The Block Of Not Setting Boundaries (Ep 3 of Mindset Shifts)

Boundaries. We all need them, but setting them can be a challenge. This episode of the podcast takes you on a journey of understanding and implementing boundaries for success, both in your personal life and in your business. We discuss the impact of not having clear boundaries and how it can lead to overwhelming feelings and lack of focus. Discover three ways to identify if you have this block and get armed with four insightful questions to help you put the right boundaries in place.

Are you feeling overwhelmed? Do you feel like your responsibilities towards others are hindering your own growth? Let's take a cue from my personal experience with balancing caring for my mother-in-law and managing my own life and business. This episode will enlighten you on how to avoid feeling overwhelmed by setting practical boundaries. Understand the art of checking in with yourself to gauge your state of overwhelm and learn how tweaking your boundaries can help you navigate through demanding situations while still pursuing your goals.

Finally, dare to step out of your comfort zone and set boundaries for your personal growth. No, it's not always easy, especially when the people in your life are used to you showing up in a certain way. But the power in our thoughts, feelings, and actions can be harnessed to create healthier boundaries. With the right boundaries, you can value yourself more and make significant strides towards personal growth. As a sweet finish, get your hands on a free PDF available on my Instagram page @KushChadwick that's designed to help you establish healthier boundaries in your business and life. Don't miss out on this opportunity to redefine your boundaries and take charge of your life.

If you want to become a 6-figure or 7 figure Coach, come on over and connect with Kushla:

- on Instagram, you'll find her @KushlaChadwickOfficial

- on Facebook, come join our community here: Community

- To book a free $100k Roadmap Session or go on the waiting list for one, go here: https://calendly.com/kushlateam/roadmap

Transcript

Kushla Chadwick: 0:00

This is episode 10 of the Confident Coach Academy podcast and the third episode in our special series. Our eight part series of mindset blocks are keeping you stuck. Today, we're diving in and talking all about the block of not having boundaries. So let's dive in, my friend. Welcome to the Confident Coach Academy podcast. I'm your host, Kushla Chadwick, and if you have an audacious dream to really be at service in the world, build a profitable coaching business online and have an awesome life offline, then, my love, you are in the right place. Together we're going to talk strategy, mindset, manifestation, thought work, energy work, all the things so let's dive in. Hey, my love, I hope you're doing amazing.

Kushla Chadwick: 0:46

I am ready to dive in and talk about this block so hard. I'm really excited to talk about the block of not having boundaries, and it's something that I have coached so many clients through when they are trying to get momentum in their business or trying to go to the next level. Maybe you've already got momentum. I've had clients who come in and they're like at the six figure mark or they're going into multi six figures and they want to go to the next level, but there's some new boundaries that are got to be put in place and so, yeah, this is a really exciting conversation because I see very fast, very tangible results happen when you put the right boundaries in place for you, your household and your business. So, anyway, let's dive in and talk about the things I for sure want you to look out for so that you can recognize if there is a boundary that needs to be put in place. And also, I'm going to give you guys four questions that you can ask yourself. They're really simple questions that are going to help revolutionize, hopefully, the way you show up for you yourself, your client, your business, your family, whoever it is that you, like you know in life with Right. So let's dive in.

Kushla Chadwick: 2:15

I want to talk about three specific ways, generally, that you can tell if there's a boundary that needs to be put in place. There are going to be more ways than these three, but these are the three primary ones that I see being an issue time and time again. They were an issue for me at one time or another. I know that as I up level, then different things will come up and maybe one or maybe even all of these areas and they for sure have come up with, like so many of my clients, as we have coached together. Alright, so the three things I want you to look out for are do you feel, on a regular basis, frustration, anger or resentment? Do you feel on a regular basis, a lack of focus? Particularly, I want to ask you are you getting interrupted? And the third thing is are you feeling overwhelmed on a regular basis? Okay, so those were frustration, anger and resentment. They're one, the other one is interruption and lack of focus and the third one is overwhelm. So I want to dive into each of these a little bit more and then I'm going to give you four questions.

Kushla Chadwick: 3:32

I want to start off, actually, by talking about interruption, because interruption has been a huge challenge for me, in particular, interruption and lack of focus. And I had my brain scanned actually many years ago, or maybe about four years ago, and I had a neurofeedback brain scan. To get more specific. For those of you who know neurofeedback, that will be helpful information if you don't. Well, you can Google it. In any case, I had my brain scanned and what they identified in my brain scan were ADHD markers. Now, that's not to say I've got a diagnosis of ADHD. My eldest daughter often jokes around about this with me and, yeah, I'm okay if I have it and I'm okay if I don't, because either way, I just think that everyone needs to do the work of supporting their brains and taking really good care of our brain health.

