really is a devilish voice.

Pam (17:10)
It is.

It is. Yep. So some of the other things that maybe people want to have personal boundaries with could be limiting things that are like rather than adding a habit or something, it could be limiting something that you want to do less of or that is maybe even actively harming you. You know, if you want to spend less time looking at TikTok.

Sarah (17:27)
Mm.

I love it.

Pam (17:39)
if you find that that is not healthy for you or, you know, saying no to spending time with people that don’t fill you up. That was something that I did. I was helped by the pandemic, but really when I quit drinking, I started this process of turning down social invitations from people that I realized that now that I’m not drunk around them, I didn’t feel good spending time with them, you know, so.

Sarah (17:39)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (18:07)
That’s one of my boundaries is that I don’t spend time with people who only want to gossip or don’t have interesting things to talk about or that don’t fill me up.

Sarah (18:17)
Yeah. And so I think this is a great place to start. Like think about one or two boundaries for your own life that are dependent on you.

There will always be those temptations or invitations or opportunities to say no, but it’s within you to show up for yourself. So identify one or two ways that you want to have a boundary for yourself, for your own well-being or happiness or health or whatever feels most important. And fiercely protect it. And so both of us love a paper

tracker. Other people find other things motivating. There’s so many ways to gamify. You can gamify your reading and track that online. There’s so many things you can do. So find a system that works for you. But I would say start, my advice would be to start simple and small one, maximum two and keep the accountability piece as small as possible because if you keep showing up for yourself consistently you’re really going to build self-trust.

Pam (19:28)
Yes, and that is so important.

Sarah (19:29)
Right?

that’s the muscle because like, we’re gonna go from here and then leap into how do we set boundaries with other people and other systems where it’s so much more complicated to do so. But if we have that muscle where we’ve been like, well, I’ve set a boundary for myself, I’ve honored that, I’ve maintained it, then at least we have some evidence to support us as we do it in the bigger world.

Pam (19:53)
Yes, yeah, so important, building that trust with yourself. And I would also add to that that you’re not gonna be perfect at it, right? Like if this is a new thing for you, you’re gonna take two steps forward and one step back, and that’s okay. That’s expected.

Sarah (20:03)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

That’s okay. It’s okay if

it’s okay if you miss a day or two. Yeah.

Pam (20:15)
Yeah, yeah. Or yeah,

if you slip up your boundary or whatever, just like acknowledge it. You could look at the circumstances of why. That can be helpful. know, if I look at, know, maybe I haven’t done my singing lessons three days in a row, well, why? Like, was that because of choices that I made or was that because of circumstances outside of my control? Like the weekend when we had, you know, morning to night activities with family.

Sarah (20:20)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Pam (20:44)
literally could not have fit it in unless I did it in front of my in-laws. You know, like, I’m not at that level, right? So that’s okay. But if I looked at it and I said I missed two days because I was, you know, laying on the couch and binge watching Netflix, that’s another story. That’s something that I can then say, okay, well, like, was there an emotional situation that led me to doing that? Was there something like, you know, you can kind of like do a little self-reflection and think about like,

Sarah (20:49)
And you’re not ready for that yet.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (21:13)
what led to me making the decisions to not honor what I said that I was gonna do. But outside of that, like feel free to do that little bit of self-reflection, but don’t like self-flagellate. Like don’t beat yourself up for it. You can self-reflect, make changes going forward and move on. Don’t say, you know, I’m a piece of crap because I couldn’t do this and so I’m gonna fail at everything and I just give up. Don’t do that.

Sarah (21:37)
Don’t do that. Don’t

do that. Okay. So pick something in your life, create a boundary and, and work that muscle by sticking to it. And then will you put, you can put a copy of your habit tracker in the show notes for anyone who would like a paper habit tracker.

Pam (21:52)
Sure.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s very easily printable and customizable. You can do whatever you want with it.

Sarah (21:58)
Yeah. Use your favorite pen. Decorate it. Yes. Okay. Great. So that’s boundaries with yourself. What are some other boundaries Pam that we can talk about that involve others outside of ourselves?

Pam (22:01)
Yes, I highly recommend fun colors.

