Hello there, this is Ajit Nawalkha
in today's video we are talking about
how to help your clients set better boundaries.
How to help your clients really have any boundaries.
If you're a life coach, a business coach,
a spiritual life coach, or a health coach,
you would love this particular video
because one of the key reasons
why very often we find our clients
not being able to adhere to what they come into
is because they have poor boundaries.
So today we are talking about how to help your clients
really have better boundaries
in different areas of their life.
Now, before even we get started,
let's understand what boundaries mean
in the context of this video.
In the context of this video,
I am purely addressing boundaries as
things that we are not okay with.
I tend to separate boundaries and agreements
just for the sake of
boundaries are things that we are not okay with.
Agreements are things that we agree to
that we'll be okay with or are expected of.
So for the sake of this video,
we're going to use boundaries
exclusively as things that we're not comfortable with.
To learn how to set better boundaries
would mean how to set better outlines
or permissions if I may,
for individuals to feel comfortable in different scenarios.
There're three primary areas
that you need to work with your clients
to have them have better boundaries.
The first area is the most ignored one
and that is having clear boundaries with yourself.
You see, we as individuals live so much on autopilot,
we are so unconscious of so many things
that are happening around us
that we forget when we are being violated by ourselves
or our boundaries are being violated by ourselves.
How many times have we found ourselves
months, years into a bad behavior that is hurtful to us,
but we continuously still pursue that behavior.
How many of us have felt that our friends walk all over us
and we don't really set a clear boundary for ourselves
to say, I don't wanna be walked or all over by my friends.
How many times has it happened to us where we say,
"Okay, I'm not gonna eat this particular thing
"for this much time"
but we've found ourselves doing the same thing.
Haven't we all at one point said,
"Damn the Thanksgiving dinner,
"I'm not going to overeat this time."
And then we end up in the same situation the next year
and the year after and the year after.
How many times have we violated our own boundary
of what we are not comfortable with
when we know the consequence of that particular act.
And that is why today we are at a situation
where we have a global pandemic of obesity, diabetes,
and over reading of sugar.
We need to set clear boundaries for ourselves
and then follow through on it.
We when we don't follow through on our boundaries,
we train our mind that it's okay to violate our boundaries
and we get back into the same rhythm.
Today we're gonna talk about a model
that you can show your clients
to have better boundaries with themselves.
And as they define those boundaries,
this model should also help them
keep this boundaries in check.
You see the easy part of boundaries with ourselves is
we are the only ones who know the complete truth,
which means when we violate a boundary,
when we don't respect what we set ourselves up to do,
boundaries with ourselves are the hardest one to monitor
because the only one only person
that can keep us accountable to that is ourselves.
If you set a boundary with yourself and you violate it
nobody else is going to come chasing.
Nobody is going to come remind,
but you have to remind yourself that you violated a boundary
and you can't let that happen again and again
because sooner or later
it will become unconscious behavior again
and you'll be back at the place where you once started.
So it's important to understand how to know
what is it that you need to set a boundary on,
how to set that boundary and how to follow through on it.
The second kind of boundary is boundaries with family.
When I say family I include parents, I mean kids,
I mean, partners with friends and so on and so forth.
Boundaries with family is very important.
This is the second type of boundary
that we let go of very easily.
How often do we let our friends walk all over us?
Or how often is it that our partner
gets to do the same thing
that they agreed to not do previously
and we completely ignore it?
They violate our boundaries and we think,
"Well, they will probably learn the next time."
How often does that happen in our client's lives,
where their family, immediate family,
just because they don't wanna change their nature
walk over their boundaries.
You see if we let our family members
violate our boundaries once,
they feel and they create this inherent belief
that if they try hard enough you will give up.
If they pursue the direction
that is comfortable for them you will give up.
It's not that they want you to give up.
They love you, but it's uncomfortable for them to change
and because it's uncomfortable for us to change
and it's easy to stay in the same pattern
as they've lived forever and ever, and ever,
they find it much easier to walk over your boundary
than to have you set up a clear boundary
and then have them follow it.
