3 Tips For Having Strong Boundaries | from episode 03 of Dear Bri

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In this LinkedIn newsletter, you can expect the best moments and best community advice from the latest episode of the Dear Bri podcast.

So, prepare yourself for a lot of community strategy, fiascos, and DRAMA.

We all have had that moment where we go...

“I'm in it right now and I know this is a boundary I should probably have and also I'm letting it slide by.” - Taylor Harrington ??

Establishing, articulating, and honoring our boundaries is not easy but today we’re talking about 3 ways that will help you have strong boundaries:

1. Establish the boundary upfront
2. The secret ingredient for asserting boundaries
3. The “Yes, and/No, but” concept to protect your boundaries

In this episode, Taylor and I are helping Frazzled Fairy-Marketing-Godmother. They are someone who clearly has a big heart for their community, but is also really struggling to draw boundaries.

For the full communitea, press play below.

In this episode:

(03:56) Taylor’s sunset conundrum

(11:41) Bri’s worst leadership failure

(15:31) The communitea: Frazzled Fairy-Marketing-Godmother’s letter

(18:25) Boundaries for ourselves, coworkers, and community members

(22:46) The cost of saying yes to something

(28:51) Shifting away from the identity of being the person who's there for everyone

(32:00) The importance of establishing boundaries upfront

(34:16) The “Yes, and/No, but” concept

(39:05) The secret ingredient for asserting boundaries

(41:33) Giving yourself grace and being willing to pivot

1. Establish the boundary upfront

It’s one thing to reinforce your boundaries before they’ve been crossed - this is usually much easier to make sure your boundaries are honored.

It’s another thing entirely to go back and create a boundary when it hadn’t been established in the past, which is a much more difficult process.

So, if you’re starting a new role take note of what is really important to you and why and express it upfront when you’re onboarded.

Make sure to pay attention to the kind of communication around work hours and work boundaries and that they align with you.

Now, if you’re in a situation or on a team where you know that new boundaries will not be honored, I strongly recommend reflecting on whether or not this team and job are the right fit for you and your mental health.

?? A company and team that consistently crosses boundaries is not a sustainable employment opportunity.

But this time me being mindful that you’re going to start something new and you’re never going to do that again. You’re going to be a little bit more clear about what your boundaries and you’re going to ask questions to better understand what the expectations are.

Taylor shared that by being very clear with her boundary when she started her role and asserting it ever since she has been able to maintain her phone as a personal device – even as she runs a community that’s on a mobile app – and can’t be reached after she’s clocked out. She goes so far as deleting the Groove app every single night from her phone, but that’s how her time is now her own.

2. The secret ingredient for asserting boundaries

For those who are a little bit nervous about asserting boundaries or who are maybe making some of those changes and creating new ones, a really helpful tool is to just make it time-bound.

Putting a time-bound nature on a boundary allows you to test it out and maybe see how it feels.

As an example, imagine you’re in a season where you’re not reading your LinkedIn DMs, so you make this boundary time-bound by saying you’ll circle back in 3 months and see if it still makes sense to you to be free of the DMs.

Maybe you do it and you realize, “Oh yeah, there was a lot of really good stuff coming to LinkedIn because it was easy to access me and it was easy to converse, so maybe I do want to change that.” But that is a really helpful way to just start enacting some of those boundaries, even if you don't quite feel confident in them yet.

3. The “Yes, and/No, but” concept to protect your boundaries

In improvisation, there’s the concept of “Yes, and/No, but”. That is, we say “Yes, and” to continue the story and we say “No, but” to reframe an uncomfortable situation and move in a different direction.

I find the “No, but” a powerful tool to use to protect your boundaries. When you use the “No, but” correctly it allows you to say “Yes, and” to the things that really matter.

Here are a couple of examples of how Taylor successfully uses it:

???She has many members of the community constantly approaching her and asking to chat about topics like “What’s it like to have a role in community?”, “How did you get into the industry? What was your story?”, and more.

She would love to dedicate 30 minutes to 1 hour to have these conversations but with the amount of requests she gets that’s not possible or good for her.

To protect her boundaries and not leave the community members with nothing she’s found a but:

Anytime she gets more than 2 or 3 requests about something she writes a LinkedIn post about the topic, that way when someone asks to chat with her she can say “No I can’t get on a 30-minute call and this is why (boundary), but here’s this LinkedIn post I made with the information you’re looking for.”

???She wanted to stop hanging out with people on LinkedIn DMs and focus on creating meaningful connections in the comments and found the perfect way to do it.

On LinkedIn Premium you can put in an out-of-office message, so she set one up as ongoing and as an autoresponder for everyone.

The message says something along the lines of:

“In order to stay focused, I don't spend my time in my LinkedIn DMS, but I am on LinkedIn all the time and love commenting, and that's how I love hanging out. So, I would love to see you in the comments of your post or mine. If you do need to reach me, here's my email. Catch you soon.”

Here she clearly states her boundary that she doesn’t spend time in the DMs but offers the option of communicating via comments or email.

For more about establishing boundaries and protecting yourself, make sure to tune into Episode 03 of Dear Bri!

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Bri Leever is the Founder and Head Community Creator at Ember. Bri and her team help consultants, coaches, and creators craft their community offer and build community-powered businesses. Check out our consulting packages, community and more free resources on our website!

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