I just mentioned, one of the boundaries that I have put in place with with friendships and with people that I want to spend time with. think that

The more I’ve built boundaries with friendships and relationships, the higher quality my relationships have become. You know, I went from kind of having a lot of people that I would spend time with but never really had super deep connections with that I have much deeper.

connections to and that I can reliably, have a conversation with that I walk away from feeling, you know, energetic and excited and I have new ideas and it just really feels refreshing, rather than those those friendships that were just sort of like, they were people that I just had brunch with, you know? Yeah.

Sarah (22:53)
Hmm.

Right, right. And so

explain to me how does an actual boundary fit into that? it, is the boundary that you say no to invitations that aren’t going to make you feel excited and lit up or like, what’s the actual boundary there?

Pam (23:27)
Yeah,

yeah, I think the actual boundary for me was just saying no to, you know, someone inviting me to brunch, you know, for instance, and that feels hard, especially as a people pleaser, you know, if someone is inviting you somewhere saying no, it feels really difficult. And I went through a phase of like, well, I have to make up excuses of why I can’t go. And then I just started saying no, like, sorry, no.

And it’s, it really, it took a lot of work to be able to do that. But on the other side, I was like, oh my God, I was spending so much time doing things that I didn’t enjoy. And yeah, it just felt so much better. So yeah, the boundary is with myself with being honest with how I want to spend my time and with saying no to invitations that didn’t align with that boundary.

Sarah (24:28)
So a couple of things that are coming up for me when you’re saying that, and I definitely relate, resonate with what you’re saying. Two things that I think kind of go with that. Number one, having a line, like yes, absolutely. We can say no as a complete sentence. And we don’t owe an elaborate explanation. Sometimes actually a long explanation just makes you look.

Pam (24:50)
you

Sarah (24:58)
like makes a person feel even worse, like you’re trying to justify it. But there are really easy things you can say, like having a few sentences and writing them out, putting them on like a sticky note for you to reference. Like, thank you so much, but I’m not available then. Or thank you so much, but I won’t be able to make it. I hope you have a great time. It’s so easy and can let yourself off the hook. So if you have a hard time saying no,

Pam (24:59)
Right.

Sarah (25:26)
Having a few lines like that on the ready can be helpful. And another tip I have for that is just to do it right away. Right? Because I’ve got, in the past, I’ll wait till the last second, because I won’t want to say, know, it’s a total pleasing habit and it’s so ridiculous. And then it just makes my suffering worse where I feel anxious and guilty about it. then at the last, and then it has a bad result as well, because I’m waiting till the last minute to send my regrets.

Pam (25:33)
Yes.

Of

Right.

Sarah (25:55)
So

if you know you want to say no, just trust yourself and say no and say it in a polite way and you’re done. So that was the first thing I wanted to say. And the second thing I wanted to say is doing this can take a lot of trust, self-trust, because sometimes when we feel, when we’re saying no to invitations, there can be a very normal human concern of, what if I don’t get other invitations? Right? I don’t want to be alone.

Pam (25:58)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Sarah (26:23)
So there can be like a FOMO, which is valid. I’m fearful of missing out on relationships, on friendships, on having a social life. And so I think some awareness around that and some compassion and some self-trust in terms of reminding yourself that this is a step in the direction of you having more time to build a great relationship with.

Pam (26:28)
Of

Sarah (26:52)
the people that you want in your life in this chapter of your life, right? Because we evolve. So yeah, I just felt that that needed to be kind of explored a bit.

Pam (26:55)
Yeah.

I totally agree and it’s taking me in two directions that are sort of related, but the first is that, know, kind of, I kind of touched on this and you did as well, which is that when you are setting limits or setting these boundaries with people, it can feel limiting, but what you’re doing is creating space for something better.

Sarah (27:27)
Yeah.

Pam (27:28)
So that can definitely be the situation or maybe it’s not. Maybe instead of your boundary being, I’m not going to spend any time with these people, maybe your boundary needs to be, I need to communicate what I need better in this relationship. So you can try that. can still spend time with the person, when they, like for me, was like I hated the gossip thing that some of the people that I was spending time with would do.

Sarah (27:33)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (27:57)
So maybe instead of my boundary being, I’m not gonna spend time with you anymore. Maybe my boundary is as soon as they start gossiping, I change the topic or I say, hey, can we not do this? There’s a lot of options here and you have to decide what is healthy for you in the relationship. I’m definitely not advocating for people to cut everyone in their life out. Like I think a relationship needs more work and some more effort before you cut it out of your life.