Kushla Chadwick: 4:34

But anyway, as I was saying, interruption and lack of focus has been a challenge for me, and one of the things that I used to do often was go out spontaneously and do something that wasn't on my agenda to do for the day at the time that I thought I was going to work. So, for instance, my sister might call or message me see if I wanted to go out for a brunch and I'd be like, yeah, let's do it. Or my sister-in-law would call and see if I wanted to visit with my nephews and like, yeah, let's do it. Or a friend would contact me and say, hey, do you want to bring your girls? Because I homeschooled my children. And sometimes that message means, hey, do you want to go? Just do this with the girls. And I'd be like, yeah, let's do it. And so, obviously, doing things with family and friends is a great thing to do, but doing it at the expense of the work which I had scheduled to do, and then I wouldn't go back later and do.

Kushla Chadwick: 5:38

It was a big challenge for me. And it doesn't mean that sometimes you can't just, you know, reschedule working, that you can't do spontaneous things, absolutely you can, but you want to have some boundaries in place around when are your work hours? I can tell you I'm as is freedom loving, as freedom loving people come and, and if we don't have structures in place, we will never really be able to have the spontaneity and freedom that we truly desire. And so it's really important that you have structures in place to support you to do that. And and the year I decided not not the yes or the night that I decided that I was a six-figure coach, well, the very next day I started putting boundaries in place for how I was gonna run my business, and so many of those boundaries eliminated interruption in my life. I'll give you an example of one of them.

Kushla Chadwick: 6:42

So I have a family messenger group that I'm a part of that involves, like my siblings, our children, like you know, because all of our, or most of my nieces and nephews like adults now and in laws, and so it's like a big group. Right, there's six siblings all together and and then we've got a bunch of children as well. So, anyway, I would go in this group daily and check on the messages that we have, we've had. You know I'd get notifications and I'd go check and then I would think to myself, oh yeah, I'll go back to work, but I would get stuck in the message and, you know, start socializing with my family members or I would lose momentum on the task that I was doing. And it takes energy to stop and start something. Particularly once you're in the flow of it. It can be really damaging to how well you do your work and, obviously, how effectively and efficiently you do it.

Kushla Chadwick: 7:46

So I would go into this messenger group and, like I said, the very next day after deciding that I was a six-figure coach, I went in and I messaged my family and I was like, hey, by the way, I am now working, and I told them the hours that I was working, the days that I was working, and I said and, and I shouldn't be in messenger and here with you guys during these hours. So if you see me in here, could you please, please, remind me that I shouldn't be in here and ask me to leave. And I'm very grateful, like my family were very supportive. It only took like maybe a handful of times, maybe two or three times, for them to remind me before I was like, okay, I need to stop bothering my family and keep my own boundary with myself.

Kushla Chadwick: 8:39

So it's funny sometimes we can think of interruption as being something that happens from other people. For me, I was interrupting myself, using technology to interrupt myself, and for you it could be other family members or friends, or technology yourself, or maybe it's all of these things, but it's definitely something to watch out for. It's one of the areas where we most need to set boundaries, and I am gonna talk about, like, why, actually, why don't we set boundaries with ourselves? Because there is definitely a mindset and an energy block as to why. But after I've talked about these a little bit, then I'll go into that.

Kushla Chadwick: 9:21

So the next one that I wanted to talk about was when we feel frustrated or anger or resentment, and usually what I have found to be at the bottom of this is because we feel like others aren't giving us what we want, or something isn't giving us what we want, and usually it's because we haven't asked for it. At least we haven't asked for it explicitly, clearly, in the way that the other person needs to hear it so that they can really take it in, and so that's one that's been huge, and I see that a lot with women who have got children at home and their husband or their partner they feel like isn't doing their part, either around the house or with the children, so it can look like not looking after the kids while you're trying to work and the kids interrupting you or you, you know, you having to cook more and and it can be. It can look like so many things and it's not like these issues which are just kind of applied to us as coaches or entrepreneurs. These, you know, people who have jobs are going to go through the same kinds of challenges or can go through the same kind of challenges with boundaries. But I find that, at least with my clients, with myself, because we work at home, it kind of the feelings about it tend to be amplified because you're in that environment where you know other work needs to be done, which is equally important in the home as well, and because we're there in the home. It can feel like whether this is true or whether it's just your feelings about it, but it can feel like you're expected to do everything that you used to do within the home, perhaps, and then also run your business, and obviously you haven't split yourself in two. You haven't given yourself extra hours in the day. So things need to change, scheduling needs to change, and I see frustration, anger, resentment boot up a lot in that area, but it can be in many areas of your life and your business, and so if you are feeling frustration, anger or resentment, I want you to ask yourself what boundary needs to be said here and like have you asked it explicitly? Okay, and have you got agreement on it, by the way, okay?

