Boundaries Start with You: How Setting Limits Boosts Your Productivity

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time For Success podcast. This is episode number 193. If you happen to struggle with feeling stretched too thin or feeling like you never have enough time for yourself or that you're under some sort of pressure to please other people all the time, this episode is gonna be very interesting for you. I talk in this episode about the concept of having better self boundaries. I will explain to you in the episode what that means, and I will share with you some techniques for identifying areas where you might need some boundary tweaking so that you can carve out more time for yourself and do the work and do the relationship stuff that you're really meant to do. None of this funny business where you're wasting your time and you're wasting your energy anymore. We've got no more time for that. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:03]:
Hi. I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:49]:
So the idea for this episode on boundaries came quite organically because earlier today, I did a TikTok post about how it's important to maintain your own ideas about what you need in order to have good boundaries with other people. So I thought to myself, when I sat down at my computer and needed an idea for this week's episode, I thought to myself, let me expand upon these concepts because I don't often talk about boundaries, and I don't often talk about boundaries when it comes to efficiency and time management either. But I do, in my heart of hearts and in my own experience, really believe and understand that unless you have really good interpersonal boundaries, you're gonna have some trouble regulating your time and your energy. I just think that if you don't really have a philosophy and a consistent practice of tending to your own needs and how you work and negotiate with other people, your schedule's gonna be taxed. You're going to be saying yes to more things than you may have time for. You're going to feel perhaps overwhelmed by the idea that you should be helping out more people than you are able to with the time that you have, and things like that. I think that's the kinds of situations that come to mind when we talk about boundaries. Typically, boundaries really conjure up conversations about people pleasing and over committing and getting into situations where you're in other people's business or other people are in your business.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:48]:
So I thought we'd just take today's conversation together and straighten out some of these concepts so you can apply them in your own life if you happen to have a little bit of difficulty maintaining good self boundaries. So let's start with a definition of what are self boundaries. And for the sake of this conversation, let's just say that self boundaries are when you know what you can and cannot do with your time and your energy and your schedule. You just have this internal sense that there's a limit, that there's only so much time in the day, that you've got so many different appointments already, that you only have this much to spare. And you know that as a concept, you know that intuitively. And to have good self boundaries means that you are representing that reality, that you are not promising more than you can do, that you are not operating in imaginary time, that you're being open and honest with other people about what you're willing to do and what you can do, and also with what you can't. And I do think to have really good, healthy, consistent self boundaries is quite a trick. I do think many of us don't come into adulthood knowing exactly how to manage that because life is so complicated and people are so complicated and we all have really great imaginations.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:29]:
I think if you tend to feel like you need to make everybody happy, maybe you were raised in that kind of environment where you felt the pressure to perform, the pressure to behave, the pressure to say yes, it might feel really tricky to, as an adult, say, no, I just can't do that. No, I don't have the time for that. Or Nope, I don't want to do that. And these are things that I promise you, if you're not at that stage where you can say a confident no to other people, I promise you that this is something that you can learn. I promise you that when you do learn this, you're gonna automatically see a return on your energy. It might feel a little tricky and a little bit even anxiety provoking when you first start to do this, when you first start to represent yourself and your needs. But the payoff in the end is gonna be enormous because you will see your energy returning. You will see yourself having more room, not only in your schedule, but in your heart to do the things that really are meaningful to you because you said no to the things that you don't wanna do, that you don't like to do, that you never wanted to come close to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:52]:
And we've all been there. We've all been there where we felt a little bit awkward about saying no, but we've also all been there where we've just wanted some more time to be able to do the things that we really want to do, the things that we were put on this planet to do, the things that are really meaningful and joy inducing for us. So I do think, again, this topic of getting better at protecting your boundaries, your own self and what you're willing to do is incredibly important. So I'm really glad that I accidentally came up with this topic for this episode because I don't think we talk about this stuff enough. I think we leave it to the zone of personal and private therapy. We leave it to maybe heart to heart conversations with our parents or loved ones or mentors or coaches. But I think these kinds of conversations should be much more open, much more frequent because when everyone feels safe and protected within their boundaries, I do think that everyone then becomes much more available, ironically, for living in society and living cooperatively so much more vibrantly, so much more successfully that when we're actually saying yes, when we really mean yes, think about how good the world is gonna be when we all get to a point where we're not afraid anymore. We're not doing things because we're stressed out or because we feel obligated.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:34]:
We're doing things because we love to do them because we want to do them and because we're in control of our own wants, needs, desires, and schedules. So that's my description of the importance of self boundaries. Now, how do you apply this to your own situation? I think at this point in the episode, I'd love for you to grab a piece of paper if you're not driving a car or doing something else that is really occupying your attention. Take a piece of paper and just jot down some notes to yourself and think to yourself, in what areas of my life am I currently feeling overwhelmed or stretched too thin or like I'm in the wrong zone somehow, like something is not working correctly for you. Put all of those areas on a sheet of paper and then reflect yourself. What could you do? What steps could you take to strengthen the boundaries that you have in those areas? So if it is volunteering your time away, which I used to do all the time back in the day, if that happens to be your current issue, can you come up with a line that you always have in your back pocket for when somebody comes to you asking you to volunteer for something or to help out with something or to chip in with something? You could say something like, I'm really grateful to you for doing this charity work or this volunteer work, and I wish I could help you, but currently, I don't have the time. And that rolls off my tongue right now because I've been practicing managing my time for some time now. But maybe you're brand new to this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:25]:
Maybe you do need to practice in private to yourself. What would you say to the next person who comes to you asking for some time where you don't wanna give the time over? I promise you again, I know I make a lot of promises, but I promise you that your energy is going to be nurtured when you decide to be truthful about what you can do, both in the positive and the negative. Saying, yes, I can do that, and no, I don't wanna do that. When you're truly honest and authentic about telling people what is up with you, what you actually wanna have happen, your energy is gonna be protected. You will have more space in your heart for excitement for when the yeses really do come for the exciting opportunities that are definitely on their way to you. And I think it really helps to balance out anxiety as well. I think oftentimes we create a lot of anxiety imagining what other people are thinking about our decisions and our choices and our responses when people request things of us. I think we get into a dramatic mode thinking, oh, they're gonna be so upset.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:51]:
Oh, they are gonna feel like they're helpless and helpless because they don't have anybody else to ask. Those kinds of stories that we tend to create innocently because we care. There are reasons why we go into that mode. But I want to share this message with you in this episode, that when you hold your ground, when you decide for yourself, you know, Christine said in that podcast episode that if I take care of my own zone, everyone else's zones are also going to work out. I remember what Christine said, and I'm gonna stay calm. I'm gonna regulate my nervous system. I'm going to limit what I say here because I tend to have the habit of just saying yes because of pressure. And then when you decide, oh, I survived that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:48]:
I protected my time. Let me see how that works. And then you get the benefits of that extra time. You get the benefits of practicing a new habit of being able to say no to someone without feeling like you were gonna get punished or criticized or without feeling that you couldn't withstand the reactions of the other person. You will survive the feelings and the thoughts that the other people have of you. I think the reason why sometimes we have not great boundaries in the first place is that we fear that the other person's judgment or negativity or words to us or criticisms or just even a glance would make us crumble, would make us feel so badly. But in the end, it really works out. It works out that if you protect your time, everybody else has to manage their time, and they have to find somebody else to help them with that thing.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:49]:
It really does work out that way. It's a lesson that I had to learn myself again as a former people pleaser and as a former massive volunteer my time away kind of person. I've learned my lessons, and I learned them in some ways the hard way because I went through a lot of energy loss and time loss and a lot of fearful imagining of how other people would be so upset with me if I didn't do this, that, and the other things. And all those years of leaving my personal priorities in the back seat, you know, I'm really grateful that I've transitioned out of that phase. And I can feel so much more confidently about how I set my schedule, how I set my intentions, how I promise or don't promise my time. And it's not to say that I'm perfect in any of these areas, but I do feel like I'm so much more calm in doing these processes. And I feel like I'm so much more clear headed about doing any sort of planning when it comes to working with other people. And I just wanted to pass that on to you in case you're in a zone where you're feeling like something needs to be tweaked.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:07]:
You don't exactly know how, but maybe you were looking for just the podcast episode to give you some ideas about how to reflect on what you're doing and how to tweak it just a little bit so that you have more for yourself in the end. And so that everyone ends up being okay when all is said and done. And I promise you everything is gonna be just fine. So I hope this episode has been helpful to you. I hope it helps you whether or not you have boundary issues. I hope it helps to inspire you to do what your heart really wants you to do because that's good for all of us. When you're thriving, we all thrive. And I wish you all the best in your efforts at personal development and time management and boundary strengthening.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:03]:
I have developed a free worksheet for you on self boundaries and to get that, all you need to do is sign up for it by going to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/boundaries. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/boundaries. And as always, I will see you next week with another set of reflections for how to make time for success. Take care and thanks so much for being here.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:39]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:19]:
Talk to you soon.