So it's important for us
to help our clients define clear family boundaries
if you want them to live their most epic life.
And lastly, the boundary that I wanna talk about
is the boundaries in career.
One of the areas that people don't feel entitled
to have boundaries is their career.
The reason why we don't feel like we should have boundaries
or we could have boundaries is because we believe that
well, we have a boss, we have somebody who's a colleague,
how could we have a boundary there?
They will get offended.
You could get fired.
You could lose a promotion that you're due for
and so on and so forth.
And so it becomes really difficult for us to say,
"Okay, I'm gonna have a boundary in my career
"or I'm gonna have a boundary with my boss
"or I'm gonna have a boundary with a colleague."
And so we don't actually set those boundaries up
and because we don't set those boundaries up,
we are constantly being attacked in our safe space.
If there is a colleague that feels a little creepy to you
or feels like it's somebody
that is not giving you any personal space
because they wanna be friends
or they just wanna hang out
because they're uncomfortable with their own being
and you're not able to clearly define that boundary
and not able to draw that line.
The only person getting violated
in that relationship is you.
The only person that is getting violated
or their boundaries getting violated is you.
They on the other hand,
are living a perfectly comfortable life.
They are living exactly as they want to.
It is a popular understanding that
boundaries are uncomfortable.
That boundaries restrict somebody
and boundaries are not an expression of love.
And I wanna reframe that for you
and potentially for your clients as well.
You see when somebody owns their boundaries.
When you know this is my boundaries,
these are my space for my career,
for my family and for myself,
it's an expression of self love.
It's an expression of love towards people
that they associate with.
It's an expression of love towards the job.
And here is why,
if you have a really good boundary towards yourself,
you are expressing to yourself that I am comfortable
and uncomfortable in these areas
and I'm going to honor myself
and only do things that I'm comfortable with.
I'm only going to do things
that I feel are an expression of love to myself.
When you define a boundary for yourself,
you are expressing love to your being
and so it is not you creating a restriction in your life,
it's actually creating a permission in your life
to fully love yourself by identifying
what is it that you're okay and not okay with.
Secondly, when you identify a boundary
with your friends and your family,
it's not that you are withholding love,
you are actually showing them how to love you better.
It is same as for example,
when you share with someone who is a loved one,
a family member, a friend, a lover, a partner, a kid,
a child, a parent, and you tell them,
"Hey, here is how you show love to me.
"Here is what my boundaries are
"and here is how if you will show love to me,
"I would really feel the true and honest love of yours."
I understand how is it that you like to express love,
but I receive love differently.
Would you be open to that conversation?
When you are able to clearly define that
it makes it easier for your parent,
for your kids, for your lovers,
for your friends to really express their love
in the most amazing way possible.
The only thing that needs to be understood is
how you communicate those boundaries
so they don't feel that you are restricting love from them
or taking your love away from them
or taking their power to give you love.
But how you communicate will actually help them understand
how to really express love towards you.
We're gonna talk about that in just a minute.
And lastly, when you have clear boundaries in workplace,
it actually makes you more productive.
Just imagine if you're somebody
who likes to take a break during lunchtime
and have quiet time and not engage in a social conversation
because well, maybe you do very heavy work
or you just liked that space for yourself
and when you go back and increases your productivity.
If you can create better outcomes in your workplace,
you will be considered for the next race.
You will be considered as the best employee.
You will be considered as somebody
that people want more and more of
because you are a high performer.
When you set clear boundaries,
when somebody is approaching you in a way
that is not acceptable to you
or somebody is trying to walk all over you
or all over your space.
When you define that boundary,
when you stablish that this is okay and this is not okay,
It actually tells them that they can't walk all over you,
that you are a person of your own right.
That you're not gonna let somebody take over.
And when you do that and demonstrate that in the workplace,
you're more likely to be seen as a leader
than seen as somebody
who is not comfortable to work with.
Having these clear boundaries,
help you show up a lot more authentically
in all areas of your life,
which helps you live the person that you truly are.
So how does one set of boundaries?
How do we help our clients set up these boundaries?