Sarah (28:08)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (28:26)
The other thing that was coming up for me was a book that I just read called, Sorry I Was Late I Didn’t Want to Come by Jess Pan. And I found her on Substack and I thought that her book was gonna be like her Substack, which is just like kind of like funny, relatable essays about being an awkward human in the world. So I got the book and it turned out to be a little bit more self-helpy than I expected it to be. But it’s her story of being a like,

Sarah (28:35)
Hmm.

Pam (28:56)
serious introvert and committing to a year of like saying yes and doing things that were outside of her comfort zone. So she actually ended up doing stand up. And she was on The Moth or like she stood up on stage and told a very awkward story about herself. So she set this commitment for herself for the year that she was going to

Sarah (29:02)
Hmm.

Mmm. Wow.

Pam (29:21)
say yes to all of these things and then she had to stick to that and reinforce these boundaries with herself and not say no to everything. So it’s kind of the flip side of what I’m saying. I’m saying say no more and she was saying yes more, but it’s the same outcome, which is that when you decide how you want to intentionally spend your energy, you get more of what you want.

Sarah (29:37)
Yeah,

Yeah, so good. so having boundaries in a relation in your relationships doesn’t necessarily mean you need to say no, it might mean you need to say yes. Right. And guess what, it begins within and kind of doing some reflection in terms of what you need now for this chapter of your life.

Pam (29:57)
Yeah.

Yep. And remember that the boundary is how you are going to behave, not how you’re trying to force the other person to behave.

Sarah (30:19)
For sure, like in the example that you gave about that group of folks that you hung out with that you found were gossiping too much. You’re in a position where you can say, hey, I notice that we’re often end up gossiping about these people. I have a suggestion. I’d love to talk more about X, Y, and Z. Would you all be up for it? I mean, there’s so many things you can do. You can bring in

conversation cards, you can ask people to bring in different topics, can start, know, there’s so many ways that it can go. So it’s within your control to make a suggestion and then it’s also within their control to choose how they wanna respond, right? Yeah.

Pam (31:04)
Right. Yeah.

Sarah (31:07)
talk about work because when we first started sharing some notes on this topic, I highlighted this one and I just thought, this can be the hardest one to actualize having boundaries in the workplace because a lot of people have workplaces where there might not be the compassion or understanding that one might want.

and we’re sort of advocating for our boundaries might not be perceived well. So there might be a real threat of losing one’s job or a perceived threat of losing one’s job. So I think that this is such an important one. It certainly comes up a lot with my clients. And I think it’s a really nuanced topic.

Pam (31:54)
It is. And even if there’s not, you a fear of losing your job or something that serious, just inherently in work, there’s power dynamics, right? Like even if you’re friends with your boss, they’re still your boss. And so, you know, coming to them with a boundary or changing your behavior in the workplace is going to just inherently have another layer of complexity.

Sarah (31:58)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (32:23)
than you might have in a friendship or even in your relationship where you guys are equals.

Sarah (32:28)
For sure. I mean, if I think about one topic, which is very au courant is about return to work. And so a lot of organizations changed the policy where people could work from home after COVID. And now we’re seeing a trend where lots of organizations are now requesting or requiring staff members to come back to the office three days a week, four days a week, five days a week, whatever it is.

And so I’m hearing from individuals, well, you know, I based my life. I created a life where it was where I was working from home and now I have all of these benefits and now I’m being asked to shift. Can I have a boundary? How can I have a boundary around that? So that’s for me a really real example of.

Pam (33:21)
Hmm.

Sarah (33:26)
what you’re saying, like the power dynamics and how our, it’s not just a boundary with herself. It’s a boundary within a system.

Pam (33:35)
Right. Have you been working with clients that are dealing with that? Do you have tips for that? Because that seems like a huge ask to say, I know you’re asking everyone to come back to the office. I don’t want to.

Sarah (33:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don’t have a clear tip because as I said, it’s such a big system. So I think it really depends on how big is the organization and who is the organization sort of beholden to in terms of executive or C-suite or shareholders or a bigger system. So there’s so many things at play, but I do think

If you’re in a position, what I can say is if you’re in a position where you have a good relationship with your direct supervisor, to continue to be honest and clear about what your desires are and to position it as a win-win. So to explain the benefits to the organization of your preferred scenario.

