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Episode 364: Why Boundaries are the Key to Better Time Management · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  if you extending or maybe overextending yourself in order to do X, then means you go home and you're on edge with your loved ones and you don't have the energy you need, or the time you need to fulfill that role in your life to in the ways that you want.
• 0:18
  You've made a poor decision. Yeah. And that's what we're saying. And like by by overextending and not putting that boundary in place, you are then sacrificing things that we know matter to people.
• 0:31
  Welcome to The Growth Project, a podcast brought to you by employers.
• 0:35
  Excited to be here today. Doctor Drew Brand and Doctor Gabby. Caveat is to,
• 0:40
  keep on this theme. Like we're going to push forward on our end of the year or beginning of the year theme, right?
• 0:44
  Yeah, yeah, we've been on the
• 0:45
  growth track and establishing
• 0:48
  new goals and pursuing them in the New year. Amen. Yeah. So we know that for a lot of our listeners, although it's, you know, we're getting to we're close to the middle part of January, but we're still talking about January. And for a lot of people, that means that you are trying to put some new things in play, whether it be new routines, new patterns, these are important things to really be thinking about any time in the year.
• 1:11
  But this is a common time to be doing that. So today's conversation,
• 1:15
  Gabby, we're really going to focus on,
• 1:16
  the fact that here's how this often goes. Here's this theme that we hear many times different people, different stages of life, different industries. But it goes something like this. I'm tired. I'm spinning so many plates.
• 1:32
  I'm going so fast. I have so many things going on. It feels kind of overwhelming. I'm not sure how I got here and I'm not sure how to get out of this. Why are so many people ending up there? Yeah, I think that, you know, they're on somewhere. And I also think of the the phrase there's just not enough hours in the day.
• 1:53
  Same number of hours every single day. Problem is the number of hours in the day. It's the management of the hours in your day. Yes. This lack of boundaries around protecting your time, protecting your your energy and your emotions and all of the resources you need to feel in control and like you have, a plan.
• 2:15
  Yes. Yeah. You're. I could not agree more. You hear that a bunch where people are like, hey, if I just had more time and that is not the problem for most people. I think in most people's case, if they if you gave them additional hours, not just to be the critic here, they would mismanage them. Absolutely. When I was personal training, one of the biggest obstacles I would encounter with everything.
• 2:39
  I just don't have enough time. There you go. Sit down and look at your schedule. And you you do you have time, make it a priority or you just haven't set the boundaries in place to to allow yourself the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's spot on. And you know, it's it's one of those things where and this is why I think it's such an important conversation.
• 2:59
  Most people, maybe even all people, they're well intentioned with these things. They want to figure it out. But it could be that they're pleasers at heart, which is a real common, well-intentioned way to get yourself in a in a tough spot with your time and your energy. They could be pleasers. They could be in a in a place in life where they legitimately have, more responsibilities than a person can handle, not because they did anything wrong.
• 3:25
  It could be a mess of a situation. There's so many different possibilities of how you end up there. So the purpose of today's conversation is, really for any person and where you might be on the continuum of like how much you have going on, how your energy feels, how your time tends to feel week in, week out is we want to talk about boundaries because really the the vehicle or the gateway to managing your life more effectively is not someone handing you more minutes or hours, it's you having a better blueprint and plan, to manage your life.
• 3:58
  So so Gabby, everyone's heard of the term boundaries. What are we talking about when we say that term? When we talk boundaries, we're only talking about the the clarity around what you will and will not allow in your day to day. And, and getting really intentional with setting up what, what is and isn't okay. What you will plan for, of course, is going to be margin of error there.
• 4:23
  There's going to be things that come up that are unexpected,
• 4:25
  things that will encroach on your boundaries. But,
• 4:28
  knowing what your boundaries are and try to prevent overstepping. Okay. So for our listeners as they're hearing that okay. Here's what a boundary is, I would expect some folks are maybe kind of going down that path a little bit in their minds of like do I need this.