Well, there's a four part process
that you wanna follow to set up boundaries with anyone
or set up boundaries for yourself,
set a boundaries for an external person,
set up boundaries in your workplace
whatever that may be.
There are just four simple steps.
Here they are.
The first step is to identify an old boundary
or a lack of boundary.
You see, there will be areas in your life
that as I'm saying this is occurring to you
yep, I feel like I don't have any boundaries in this area
or I feel like I have let the other person
just do whatever they want to and I've been more reactive
and I haven't really defined how ABC
should happen in my life.
And that is an old boundary.
And that is a place
where maybe there is no boundaries whatsoever.
And now because I came to your mind
and it will come to your client's mind
you know that that's the area that's uncomfortable.
That's the area where you're not comfortable
with the way of life is shaping up.
It could be how you treat yourself.
It could be how somebody treats you.
It could be your workplace.
It could be anything,
but that's the area you are unhappy with
is that area where you would have an old boundary
or you don't have a boundary
and hence it's everybody else's agenda.
That becomes the agenda and hence of course,
you're dissatisfied in that scenario.
Even if you're pleasing everybody,
even if you're a people pleaser is getting satisfied,
you as a human being are not getting satisfied.
Same as for yourself.
If you're unhappy with yourself in a particular area,
that is probably because you have poor boundaries
or no boundaries whatsoever in that area of your life.
So first step is to identify the area.
Is identify what are the old boundaries
or no boundaries whatsoever in what area of your life?
The second step is to define these boundaries.
What is it that is the most ideal situation for you
to have in this conversation,
in this particular relationship
that you have with someone or with yourself.
Identify that and write it down
as to what is it that's okay.
Don't write it in context of what's not okay,
which has happened in the past
because sometimes that will become a boundary
that when communicated feel like a response
to something they did,
whereas it is an internal experience
of what you want in your own life.
So it's important the distinction,
the distinction is don't worry so much
about what you don't want, write down what you do want,
because when you write down what you do want
as a set of boundaries,
it will automatically become a little bit more communicated
because it will be driven from inside out
and not outside in it.
You won't be reacting to what shows up,
you will be responding to your inner compass.
Once you have identified what's your four or five
or six clear boundaries are in that area, communicate it.
Now, communicating something responsibly
in a way where somebody feels not threatened,
but actually affectionate about that boundary
is very key and very important.
You don't wanna set a boundary
which sounds like a rule of law.
You wanna set a boundary which is in collaboration
with the person that you're talking to.
You may wanna share with your client
how to communicate boundaries more effectively
to their colleagues or their family members
or to themselves which may be done through kinder words.
For example, you may be setting boundaries in your career
and you may be sitting down with your boss
and it may sound something like this.
Hi boss, I have been thinking about
how can I be a better performer at work?
I wanna take more responsibility
of my personal performance.
And one of this journeys that I have to take for that
is to set up clear boundaries
on how I interact with the rest of the world.
One of the things that I wanted to do
was to set up a clear method of us working together.
Would you be open to hearing out what I have to say
on how I think I can be more effective for you?
You see, as I said this,
I've got the buy-in from the boss to say,
okay, I would love for you to be more effective.
Every boss wants that.
And so the boss goes,
"Okay, sure tell me how can we be more effective?"
And now you laid the boundaries out in a way
where your boss feels like
that it's a collaborative approach that we have taken
to what's creating these boundaries.
For example, you may say,
"I would love for me to have some space in the afternoon
"because I know when I reflect
"and meditate for just 20 minutes,
"I become more productive right after that."
Would you be open if I took my lunchtime
exclusively for myself and took my time
to be able to meditate,
reflect on the previous half of the day,
reflect on the next half of the day
so I can be more effective in the remaining part of the day?
It's a generous request
that I am sure your boss will agree to.
You are having a clear boundary between you and them
so they understand how you become more effective
by simply following a simple rule
of not approaching you during lunchtime,
because that's the time you take lunch, reflect
and become more effective for the rest of the day.