Kushla Chadwick: 11:49

And the third thing that I want you to look out for when it comes to your boundaries is to check in and see are you overwhelmed? And I think it can be natural to feel overwhelmed, for instance, when you are maybe learning how to use a new social media platform, or maybe what the social media platform you're on does these big sweeping changes and you're like what the heck? I just got used to the old way of doing it, you know. And school building when you don't want to school build anymore, can just feel like an overwhelming process, like let's just be honest about that, okay, but that's not the kind of overwhelm that I'm talking about and that is temporary because ultimately, if that's you, if there's been a change, you need to school build, then you need to just make the decision to school build and then learn the skill and implement it right. But the kind of overwhelm that I'm talking about is an overwhelm that happens when you pretty consistently putting other people's needs and agendas ahead of your own.

Kushla Chadwick: 12:56

And again, I see there's been a huge challenge for women who are at home and often, if we have families, or even some of my clients who don't have children and they're the carers for their parents, that is actually more common than many of you might realize. But there can be all sorts of personal circumstances that can come up and you know we can say like, yes, this is, this is what I'm taking on and I'm not saying it's wrong to help care for someone else. In fact, I think we need more of it and I think it's amazing when we step up to help one another. I don't think I'd be a Christian if I didn't believe in helping other people right and for free, without expectations sometimes of getting anything back at all, not even a thank you. I think super, super important that we we make ourselves available to be truly kind and generous and loving and supportive to other people, and sometimes that means even at the expense of our own agendas. Like you, what we need to do in running our business. However, you still have to, and especially, actually, if you're someone like that, then you have to have really strong boundaries around what that will look like, for how long, and be very clear on what is the expense of that. And I would say, know that it doesn't require you giving up on your dreams and your goals that you've been working towards.

Kushla Chadwick: 14:31

And I'll give you a very personal example, so excuse me, my beautiful mother-in-law, shirley, passed away early this year, in January this year. Prior to her passing, she lived with us for just under four months and it was really difficult. She was in a lot of pain and it kind of come on unexpectedly. She did have cancer, but we had been told that it was actually getting better and we hadn't heard that it was getting worse until it was much worse, and so she'd just she'd been keeping it from us and from the rest of the family. So we really felt unprepared when we found out how bad it was and at what stage it was and, honestly, we could have fallen into a big hot mess.

Kushla Chadwick: 15:30

I could have, like you know, really sabotaged my business. If it were me in the past, I would tell you I probably would have sabotaged my business. To be quite honest, I probably would have been the one to make most of the sacrifice and allowed everyone else to try and go about their business with as little interruption as possible, and I would have been the one trying to put my mother-in-law's needs first, exclusively. That would have been me in the past and I can tell you I was very, very pleased, actually not with the circumstance, but with how my husband and my children and I were able to help each other in the circumstance in the way that we did it. Of course, we made requests and also we had boundaries and boundaries. Sometimes we think it's like a really big, difficult conversation that needs to be had, where you say this is what I want from you and we make requests and all sounds very, very official. Boundaries don't always have to look like that and for us in this instance, it was just like a very collaborative way that we did things.

Kushla Chadwick: 16:48

We needed to have people to make sure that there was always someone around in the house for her, that there was someone to administer and watch over her medication, which was given intravenously each day, and also assistants getting to the bathroom and using the bathroom. You know she couldn't I think she could shower for only maybe the first month not even that actually. And so there were a lot of things that could have been an opportunity for me to put my mother-in-law first and of course, there were times when she absolutely was the very first priority and the only priority of mine or my husband's or my children. But we were able to collaborate together and work well together to figure it out so that we could experience as little overwhelm as possible in the situation, and I would be dishonest if I said it wasn't sometimes overwhelming, because it certainly was.

Kushla Chadwick: 17:54

I won't go into like all of the details, but you know it was at times overwhelming, but what helped it to be less overwhelming for all of us, and particularly for me as a business owner who ran my business from home, where I was happened to care for my mother-in-law, was through like just knowing when am I available, when am I not available? When is my husband going to be available? Right, I was making sure we all stepped up to the plate and we knew, like, who really was responsible for what. You know, it was also making sure that the boundaries were good with my daughters, like how much are we going to get them to help support us and what can we do to make sure that they are feeling emotionally relieved and able to let go of some of the things that were really difficult about the situation. So for them, and also for myself and my husband and you know, sometimes it took me scheduling less work, sometimes it meant my husband scheduling days off and in fact he scheduled many days off to make sure.