Pam (34:33)
Hmm.

Sarah (34:42)
and to continue to communicate that you’re always open to any kind of middle path.

Pam (34:51)
what’s really coming up for me as you’re talking about this is a feeling of being in control.

In control of your day, in control of your calendar, in control of what happens to you. And, you know, we’ve talked before about how that’s just a need that people have. We want to feel in control of our outcome, or at least in control of what’s happening to us. And when we don’t have at least some semblance of control, we don’t feel good.

Sarah (35:15)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pam (35:25)
Right? We feel chaotic. feel like, like, it doesn’t matter what we do, things are just going to happen to us. So if you’re feeling that way at work, if you feel like you don’t have control, finding these boundaries that you can set and that you can communicate and that you can, you know, try to baby step into place in areas that will help you feel like you are more in control.

Sarah (35:32)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Pam (35:56)
in your workplace can make a huge impact on your job satisfaction and in how successful you feel like you can be in your role.

Sarah (36:01)
Mm-hmm.

So are you talking about finding other places where you might have some control over your boundaries outside of sort of where outside of those requirements like outside of your job rules?

Pam (36:22)
Yeah, well, maybe, or I’m kind of thinking more like, okay, so, well, like if we use the going back to working in the office, rather than working from home thing, like if that is non-negotiable, if you have to go back to the office, then maybe you can have a conversation where it’s like, yes, I will come back to working in person in the office, but I, you know, I won’t come in until 9 a.m. and I am not available.

after 5 p.m. or you know whatever those things are that can help you feel like yes this change is happening and I can’t stop the change but I can maintain a semblance of control in what the change results in. So rather than it being like yeah I’m going back to the office and on top of that I’m going to be expected to be available nights and weekends and all of the things that

Sarah (36:58)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (37:16)
that have kind of happened over the course of the pandemic as personal and work have melded into one never-ending workday, you can set those limits and say, like, okay, I understand I have to come back to the office, but here are the things that make that tenable for me. Or if you’re not dealing with it, going back to the office situation, if you are just in a job where you feel like you have no control and…

You know, I kind of had this situation, even though I worked for myself for a while, like I would have people requesting meetings constantly. And like my schedule, I would look at my calendar and it would be like one meeting here and then a 45 minute break and then two meetings back to back and then a 15 minute. And like my day was just like chaos. I couldn’t get any time to focus on deep work that needed to get done. It was constantly being interrupted, whether that was cause I had, you know,

Sarah (37:53)
Yeah.

Pam (38:14)
coworkers and clients on Slack so they could get a hold of me at any time or Because I was checking my email every 35 seconds Or you know, I gave people I gave clients my phone number so they would call me whenever you know, whenever they wanted to like there was All of these things that were happening that made my day Insane and I couldn’t get done any of the things that I actually needed to get done so I had to put boundaries in place that if

Sarah (38:35)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (38:44)
If we don’t have a meeting scheduled, I’m not gonna answer your call. I will only take meetings during these blocks of time. And obviously unless something crazy happens, there’s exceptions, but like I took control of my calendar and when I would schedule things. I scheduled time for deep work. I scheduled time for lunch. Like I took control of when I would accept

Sarah (39:11)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (39:11)
things being

added into my day so that I could have more control over my hours during the day so that I felt like I could do a better job at everything. I could be more present in the meeting. I could do my work better.

Sarah (39:25)
So

what I like about what you’re saying is that it’s a reminder to try to resist all or nothing thinking. And so when a change is put upon us or a set of circumstances is put upon us that we can’t change immediately, saying to ourselves, OK, well, where is there room to be creative here in a way that will serve me?

Pam (39:34)
Mm.

Yeah.

Sarah (39:51)
or in other words to have control over the other pieces that will still impact my life in a positive way. And how can I advocate for those to create more of a middle path so it’s not just this, you know, very binary all or nothing thinking. And I think that that’s such an empowering thing to do. And it can be hard to do when we feel really upset or overwhelmed, which is why taking some time to…

You don’t care for yourself. Notice what’s going on. Time for self reflection. Maybe having an outside opinion. Maybe listening to this podcast and realizing, oh, maybe there’s another way forward here. That’s not going to solve the whole problem, but that’s going to create some more space. where can I create? Maybe I can’t change this boundary. But what could be some other boundaries I could put into place within the system?