You can follow this on once they've agreed
with some more clear directives like for example,
hey, this would mean that during lunchtime
I'm gonna turn my phone off,
which means I may not respond to you immediately,
I will respond to you when I'm back at my desk,
I would be more productive and effective
like I already talked about
and if there was ever an emergency,
I'll be at the cafeteria.
This way your boss knows that in the worst case scenario,
you're going to respond by lunch time.
And if really is an emergency
if you were a doctor or a hospital worker in some way
they will come to you in the cafeteria.
This way you have defined really clear boundaries
and you've communicated in a way
where the person does not see it as a threat or restriction,
but the person sees it as something
that you're collaborating on
so you could have more effective systems for work.
That brings me to the last step
of creating great boundaries.
And that is to set up consequences.
Consequences are where you communicate
that if we violate boundaries what would happen?
Because sometimes knowingly unknowingly,
consciously unconsciously,
the person that you're setting the boundary with
especially when they're outside of you
are not aware how much impact
that boundary is having on you.
They will go back to their old style, their old rhythm
and they would like to do that.
Not because they wanna violate your boundaries,
but because that's more comfortable for them.
And because they would wanna do that,
they need to understand that every time they do do that
they will be violating your boundary
and it will have its own set of consequences.
So let's go back to the example of you talking to your boss,
where you have set some clear boundaries
and your boss forgets about it say two weeks later
and starts calling you in the middle of the day
when you take your meditation break
or your break for a pause.
What may happen is you may go back to your boss and say,
"Hey, listen, two weeks ago we talked about
"that I need XYZ space
"because I need to be more effective and productive
"and as you may have already experienced
"having that space has increased my productivity
"in the last two weeks.
"I saw that today you rang me
"in the middle of that meditation
"which broke my flow."
That is a consequence currently I feel antsy,
I don't feel that I'm fully aligned,
I don't know what my next area of work is.
Would you be open to discussing how I could help you
understand how important this is to me?
Now in a work situation, especially talking to your boss,
you may have to walk around your language a little bit,
but if this was a life partner, if this was your kids,
if this was your parents, if this was you yourself
and setting a boundary for yourself,
you could be lot more stern.
You could have real consequences like,
I am going to walk away
if you are going to talk to me in a particular way.
I am going to go and take a day at the hotel
because you're violating my boundary
and I wouldn't wanna be around you.
Those are more extreme cases because usually
boundaries in family and for ourselves
is also a lot more extreme.
They're violated more often, more frequently
and each of their violation lands a lot more harder on us
because this is our family and our personal self.
So you could be a little bit more stern
inside a family environment,
inside your own personal environment for yourself,
but in the career setting,
you might wanna find a roundabout way
to say the same thing,
but still demonstrate that there will be consequences
if your boss or your colleagues
don't respect your boundaries.
So we talked about three kinds of boundaries.
We talked about boundaries for yourself.
We talked about boundaries with your family
and boundaries with their career
and then we talked about four simple steps
that you can use to set up boundaries
and your clients can use to set up boundaries.
Step one is to firstly understand
what are your old boundaries or lack of boundaries.
Step two is to identify your real boundary.
Step three is to communicate it effectively
and step four is to set up consequences
in case those boundaries are violated.
As a life coach, as a spiritual life coach,
as a business coach, as a health coach,
you will see that you will be working with boundaries
pretty often because if nowhere else
boundaries get violated within ourselves all the time.
And as we get better at it,
we find more areas of our life
where we have not practiced great boundaries.
So it's important for you
to remind your client and work with them
every once in a while to set some great boundaries,
set up a process to actually follow through
on those boundaries and set up consequences
so to make sure that those boundaries are getting followed.
Have you struggled with boundaries yourself?
Have you worked with clients on boundaries?
If the answer is yes,
I would love to know a little bit more about that
in the comment section below.
I'd love to hear your own personal journey
with your boundaries or some of the ideas
that you may have picked from this video.
If you liked What I talked about today, hit the like button,
share it with a friend that can use this information,
hit the red subscribe button if you haven't yet
so you can get a notification every single time
we release a new video for you every single week.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is Ajit Nawalkha and you're watching this on Evercoach.