Kushla Chadwick: 19:10

But again, if this were the old me, I would have done it all. I would have sacrificed my business, or at least perhaps part of my business, like maybe the lead generating side of my business, right, and I would have just kept up with the maintenance of taking care of my clients. So what I want you to know here is I talk about this very personal circumstances that there are many things that can come up for you that will make you think that it has to be either this or that. I can tell you because I've gone through so many varied circumstances and seen so many clients have gone through some major challenges, and I'll give you an example One of my clients while we've been working together, she's in one of the group programs that are running at the moment. Her house actually burnt down to the ground. She accidentally left a heater on and her house burnt down. Also, her car broke down Like it's Gonski, and so there can be challenges that come at us from all sorts of angles and, of course, those challenges need to be addressed.

Kushla Chadwick: 20:23

And, again, we need to make sure that we know what is your business require of you, what are your clients require of you? What do you require of yourself in order to show up for your business? What do you require of yourself to be able to show up for your family, and what do you require of yourself to show up for you, for yourself, because if you don't take care of yourself, then you're not going to be able to do a great job of taking care of anything else, and so it's really important, obviously, that you are taking the time and putting in boundaries in place to take care of you as well. Okay, so I mentioned overwhelm, interruption and lack of focus, and frustration, anger and resentment, like these are the three areas which I see most often be a problem, and so I want to be able to give you some advice around what you can do if this is you or, by the way, even if there's a boundary in another area you need to set.

Kushla Chadwick: 21:28

So I have here a few questions, like four specific questions, that you can ask yourself. So I'm going to share these questions and then I just want to talk a little bit more in general about what does it mean, like, why does this happen? So let me share the four questions first, right? So the first question you can ask is what do I feel takes not what, sorry. Who do I feel takes me for granted? So, is it clients? Is it your spouse or partner? Is it your parents? Is it your children? Maybe you've got coworkers, maybe you're still working in a job, team members, who do you feel takes you for granted? Right, and don't judge the answers. It's not about actually blaming anyone else. You know this. When we're looking at boundaries, it's what's within our power to do. And the next question you can ask yourself is what boundaries have I miss setting with them or with yourself if it's you breaking your own boundaries?

Kushla Chadwick: 22:23

So is it about showing up on time? Is it not being available at certain times. I know for me. Actually, I have one of my brothers who this year earlier this year he started going to an endorsement pool and that pool has like a spa, a sauna and a steam room and he goes there on the same day every week and it's part of his little self care routine that he has. I really love it. I think it's awesome. And he started asking me if I wanted to come and join him and I honestly would love to go. I'd love to go, but it's on the day that I have scheduled for my podcast recording and or anything to do with the podcast production side of things. And so, even though I'd love to go and hang out with my brother, you know, have some chill conversation where we enjoy a spa, sauna and a steam room. Oh, yeah, yeah, the steam room, I'm just. I was just trying to think, is it separate, is it unisex, or blah, blah, blah. Anyway, yeah, enjoy all those things together.

Kushla Chadwick: 23:31

I choose not to, because I choose to not be available at that time. It's a boundary that I've set in place for myself and I need to let my brother know about it, and I have and, by the way, my brother's, like he knows about it, but every now and again he still asks me because he's not sure if it's you know, something that I will keep doing. And so sometimes you will get people who are going to make requests of you and they're not quite sure of how you do this whole at home business kind of thing. Well, actually, so many more people are aware of it now, after you know the last few years, there's so many more people who do work from home or who have at least experienced it, so they are aware of some other challenges. However, it's up to you to set your boundaries and to let people know. So you're.

Kushla Chadwick: 24:23

The question again that you can ask yourself is which boundaries have I mis-setting with them? And again it could show up in terms of like are they showing up on time? Is it about not being available at certain times, like the experience that I shared with my brother, or not being interrupted, etc. That kind of stuff. Okay, so that's question number two. The third question is which feelings do I get to avoid by not setting boundaries with them?