• 4:44
  Like, like is this something that is really a problem for me? Or maybe I'm thinking, actually, I feel like I've got a decent handle on this. Let's share some numbers here. Okay. So we got some data that I think is important for people to be aware of. Gabby, what do we know about, the data on, people experiencing stress to the point that it's having a negative impact on them?
• 5:10
  What does that look like? Shockingly high. About 77%. People are experiencing stress that is negatively impacting their performance at, at work and in life in general. So, so three quarters, I mean, three out of four people and roughly so in work, we all have stress. You have stress I have stress. Everybody lives with stress. So we aren't just, harping on this idea of that's a, that's a completely bad thing or that we're trying to eliminate stress.
• 5:36
  That's not going to happen. The key qualifier here is 75% of people are reporting their stress is creating a negative impact on their ability to show up and be the person they want to be. That's a big number. Yeah, that's a big, big number. And so again, if you're in that place of like, you know, how does this apply to me?
• 5:54
  Three out of four people are in that group. And then additionally let's talk about burnout a little bit, which is a term we've, we've talked about in the growth project in the past, because lack of boundaries are a common trigger for burnout. And we know that those who are experiencing burnout in an employment setting. So employees who are experiencing burnout, 63% more likely to take a sick day, 2.6 times more likely to look for a new job.
• 6:19
  So these people are missing out on work a bunch, which means you have problems to solve. And then ultimately, what's that leading to? They're 2.6 times more likely to go look elsewhere, because the burden gets to be a point where they're no longer want to do this. Big numbers and big numbers. And I think I go back to this topic of stress and, the framing of stressing stress is an inherently bad when we perceive it as negative.
• 6:46
  Yeah, that's what's happening here, is that people feel a lack of control over what they're experiencing that causes a negative stress. If we can reframe that stress positively. We've talked a lot about this in a previous podcast, is that it changes the storyline a lot, but individuals who are able to do that typically have really strong boundaries and very clear boundaries in place that allow them to feel a degree of control over the stress.
• 7:14
  Yes. Yeah, exactly.
• 7:16
  yeah, stress. We said it's not going away. So much of it comes back to how do you make sense of it? How do you navigate your life so that it's always like a very simple kind of 1 to 10 rating system? We know that, hey, if we keep stress in that maybe 5 to 7 range, that's pretty good for us.
• 7:33
  Like it actually helps us perform better. Eight, nine and ten. Not good. Nor is one, two and three. But if we can kind of be in that middle, that that individual zone that we've talked about and they've seen the literature, it's good for us. All right. So let's get deeper into boundaries here and in Gabby. Maybe this is the place to start.
• 7:51
  We talk about how boundaries are decisions. They aren't walls expand on that. What does that mean? I think a lot of times when we hear the word boundaries, we think of this concrete wall, right? This is absolutely not allowed. It's not okay. Something I know my boundary. And if you cross it, I'm walking away. Yeah, real stiff and rigid.
• 8:13
  Stiff and rigid. And that's just not the case. It's like we said, a decision to define what helps you optimize performance.
• 8:23
  Yeah. So it's a it's a place where you've got to read situations. You've got to make assessments both about yourself, the things around you, the people around you, and ultimately get to the point where you're making a decision.
• 8:37
  Now, the thing this is real important. You know, I'm not in the construction industry. Maybe someone's going to listen to this in real and want to give me a call and said, you, you really don't know what talking about? Walls are not easy to move, right? You know, once that thing goes up, you hope you put it in the right place.
• 8:52
  Because make changing your mind on a wall once it's been, you know, installing it's not it's not going to go well. Someone more the one person gonna be unhappy about that decision. That's what we're saying. They are decisions. They aren't walls. You can move these at any given moment, at any given time. You can adjust and you should adjust because your circumstances change.
