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Today. I want to talk with you a little bit about setting boundaries, setting boundaries, and practicing the art of saying no.

Michel Shah 0:10

Welcome to Upskill Talks, I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, lead Upskill at Upskill Community. Upskill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact, lead themselves and others. In every episode through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenge. And opportunities real leaders face In today's ever-changing workplace, we will present you with real strategies for you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin.

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So there are many, many different boundaries that we can set in our lives. We can set boundaries around the use of our time. We can set boundaries around our emotions. We can set boundaries around our physical bodies and physical spaces we can set boundaries around our materials, our homes, our money, our cars, we can set mental boundaries, many different types of boundaries that weekend set. What boundary do you need to set the questions that I'm going to ask or for you to really reflect on? Where are you setting boundaries? Where do you need to set boundaries? What boundaries are most important to you? And who do you find it most difficult to set boundaries with and why? Which boundaries impact you the most and which ones make you feel the worst? These are some of the questions we want to talk to you about. And I want to do imagine some of the stories and experiences that you're having. That impact. Uh, our conversation around boundaries. So. Let's talk about a particular story that I shared at upscale community on one of our upscale live sessions. This was a situation where I did not set boundaries about material things. I didn't set boundaries about money, financial boundaries. And so I felt that if people came to me and borrowed money, that means they had a need until that I needed to sacrifice it any way possible. To support such a person. It meant that. One day. A friend of mine came and they had an emergency in their family and they needed money. And what do you think I did? I asked how much they needed and I did not have that money. And so what did I do? When it took some money off my line of credit to help them with their emergency because they promise to give it back to me. By the time I needed to make my payment at the end of the month. And so they took my money and the end of the month was coming up and I needed to make my payments. And so I reached out to them. And then they started to treat me like I was looking to borrow money from them. They started to say, you know, we are busy right now. Can I call you back? And I kept getting put off and put off and I kept feeling really awful about myself. Because I needed this money to pay back my bills. Now that was a long time ago. And because I received that money back in drips, drip, drip in a way that could not do anything meaningful for me. I learned then the importance of setting boundaries. I shared the story with you so that you understand that you can learn from these kinds of stories and not make the same mistakes. Use these stories to inspire you to begin to set boundaries around material things. Do people frequently call to use your car, pop into your house on announced, use your space or your things in ways that don't really make you feel good. And your body's telling you. I don't like this. I'm not comfortable with this. But you're uncomfortable to set a boundary and say, no. Revisit the way in which you're listening to your body, the cues your body's giving you about how to behave, where a boundary is needed. And where you may need to reinforce a boundary. So I want to talk about the fact that it's not only important for you to set a boundary. That's actually the easier part of this. The more challenging piece is to maintain the boundaries that you have set for yourself. Because when you set a boundary and communicate to the boundary, not everyone is going to respect to the boundary. So what are you going to do to ensure that you reinforce that boundary and to maintain that boundary? Because it is important to you. The other thing I want to say, don't set a boundary. That's not meaningful to you because it will teach people that the boundaries you set are not important. You are not going to stand up for them. You're not going to reinforce them. You're not going to maintain them. And that means when you set a boundary, that's really important to you. You may not get the response to it that you want. When you set a boundary. Make sure it's a boundary that you need to serve your goals and your wellbeing. And be willing to take the steps to maintain that boundary. What could those steps look like? So let's look at a time boundary. We talk a lot about time management. And one of the things that we know is that if you are in control of all of your time, you're probably not achieving very much in life. The reason why time boundaries are important because other people have to use our time in order for us to achieve great things. We have to collaborate with others. Someone may need to get an additional explanation. Someone may need to get some clarity. Your help to support something you may need to spend more and more time to coach, to mentor, to learn. We have to use each other's time in order to succeed at a high level. What that means is that your Palander maybe wide open and you're thinking, oh, I'm going to go ahead and start that research and then suddenly. There are a few meetings in your calendar calendar just got filled up because you don't own all of your time. However you can set boundaries. Even on your calendar. I once had supervision off a manager. Who really taught me an important lesson when I had the opportunity to look at his calendar. Nine o'clock every morning. He had a half an hour block. And it says planning for my day. Four 30 every day. Reflecting on my day and I thought, wow. Okay. I had never seen that in anybody's calendar ever. But what we knew was that those were times that he was not available for meetings. He was not going to start this morning with a 9:00 AM meeting. And he sat that in his calendar to tell the rest of us, to signal to us that this is a boundary around how I'm using my time. I'm not going to start my morning with a meeting and I'm not going to end my day with a meeting. The meetings need to be filled in the rest of the day. It was something that many of us learned from at that time. How are you setting boundaries around your own time? This is really important for us to be thinking about. We can set boundaries on everything, but the things that are most important for us, we need to set boundaries on. Another area that we need to think about boundaries is mental and emotional boundaries. Sometimes we make ourselves available to anyone, with problems