Drawing Lines, It’s Not What You Think!

In the subject line of this post, I asked you if you are good at drawing a line? You likely thought I meant actually drawing, but it’s not! Ok, now I am not trying to be misleading. I just want you to think about a line, an actual line like you might have done in art class when really young.

Stay with me because this does have to do with your business! Back to drawing a line, it’s up to you to create it, you don’t just magically have one appear. Some lines are darker than others, some straight, others are a bit curved. You might be able to erase your line. Unless you drew it with ink, then you can’t erase it. My point is, if I have a group of people in a room and told them all to draw a line, they all would probably look a little different, right?

Now I want you to think about boundaries. The definition of a boundary is:

“a line that marks the limits of an area; a dividing line”

I have been having quite a few conversations with moms lately about how they are feeling stuck, not making the progress they want, feeling drained, overwhelmed, etc. And once we talk a little more, I find out why.

They are not drawing lines in their business. In other words, they are not setting boundaries! And when you don’t do that by default, you let others. And these lines can look different for each of us.

It might look like this:

A client asks you to do last minute work on Fridays. Rather than speak up and say that you don’t work on weekends, you say yes. You do the work. You sacrifice your personal and/or family time. Eventually, you will become resentful. But you only have yourself to blame because you never drew a clear line or if you did you did not communicate and enforce it when necessary to your client.

Maybe you say yes to EVERY task or project a client asks you to do even though it means working late into the evening rather than spending time with your family. Or maybe you spend time with the family but stay up late sacrificing your sleep in order to get stuff done.

As moms, we try to do so much! Often we feel the pressure to do it all and we don’t need too. We need to be easier on ourselves. Stop comparing yourself to your competition. Stop saying you aren’t good enough. Stop telling yourself you have to be good at it all. And most of all stop saying yes to everything!