• 9:14
  Absolutely. But when we Gabby, when we get into thinking about where boundaries show up and what boundaries really consist of and include, give us some categories to really understand how they function. Well, I think the three biggest are going to be your your time. So we talked about people just saying we don't have enough time. So boundaries in relation to time management.
• 9:40
  Your energy what you're going to direct your energy to. You know, a lot of times we put a lot on our plates. And when we analyze that, break it all down. Sometimes a good chunk of the stuff we take on, it's not a priority. Yeah. Energy, a waste of time. Right.
• 9:55
  And then our emotions, you know, somebody cuts me off in traffic.
• 10:01
  My emotions make get pretty hot to make it pretty angry. If that stays with me all day, that's a waste of my my emotional energy. Right.
• 10:07
  got to be able to let things go. So the boundaries of what you will and won't allow to or take you out of your optimal zone. Thank you for speaking about.
• 10:17
  And you can see there how those are related to. Right. Because if I don't manage my time and my energy very effectively, what does that commonly kind of trigger? A lot of emotional ups and downs, emotional challenges.
• 10:28
  if you consider this is a great thing, I think for our listeners to do, even as we're having this conversation today as we go through those three, do a quick audit on yourself.
• 10:37
  How when you think about time in the way minutes are taking shape in your life, how in control or maybe not in control, do you feel? How healthy or not so healthy does your use of time seem right now in your life, where you stand here in January 2026 and then go through the same line of questioning with these other categories?
• 10:58
  What about your energy? Where would you put it on the continuum? Short on energy. Maybe you feel like you're kind of thriving. You're you're high energy wise. If so, that's fantastic. You want to be thinking about, well, how did I get here? That seems like a plus. Maybe you're somewhere in the middle, but do the audit for time energy.
• 11:16
  And then I would imagine the healthier you feel like things are time energy wise, the better you probably are emotionally. If you don't feel great about where things stand, time energy wise. Probably not thrilled with the emotion piece either, right? A simple activity you can do.
• 11:34
  All right. Now that we've really kind of framed up, a working understanding of this category of boundaries.
• 11:39
  Gabby, before we leave this and get into some of the impact, either positively or negatively. Can you give everybody, like, a little bit of, like, an operating method for, like, how can you how can you think about installing boundaries in your life? What does this look like? Well, like you said, boundaries are decisions. Decisions that create clarity.
• 11:57
  Now, once you have your clarity, nobody's going to uphold it for you. So the next step then is once you establish what your boundaries are, you're clear on those,
• 12:08
  got to communicate it to yourself, but of course, to those around you as well, your your peers or colleagues or family. And this is these are my boundaries.
• 12:17
  These are what I need to, perform my best and how I'm going to structure my days,
• 12:23
  and then uphold that. Yes, yes you can. Of course. There's going to be unexpected things thrown your way. Things you can't plan for, but to the best of your ability, uphold those boundaries. Be clear and uphold it. And we've said this before in the growth Project, the idea that every yes to one thing is a notice something else that really applies here.
• 12:46
  And I know that I've heard people say before, it's not uncommon of, oh gosh, I just feel like I should do this or I need to do this. I don't want to let my coworker down. I don't want to let whoever down. Okay. Fair enough. However,
• 12:58
  if you extending or maybe overextending yourself in order to do X, then means you go home and you're on edge with your loved ones and you don't have the energy you need, or the time you need to fulfill that role in your life to in the ways that you want.
• 13:16
  You've made a poor decision. Yeah. And that's what we're saying. And like by by overextending and not putting that boundary in place, you are then sacrificing things that we know matter to people.
• 13:27
  So it's okay to be clear and, upfront with people about, hey, I'm not going be able to do that today. I'm happy to get on it tomorrow or whenever it does work.
• 13:39
  And, let's be adults here and have adult conversations. Okay. Gabby, let's talk about if and when this isn't going well. So let's imagine we have a person who is struggling to implement boundaries in his or her life. Could be for a variety of reasons. What are some of the places that begins to show up in life?