to come to us, anyone who has a need to come to us and we feel important. And we feel like we're serving the greater good. But sometimes it's actually, because we feel. More self importance and we don't actually believe that other people have the capacity to build their competence and build their self. Assurance and ability to do the work on their own. And so we think we are saving them, serving them, but actually we're disabling them. And we're taking away their ability to go and think, and. And to solve problems on their own. And so how can we set boundaries to support others? These boundaries support us and support others. These are symbiotic boundaries. And what we want to make sure is that people learn to think through, to reflect, to journal, to use other strategies, to navigate stress and not always come to you. If you are not trained and equipped to be able to manage through their stress while managing your own wellbeing, where do you need to put those boundaries? These are some of the things that we have to be thinking about as our world becomes more and more complex, more mental health challenges are coming up and we don't know what is the cause of this. We don't know for sure. And so in your own life, you need to be prioritizing your wellbeing. And part of that is going to be looking at the ways in which you are not setting boundaries. Where do you feel cues about I'm uncomfortable with this. Someone pops to your house. He comes in and it's an evening of entertainment that you didn't plan for. How are you feeling about it? Is this a feeling of, oh, I'm so happy everybody's over or, oh my goodness. I had planned to finish up that project and now they're here. I won't be able to do it. How do you take control? How do you set boundaries? How do you help others? To have boundaries for themselves to develop independence and to learn to respect you and your boundaries. One of the things that I know for sure. That we don't have a lot of time and funerals remind to me of how. Replaceable we are that no one is a replaceable. No one brings something that people can't figure out. If we're not here. And a funerals are a great reminder of that. And so if we start while we're alive, We may end up having a better. Quality of life by helping others understand that we need that space, whether that's physical space, mental space, emotional space, material space, or time. We need that space. My experience has shown that shifting away from a place where you did not have any boundaries to a place where you create boundaries is a little bit challenging at times. But one experience that I have is that when you put a boundary, let's say someone texts me for some sort of help. I would normally go right away. To respond to the answer. And over the last couple of years, I would pause and not respond right away to a request. And then when I look back at it, someone would dress right back and say, oh, I figured it out. Or. Please ignore that. I've got the answer. And then I realized indeed. They have the answer. And once I don't provide an immediate response that they find the answer themselves. So part of giving boundaries and setting boundaries for yourself is creating space and giving space for others to come to that realization on their own. I made a mistake once semester as a professor. And I thought. During COVID the student really needed a lot more tech support. And the student was a mother and home and really did not. Feel like they could sufficiently and effectively navigate the tax space. I felt that was going to be a real obstacle to their learning. So I went above and beyond. So anytime the student would send a message, I would answer. And I did that for the first five weeks of the semester. And I felt by that time, the student. Should have used that as a bridge to be able to navigate the space. And then the week six, I decided to go back on my schedule. For answering students. This student was so angry with me. The student sent an email and said, I messaged you since 10 59 on Friday night. And you did not answer until Sunday afternoon. And that really taught me an important lesson. About when you do not set boundaries, you also set up others to have expectations that are unrealistic, to feel entitled to things that are not realistic and not reasonable. And literally you could set them up for failure by not putting appropriate boundaries in place. So put in a boundary in place for yourself, it does support you, but you're also supporting others and together, if you set boundaries for yourself, And leave space for others to respect that boundary and to develop their own independence off you. We're moving one step closer to your own wellbeing. And that is a real skill. That's hard to develop. That takes a lot of practice because that's going to be easier for me to do with my student than with my children than with an elderly person than with my neighbor. And you're going to find that something that's even easy for you to do at work is hard to do at home, or as one upskill or said easy for me to do everywhere in my life. Except when I'm dealing with a superior at work, someone who has the capacity. To evaluate my performance or impact my promotions and advancement. They're going to be those things that impact your capacity. To set boundaries. But start with the low hanging fruit. Start where it's easy for you. The bottom line is. Setting boundaries is healthy for you and also healthy for all the people around you. If you do not set boundaries at the beginning, when you try to set boundaries. It will impact your relationships. If you're accustomed to live in with healthy boundaries, everyone will live in better quality relationships. And so. That steak, this. New year as an opportunity to set new boundaries. To revisit. All the boundaries and reinforce them to put strategies in place. To maintain those boundaries because sometimes we set the boundaries and when someone crosses it, we don't set the reminder that this is not the way I like it. This is what I agreed to. This is what I'd asked you for. To remind them. Thank you for thinking of me, but I do remember telling you I'm not available on a Friday evening. I won't be able to attend. I'm not available on Friday evenings. Thank you. And keep doing that until those boundaries are understood. And reinforced, that's the way to maintain your boundaries.

Michel Shah 15:04

Thank you for listening to this episode of Upskill Talks. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe. Leave a five star rating in and a written review at Apple Podcast or follow us on. Google podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Don't forget to share upskill talks with other leaders like yourself so they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to upskill community.com to review show notes, and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, and again, thank you for joining me on this episode of Upskill Talks.