Kushla Chadwick: 24:49

So here's the thing boundaries are amazing, and when we don't set boundaries, usually it's for one of two reasons. Number one is that we don't want to face a feeling, so we are trying to. I don't know why in my brain that was complicated. We're trying to avoid a feeling and the other reason is we don't want to say no, we can be afraid of a poor reaction, and so we can get into that space. We're really like I'm not trying to name call here, but we really do try and manipulate others through, like giving them the answer that they want and not being genuine. We're a bit disingenuous. Sometimes we don't recognize it for ourselves because we've ingrained the habit of it so much. But yeah, those are the two main reasons that we don't set boundaries to avoid a feeling, or we just don't want to say no, we don't want to see or experience a reaction, a poor reaction that someone might have. You know this is us guessing that they might have it and so, yeah, what feelings are you avoiding?

Kushla Chadwick: 25:58

And then fourth question is how can I value myself more and set the boundary? In other words, what will I do to set the boundary? So this really is. You know, if you look at the coaching framework that I teach and many other coaches teach it, it's not unique to just me. But you know, if you have a look at. We have circumstance and we've got our thoughts, feelings, actions, and then from there we can, you know, see the result right. And so our power lies in the the bit in the middle, not on the circumstance, it's in the thoughts, feelings and actions. And with question four it is really about, like, what are you going to put in your action line? And with actions, it's not just what you do, it's like I look at it like this DDR so what you do, don't do or react or respond to, right. So what are you going to put on your action line? Like, what are you going to do to set the boundary? What requests are you going to make? And sometimes we've got to sit down and and really look at things.

Kushla Chadwick: 27:07

And it can be really uncomfortable to set boundaries when you haven't set them in a long time or when you know that the people in your life is so used to you showing up a certain way, but what you desire and the goals that you have require you to show up differently in some way. Well, it's uncomfortable when we get to this stage and we like we want to avoid it, like heck right, we're like, I don't want to do it, we don't want to be perceived a certain way, but I want you to know that if you want to be able to influence people in a really positive way more often, you have to become good at setting boundaries in your business, in your life, in your relationships with technology, with all the things right with yourself. So I'll list those again. You need to set boundaries with yourself, with your family, with your business, with other people and with technology, and it starts with getting to know yourself, getting to know your personal preferences, getting to know what will work for you now and also the you who has the results in the future. You want to pull her into your lifestyle now. So think about like what boundaries does she have the, the future self, the one who's already made the six figures or multi six figures or seven figures or more right? Like what is her life like? What boundaries would she have in place? Don't think that you're gonna wait to hit the goal or get the result before you start creating the boundaries that she has. You actually have to create them now and live into them.

Kushla Chadwick: 28:49

Like I've said and shared before, like the things that I did immediately upon making the decision to be a six figure coach was. I started having a look at what boundaries I needed to put in place for myself and I can tell you the the so I made the decision in the evening. The morning after was when I sent that message to my siblings about, like you know, hey, I can't be in the groups, I can't respond to the messages anymore. These are my times that I'm working, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, boundaries are going to save you from yourself and save you from being always in that reactive space with other people. Okay, it's gonna put you in a place where you get to make very intentional, informed, smart decisions that are gonna work for you and the people that you love and the people you're trying to help and the people you're influencing. And you may see how it influences them or you may not, but when you're showing up in alignment with your values and in alignment with your goals, I promise you it's going to have a far more profound and positive impact than if you don't show up in alignment with them. Anyway, my loves, I hope this has been how I'm really helpful for you.

Kushla Chadwick: 30:02

I think I'll finish by sharing one of my favorite little quotes on boundaries, and this is from Brene Brown, of course, right, but she said one of the most shocking findings of my work was the idea that the most compassionate people I've interviewed over the last 13 years are absolutely the most boundaries. So, my friend, I know coaches so many coaches come into this work because we're filled with empathy and compassion for other people. Okay, you really want to be the most compassionate version of yourself? Get bounded up, my friend. And that's it for me. That's it for me. That's it from me for today. I hope you have an amazing week.

Kushla Chadwick: 30:49

I look forward to chatting with you soon, and before I sign off, I just want to say if getting help and support with creating good, healthy, strong boundaries in your business and in your life is something you want support with. I actually have got a PDF on this, which I'll just give to you. I haven't created a funnel for it at all. It's from a program that I ran years ago. I'm having to give it away to you, though, if it's going to be helpful for you, all you need to do is come on over to Instagram. So come to. It's Kush Chadwick, so not my whole name, just Kush Chadwick over there, and you can message me and then just type in boundaries PDF please. Like that's it. And yeah, and don't do voice message because it's not as easy to respond to those, right, so just type in boundaries PDF please, and I will get it sent off to you as quickly as I can. Anyway, have an awesome day, have a great week, lots of love and sunshine, and I'll catch you soon.