• 14:01
  Well, decision fatigue is a big one where when you don't have boundaries in place, what you know you should be doing or want to be doing, then it's okay. Well, maybe I have five different things I need to get done, but, something else just came to me, and I'm going to go work on that. Or should I do that?
• 14:21
  As you start to just question, maybe you don't have a plan. So that decision fatigue of constantly having to decide what next, because you have no boundaries or no plan in place. So it's like the just constant barrage of things coming at you, incoming everything, whether it's opportunities, phone calls, text messages, frustrations with you, like just barrage of of inbound, you name it, which can be overwhelming in people that are like, I don't even know where to start.
• 14:52
  There's so many things coming at me at once. And that ties into to the next one, which is your emotional over. Exhaustion happens where, you know, maybe you have somebody knocking on your door saying, hey, I need to talk to you. I'm struggling with this. You extend yourself to them, listen and and provide emotional support, and then you have somebody else come five minutes later or whatever that may look like in your your day to day where you're constantly having to, manage other people's emotions.
• 15:20
  And that's an emotional drain on yourself. And you don't have any boundaries in place of where is my time? Where is where am I going to focus on, charging my emotional battery? So that's a big drain, especially when you have things coming at you from all directions all the time. So you're describing the person who is, like, constantly available.
• 15:40
  Yes. I mean, that's really the concept of what you're saying there. If there there are there's always a way to access this person.
• 15:47
  There's so much about that that's good. Right. And that's the struggle is and I think you see this a lot when people are having a hard time with boundaries. One of the reasons, one of the ways they got there is because they're they're probably good at doing things that people need.
• 16:03
  They have good answers. They have good ideas, they're supportive. They're encouraging whatever it might be. And if that person is always available, depending on the circles you run in, in the environment that you're in, there will always be someone who needs you. But then the problem is, where does that go? That person gets resentful. Why do they? Why do they ultimately end up being resentful?
• 16:25
  Well, they're very bad helper and they they never get help. Yeah. And I think of, you know, parents, I think of like, moms who are constantly attending to the needs of others. And then in the back of their minds, it's, who's ever gonna help me? Yeah. To pick up the slack for me. You know, and they don't always that typically these individuals will quietly start to resent others.
• 16:55
  And that shows up, you know, over time. Yep. Their actions and behaviors. And I think this is an important point to make here too, because we're not naive and we don't live in a, with this notion of a it's always easy for people to put down. We're not saying that. And the other thing you've got to think about when it comes to the nuances of this, is there will be periods of time in people's life, especially as it relates to stages of life where this is more feasible than others.
• 17:23
  And so I think the key here is just don't let it ever get to a zero. Now, the boundaries that you can have in your life was to an example of like people with young kids. If you have three kids and their ages is I've done this and their ages are just make it up three, five and eight.
• 17:40
  You got a lot going on. Okay? And so do you need boundaries? Yes you do. But what's realistic in that scenario is different from when those kids become teenagers. It's not the same thing. And we can make up a million different examples of this. It could be that, hey, I'm part of a big organization and I'm a I'm a leader of a team, and I've lost three people off my team in the last month, and I'm working to backfill them, but I haven't done it yet.
• 18:10
  You're going to have a hard time having as many boundaries in your life, because you're probably working 2 or 3, maybe four jobs. We get all that. The point is, you need to be able to kind of read the situation, not let it go to a zero. And then when it does transition into a place where, okay, I can do a little bit differently, just recognize what's possible.
• 18:28
  And given your scenario,
• 18:30
  yeah. It's never don't give up. It's never going to be an easy job. They're always going to be adjusting. Like you said, they're not walls. They're right. They're going to, look different based off of, the phase of life you're in and you know, where your boundaries need to be established. Yeah.
