Setting Boundaries

What’s one thing you always seem to need more of but have a difficult time finding? If you answered ‘time’, we see you! Join us as we address this challenge and sharing a story of how one leader found a way to create ‘more time’ through the magic of boundary setting!

Setting Boundaries

 

Alicia Davis
Stacie, we want to talk about another topic in our Elevating Skills of Experienced Leaders that I think comes up a lot, which is, how do we set boundaries? Because we know boundary setting also relates to resilience, because it’s about how we’re using our time. And boy, is it a topic that can be really challenging, isn’t it?

Stacie Watson
It really is. I mean, if you bring a group of leaders into a room and ask them, what, you know, their top two or three challenges are usually, you know, time, enough time, not enough time, some version of that will come up in the top two or three, right?

Alicia Davis
That’s right.

Stacie Watson
And, you know, I think oftentimes with leaders, we can get into the habit of how we work and when we work. And I was just sharing with you, I was with a group of leaders, and you know, one of the leaders was talking about the fact that there is no time. And you know, I think it’s great to be strategic. I think it’s great to do all these things. And yet, you know, I’m working in the evening. I’m working the weekends. And of course, I believe this person. Of course, I believe that’s hard for you.

Alicia Davis
Sure, right!

Stacie Watson
And you know, when I offered this conundrum to the rest of the room, you know, “What do you all do? Or how might you provide some thoughts here?” You know, several people gave very specific examples, and one that really stuck with me is, and one of the gentlemen in the room said, “You know, I blocked from five to 530 every single day on my calendar, and my team knows that I don’t take calls, I don’t take meetings, and I use that time to kind of reflect on what got done during the day, what didn’t get done that needs to go to the next day, and then really looking at my calendar for the next day so I can be planful and if I need to pull materials together or what have you.” And so I asked him how it was to get started with that, and he said it took a couple of weeks. It took a couple of weeks for him to get into the habit of doing it and to kind of train everyone around him that he was going to be doing it.

Alicia Davis
That’s right. That’s right.

Stacie Watson
You know, but he said he’s been doing it for two years now. So it was really interesting to offer a really concrete way that boundaries can work for us as leaders.

Alicia Davis
That’s right, and I know that you know those kinds of things… You know it, we get into these habits, and it takes time to do a new habit, and it also takes very intentional communication, right, and expectation setting with staff so that they are really understanding, oh, this is something new. This is something that is important. And you know, in some ways, it’s also a really good model for staff, right?

Stacie Watson
Yes.

Alicia Davis
Around, how can they even set clearer boundaries?

Stacie Watson
Right. Absolutely.

Alicia Davis
So it’s always about time and energy, and we just want to really encourage you to think about specific, tangible, little things that you can do to just create a little bit more focus and intention for yourself in whatever area that is. Oftentimes, you have to say no to one thing, to say yes to something else.

Stacie Watson
Absolutely.

Alicia Davis
So I’m Alicia Davis…

Stacie Watson
I’m Stacie Watson…

Alicia Davis
And reach out to us at info@TLStransforms.com. Thank you so much.

Stacie Watson
Thank you.