Pam (40:47)
Yeah. And that you kind of touched on the like emotion around when things are hectic or when you your boundaries are out of control and you need to put them in place. When you are feeling that chaos and when your emotions are high is not the time to communicate the boundary. Right? Like that’s you need to step away. Think about it.

Sarah (40:53)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (41:14)
Like

you said, talk to a third party, get some other input, really collect yourself and put a plan in place that you can clearly communicate. And back to the making it about you thing and how you’re gonna react, you need to go to your boss or your coworkers or whoever it is that you’re communicating this boundary to and calmly explain, here’s what I need to be successful.

Sarah (41:28)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (41:42)
I’m doing this because I’m not able to complete my work because my calendar is full of too many meetings. I need to find meetings that I can opt out of or I need to change my schedule or whatever it is so that I can be a better employee.

You’re calmly presenting it that this is to benefit the business. This is to benefit you. This is to make me better at my job, not, you know, I’m doing this because I can’t handle the work and you need to change and, you know, woe is me. It’s that this is for the betterment…

Sarah (42:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it’s the win-win. And you’re right, we always do better than that when we’re in a calm state of mind.

Pam (42:30)
Yes,

yes. Especially if you’re someone like me. I don’t know if this would still happen, but I’ve talked about this before that when I had a boss, if I had to go in and like ask for something that was, you know, setting a boundary or talking about something, I would just immediately start crying. So if you’re that person, you gotta like practice it. Sit down with a friend or your partner and role play it. Like kind of going back to your idea of having…

Sarah (42:47)
Yeah, it’s…

Pam (42:59)
know, sentences written down on Post-it notes to turn something down, having that, that practiced communication can really help you deliver it better and have the outcome that you want.

Sarah (43:13)
100 percent practice.

Pam (43:14)
Yeah. like we try to give specific, tips and tools and things for like actually putting into practice the stuff that we talk about on our shows. But this is one of those topics that it’s so personal and so unique and your situation is going to be different than the person who’s sitting next to you. So we can’t give you a prescription for like, do X and Y happens.

It’s really about looking at your individual situation and your individual needs and figuring out like, if these three things were different in this way, that would make a huge impact on my life. Okay, I’ve identified those. Now, how do I make those changes? Who do I need to communicate it to? How do I need to communicate it? And what…

infrastructure do I need to put in place to make sure that I can hold those boundaries and that I can maintain the commitment to myself and that the people around me fully understand what I’m asking of them and what they can expect from me.

Sarah (44:10)
Hmm.

Yeah, and it’s worth it. It sounds like a lot of steps, but it’s really worth it.

Pam (44:29)
It is, I think it’s probably one of the biggest things that I’ve done over the last few years is, you know, really being clear about what I want and what I don’t want and honoring that for myself so that I spend more of my time doing the things that I want to do. You know, building the hobbies that I want to build and the friendships that I want to build and taking on the work that I want to do and

Sarah (44:52)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (44:57)
And the more that you do that, the more that you put limitations in place to create space. Like it almost sounds counterintuitive that like you’re limiting to create limitlessness almost, but you are.

Sarah (45:08)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, you’re putting those guardrails up. Yeah.

Pam (45:20)
Yeah,

yeah, so you can go really, you know, really fast or into what you do want by blocking out what you don’t.

Sarah (45:29)
Block out what you don’t want.

Pam (45:32)
Yeah. And this will shift as you get older, you know, like what you want in your 30s is a heck of a lot different than what you want in your 40s. And I’m sure it will be a lot different than what I want in my 50s. so like that constant flexibility is so important, like just because you set a boundary in one place doesn’t mean you have to keep it there. And it’s making me think about our New Year’s episodes where we talked about our words for the year.

Sarah (45:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (46:01)
and how I for the last few years have been in contraction and saying no to so many things and now this year I feel like I have more energy and time and I can be an expansion so now I’m saying yes to more things like it’s it’s gonna shift as you change and as your life changes so you know it’s not a like you said it and forget it kind of thing it’s an ongoing evolution

Sarah (46:26)
Yeah, your boundary isn’t a life sentence. It’s help for now for this chapter.