• 18:46
  And so let's talk about this in the workplace for just a minute, because there's some good cognitive data on this. And the easy example to talk about would just be people who have frequent interruptions. And that can happen so many different ways. Whether it's maybe you work maybe your normal day to day is you work kind of at a workstation and you've got a lot of computer work to do, and you have teams, you have slack, you have email or whatever it is, and it's just ping, ping, ping, ping ping.
• 19:12
  So, Gabby, what is the the frequent interruptions people? What does that do to productivity? Well, yeah, it goes down by 40%. Productivity is it's a massive play. We talked about this in last week's podcast as well. Yep. I think you get interrupted every 2 to 3 minutes and it takes a 20. Yeah. To get back on it get re re oriented.
• 19:34
  And so if we take that state and then they've logically about it. Yeah. No wonder you're experiencing a 40% decline in productivity and you're losing so many minutes a day. Yep
• 19:45
  when you don't have boundaries that probably becomes even more self an issue. Yeah. And so an easy example of how you implement boundaries there would be to think about like let's imagine, let's say just make this up, that you get to the office every day.
• 19:57
  If you're in an office worker, maybe you work from 730 to 530. We'll just say those are those are standard hours for your role in that. You're in, is it a good idea to say, I'm going to put my phone in another room and turn off my notifications from 730 to 530? I would not recommend that. I would not recommend that, although in your industry maybe that's possible.
• 20:18
  So we aren't saying you can just completely, you know, kind of shut off all communications with others. Not saying that it would go more like this. Where can you find blocks in your 730 to 530 day where you do those things actually where you you turn off teams, you put your phone somewhere else or silence it or both, whatever.
• 20:41
  For I don't know what the number is. Can you do it for 30 minutes? Can you do it for 60 minutes so that you can do some deep work, like we talked about on a prior episode? That's an easy way to talk about this. Another more personal way would be the first hour you're home at night with your families.
• 20:56
  Can you put your phone away? That's a boundary to where you're going to prioritize. I'd have great time with my family the first hour I get home. It's a great thing to do. I think even along the lines of not even having to put something away or silence anything but communicating with your coworkers about what is and is it worth coming to your office and interrupting you for that too?
• 21:19
  then when you get home, what are the conversations that you want to be having and what are kind of those off limits topic that, hey, these can express me off? Yes, yes, maybe we don't talk about, financial things or we don't talk about work for the first hour and afterwards we can. But I need that time as a boundary to be the best that can be for you.
• 21:44
  Yes. And just communicating that to to the people in your life.
• 21:49
  All right, let's let's break these down. I think this is going to let's get into the application on this. I want to go through the different types of boundaries. And as we're going and we're talking about these, I really want to challenge our listeners to be doing kind of an honest assessment in the sense of this of like, as you're hearing this, does this sound like you or is there evidence of this in your life?
• 22:09
  Are there patterns of this in your life? And if so, that doesn't mean you need to like take out an ad in the Wall Street Journal and let everybody know it just means you like, okay, where are you going to go from here? So get us going here. Where do want to start? Well time boundaries. That's kind of the one we've been touching on the most I think so far.
• 22:26
  Is this common signal as you always feel rushed? No time for recovery or rest. Which, of course, is what I preach. So, Yes. So when you feel like you're not having time to recover and no time for rest and everything is just one thing, on to the next. You feel like you don't have a moment to breathe?
• 22:47
  That's kind of your indicator that, you need some time. Boundaries. Yeah, yeah. And I think, what does this translate to day in and day out? And this is just I think we all know these these examples of, like, if you're always late. Oftentimes the reason people that are chronically late or always rushed, it's kind of one in the same is they couldn't cut off the last thing.
• 23:12
  And just to keep in mind like people understand it's okay to say, hey I could sit here and talk to you all day. However, like, I don't want to be late for a next thing, so I gotta go because then what happens? You then see it trickle into those? Yeah, dimensions. Right now my energy likes to play that into my emotions and play because I'm stressed and I'm worried that I'm going to be late to the next thing, or that I'm not prepared for it because I spent too long on this other task.
