Wednesday, July 23, 2014


If we don't speak directly and set clear boundaries it's really our fault if someone's wasting or taking advantage of our time.

I was a little annoyed the other day when someone had asked me for a favor that was too big for our casual freindship. And as I started thinking about it I was less annoyed with them for asking and more annoyed with myself for not being clear that it was too big of an ask.

I believe in the old adage there is no harm in asking (or making a request) so I shouldn't have found one that was asked of me off-putting. And yet I had.

When we don't speak directly and then end up resenting people for doing things we didn't want to do - who is the waster of our time? Us!

It's freeing to realize a nice agreeable answer, when we wanted to say no, could have simply been re-directed to a better interaction. The key I've decided is to not get all worked up but to pause for a moment to decide what you want to do and then just simply say: That's not going to work for me. No big explanation necessary. No apologizing for not be able to meet someone else's needs. 

Setting boundaries is the more respectable thing to do for ourselves and in the spirit of being honest with others. If someone presses, guilts, gets mad at us because we've not been able to help them then that is their problem and not ours. 

You're the boss of you! And if we set clear boundaries not only will we have more time to do the things that matter to us... people will learn we respect our time and when we give it to them it's because that's where we truly want to be.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

How did you get so wise? Great insights about setting boundaries, Joy.

Joy said...

From friends like you Ms. Austin ;)