• 23:38
  So. Yep.
• 23:39
  Is this time? Boundaries are there for a reason. We schedule meetings for time blocks for a reason. For a reason. Yep. And just a a study to mention on that American psychological Association, which is always a great source for some quality work in the behavioral science space. Those who are working without the needed type of recovery that we're talking about cognitively, we saw about a 20 to 30% decline in their cognitive performance.
• 24:06
  You know, where does that show specifically focus, creativity, those type of things. So if you're going boom, boom, boom, boom, you're not getting recovery. You're kind of living this hyper vigilant increased high cortisol world. You're not as creative. You don't problem solve as well. You don't focus as well. One thing that could be a simple tool here is when you're scheduling your day out, don't schedule something from 2 to 3 and then three four if you can avoid it.
• 24:34
  Yeah right minute. Yep. 2 to 255 and then three. So yeah give yourself a small block of time in between. It helps you feel less rushed and more in control of your time. Yeah, it's funny you mention that because I actually just got earlier today. I got a calendar invite for an upcoming meeting. A team is meeting with somebody and I noticed it.
• 24:58
  It caught my eye that the meeting was from 10 to 1025. And I kind of like that.
• 25:08
  Yeah. Setting these time boundaries.
• 25:10
  But but that was funny because that's the way I thought about it. The fact that it caught my eye kind of proves what we're talking about right here of that it's it's unique. It's rare people aren't doing that, but it's let's go that direction. Can we all agree like from now, from now on I that we're going to do it.
• 25:27
  Yeah. No, we're all I mean you're 25 I can do 25. Okay. So time boundaries is a big one. Let me, let me also touch on emotional boundaries. And this can show up in a variety of ways. But when we talk about signals
• 25:42
  one would be if other people's stress then triggers your stress in a significant way in some of that, like we understand that your spouse, your loved one like that happens.
• 25:57
  And so I think the key here that we want to really be thinking about is it isn't necessarily that you want to get to the place where when your spouse is stressed, let's say that and let's make up an example and say your spouse is, a on a seven. On a scale of 1 to 10, really, really stress.
• 26:14
  She has something significant going on, you know, that happens in life. We're not saying that, hey, you better be a zero. You probably don't want to be a zero because that means you're not very sympathetic. But the idea here is, and I think probably in that situation for sure, your spouse, your maybe it's your wife, or if we're doing the male female here, she probably needs you.
• 26:33
  Yeah. And so what does she need? She need you to not be overly stressed, overly emotional. She needs some stability, some composure. So the emotional boundary in that case is the person's ability to, hey, I'm going to be able to kind of put something in place here to where this stress from my spouse isn't affecting me in a way where now, now we're kind of hurting each other and two people are stressed out to the max.
• 26:57
  I mean, that's not helping anymore. So having somebody who can be and, have a boundary there and say, hey, this is I'm able to feel their stress a little bit, but not to a point where I can't provide stability. Yep. Well, and I'll go I'll put I'll pair that with our young kids example that I just, that I just said of maybe you get kids or three feminine.
• 27:19
  I know that when our kids were really, really young, it wasn't always kind of a stated thing that we had in her saying of like, hey, one of us needs to be okay. Like it's like is as often as possible. We need at least one of us to be in a good frame of mind where we're not overly emotional, that require some boundaries.
• 27:36
  If both mom and dad are not in a good place emotionally, that that doesn't lead to very good things typically for anybody. Okay, so we got time. We have emotional. What's next Gabby. We have mental. So mental boundaries. So this is that constantly on where your brain is is constantly thinking about your to do list or all the notifications are getting, just constant stimulus.
• 28:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 28:03
  Not being able to switch off and detach. That's kind of your signal that, hey, that's I don't have any mental, mental boundaries in place. So, back to what you were mentioning, that first hour when you get home. Yeah. Putting your phone away. It's simple practices that help you switch off and detach. Yep.
• 28:25
  That's right. Yeah. And you've got to it's it's not always easy. But if you think about this whole idea of, like accessibility, how accessible are you and you don't want to be if you can avoid it. And we want to always be respectful of industries that maybe do require that. And it's even harder for these folks. But how do you how do you offer kind of varying levels of accessibility over the course of the day in order to have these boundaries?
• 28:45
  And then I think, you know, we hear this often, too. We understand it, that maybe you're an industry where it's hard to do that, yet, you are in a space that's acute, high, you know, volatile could be so many other things. And that's where you want to really work well with teammates, if possible. Can you kind of tag in, tag out, at least give you a little bit of a of a of a break, a little bit of a reprieve from always being on.
• 29:13
  But we know it's hard.
• 29:14
  And then the last one we have are relational boundaries. So think about your relationships. Personal relationships, relationships of coworkers and anywhere where you feel like maybe you're overextending and it's not equal. I think this is something we experience a lot at home. Maybe at times we feel like we're taking on a lot of the chores or the to do list, and, and we feel like our spouse isn't doing enough.
• 29:45
  And so that creates, an issue within our boundaries. It's stuff that we don't need students. We just take it on. Yeah it's a good point. The resentment that builds right. That quiet resentment.
• 29:56
  So in relationships are you feeling like you're doing more than the other person. Never to say it's going to be equal. It's not.
• 30:06
  But knowing that the effort you're putting in is being matched and that you're not only being the one to to have to put in the work. Right? Yeah. I remember reading an article about this years ago, and I don't remember exactly. I can't remember where it was, but the, the it was really clear in the sense of, the distribution of labor, a quality piece is not the key.
• 30:33
  No, the key is openness and communication. It's not that. Oh, if I empty the dishwasher twice, well, then the next two are yours. And if we do that, then we have a great relationship. That's not what we're saying. The key is can we communicate openly? Do we have clear expectations like that? That's the key. And you even see it in the data.
• 30:53
  Like, I know there's one study we saw in NBR, teams with clear interpersonal boundaries and psych safety. What's the value the ROI of that 27% higher performance. I'll take that and 50% lower turnover risk and all that. Really all it takes to create that is can we be open, have good communication doesn't mean we always agree, but can we be adults and have good civilized conversation?
• 31:17
  If you don't have that, it's like you said, we have these relational boundary issues where I'm doing all the work. I'm annoyed and bothered that you aren't doing your part, but we aren't talking about it. Exactly. So then I'm going to begin to do things you didn't even know we needed to do. And I'm going to be thinking about the irony of this.
• 31:34
  I'm now frustrated with you because you didn't do a thing you didn't even know you needed to. Yell and we're laughing. But it's so common. Yes, it's it's extremely common. All right. So just to recap those quickly, these spaces and categories relate to boundaries time, emotional, mental and relational. We hopefully have given you some frameworks there that you can kind of work through and do a little bit of self-assessment of where do you feel like things are going?
• 32:01
  Well. And, you know, in contrast, where do you feel like you could use some help and do some work? And I would really encourage you to, put your energy there. Yeah.
• 32:10
  All right. So, as we kind of move toward the, the end of our conversation for today, two more things I want to be sure we hit Gabby. The first one is, we have research on this.
• 32:21
  We have plenty of anecdotal examples. People have a hard time saying no. Well, so we're in there with that. Why does that seem to be the case? And then I also want to be sure we cover this, because maybe we have some folks who are trying to figure out why they should say no more. Why is that the case and why should you say no more?
• 32:43
  Yeah, well, I think that the theories around saying no are, of course, disappointment. And I always think back to and, the phrase is much worse to hear a parent or a coworker say they're disappointed in me. The summary. Oh, it's so true. Yes. I don't want to hear that. So disappointment is a big fear that we're going to let people down by saying no.
• 33:10
  That it'll create conflict. You know if I say no to something then you're going to be mad at me. Because I don't want to help you in your eyes or whatever that, that looks like. It creates that tension between us. Yeah. And then there's this idea that losing your identity, if I say no to something that's been a part of who I am, but it's no longer serving me, because I'm changing.
• 33:35
  I'm growing. Maybe it's. My friends want to go out for drinks and I'm not drinking. And I say no to that. It's part of maybe who I was. Yeah, that isn't me anymore. So, changing yourself is a part of this where saying no, being free from reestablishing who you are. Yeah.
• 33:58
  that's that's scary.
• 33:59
  So those are kind of the three fears around saying no. And some of the data to back this is, people who consistently struggle to say no, experience 30 to 40% higher stress levels because their can make sense. Yeah. They don't really want to commit to. Right. They're they're saying yes, but they know they need to be saying no.
• 34:22
  Yeah.
• 34:23
  they're afraid of saying that.
• 34:25
  Yeah. So you think about that and then just the burden that creates of like okay, I didn't do what I know I needed to do or should have done. And so now I'm stressed about that. And then I'm also stressed because the thing I didn't say no to is, is a thing.
• 34:38
  Right. So kind of actually I've got to figure it out. I've got to solve for I got to do the work, whatever it might be. So, so say no. Say no. Yeah. I mean, hey, we'll boil it down to that. You got to fund. And I'm always a big believer that and try and challenge people to like, be finding something at least once a week that pops up where you just are going to say no.
• 34:58
  And it could be a matter of like, it's a you're you're asked to someone's asked you to squeeze in a lunch on a day. You really shouldn't be doing that because you don't have time and you're going to cheat something else or cheat someone else. Don't do it. Or you know, your your kid, one of your children wants to got to do this thing and it's going to put the family in a real bind for this reason.
• 35:18
  Just tell them no. Sometimes you got to do it at a client I was working with, and she just told me that she was starting a the days of every third thing. She was going to say, no, that's aggressive. I said, yeah, that was a conversation we had a little bit too aggressive there, but I like the, the, the mindset behind it.
• 35:37
  Okay. I'm going every third thing of saying no when I can. She was like, it may not be that third thing, but I know that's something coming up and I need to say no. Do I look aggressive? But like you're saying, start small. One thing a week to say no to bad. It it's just interesting how how hard it is to say no that we have to create such extreme, parameters.
• 36:02
  Yeah. Let's hope her boyfriend doesn't get down on one knee on her third thing that day. You know, poor guy. She's just trying to. Just trying to pull her boundary anyways. Okay, so let's let's figure out how do we want to close here. You know, and I just want to acknowledge that we realize when a person is trying to make a shift in their life with boundaries, it's awkward, it's uncomfortable.
• 36:28
  It feels different because it is different. Expect that. Expect that going in that if you're going to try to create some movement and some shifts here, it will feel uncomfortable. You might feel a little bit of guilt. Yeah. You very well could. You very well could. And that's okay. That's okay. The odds are that's an indicator that maybe you're doing something you should be doing.
• 36:49
  But you know, there is a payoff here. There is an ROI associated with putting more boundaries in place. What do we know about a 25 to 30% higher well-being and lower burnout risk? According to both APA and some of the Gallup research has been done better. Performance, sustainability and performance. There's a there's a long list of performance indicators, that matter, that matter.
• 37:11
  Okay. Well, I know we need to wrap up. I guess there's kind of a final challenge for me. Try to find at least one specific area in your life that feels like a bit much right now. Where you're over committed, you're overextended. And then choose one specific boundary and put it in place and see it through and see where it might go.
• 37:35
  Okay, well, as always, very appreciative of our listeners for tuning in to the Growth Project, and we will look forward to our next conversation soon. Thanks so much. Thank you guys.