Creating Boundaries In Your Business (And Living At Cause)

We’re talking boundaries. I’ve shared about this a bit in the past and now with my Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) certification complete I wanted to revisit the topic and add a bit more to it.

One of the first lessons about NLP was learning to operate from cause versus effect. We think we are at the effect of whatever happens to us - good or bad.

We think things like, “Oh well, I can’t run a business because I couldn’t go to school to learn how which is my parents’ fault because they didn’t have enough money which happened when they lost their jobs….” And so on.

Feel familiar? It’s kind of like a victim complex in a lot of ways, which I shared early on in the podcast I realized I was operating from. (You can listen here)

What ends up happening is this way of approaching life is you are completely disempowered. In living at the effect, you basically have given up your ability to DO anything and the world is just happening to you.

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NLP teaches us to instead live at cause. To recognize that we are at cause for our situations, our surroundings, our experiences, our thoughts, our feelings, etc.

It’s an empowered stance — one that you have control over and can change or adjust or tweak because you are at the root of everything.

So in that same example, you might switch your belief to, “Okay well actually I can run a business because I do have access to the internet and I can spend my free time learning and growing and I will prove that you don’t need a college education to be a millionaire.”

That’s understanding your circumstances, whatever they may be, but instead choosing to be at cause for getting the result you want. 

Okay, so why am I sharing all of this? Because it has a lot to do with boundaries, actually. Back in season 1 of my podcast, I shared about my issues with boundaries. I shared that a lot of the problems stemmed from me not feeling capable of saying no to people, be not establishing rules that I operate from and by, and just a general sense of disempowerment. 

What changed for me during that time is recognizing that a client wasn’t a bad or rude or mean person, but they had not been informed of acceptable ways of communication or timelines BY ME.

I was at cause. And while the circumstances may still have felt difficult for some reason, at least by recognizing how I was at cause, I was able to change my behavior and implement boundaries to protect myself from then on. I took an empowered stance and DID something about my situation.

Do you see how that works?

So step 1 in creating boundaries in your business is to recognize that A) you need boundaries and B) you’re at a complete and total cause and you can implement boundaries to control situations.

This is so that YOU can feel happy and fulfilled and like your energy and space is protected and whole.

You’re not burnt out or drained or overwhelmed. It is no one else’s responsibility to do that for you, but it should be one of your top priorities to do for yourself.

Okay. With that said,

Now what?

Pay attention to your triggers. Pay attention to what takes you from feeling good and in flow to suddenly terrible and grumpy.

Your emotions are a reflection of your inner world, so if something is affecting your emotions that drastically, it’s time to recognize that it’s not working, it’s not sustainable, and it’s time to evaluate if we can adjust something here and implement a boundary.

Here are some examples:

Does one certain client’s email in your inbox trigger a wave of panic? It may be time to see how you can be at cause instead of at effect here. Instead of just feeling those feelings about the client and getting resentful and avoiding your inbox — connect with them and share what needs to be changed or adjusted about your relationship.

OR if it’s too far gone consider not working with that client at all — because that wave of panic affects all the tasks surrounding seeing that email. You probably become less productive right after and spend time thinking about it instead of other more pressing tasks.

Does seeing an unread email or Instagram notification pull you out of flow? Okay again — how can we move to being at cause here? You can control your notification settings or you can control where your phone is when you are at work.

Instead of getting mad at emails coming in or Instagram blowing up, instead of letting yourself get distracted and go down the rabbit hole — establish the boundary of when you get notifications or when you check your email. Be at cause!

Does sitting down to do one certain type of task send you into a total frustrated frenzy? Last example for now — but one more time how can we be at cause for this? Is this task a requirement? Does it have to be done by you? Can you pinpoint exactly what it is about the task that upsets you? Can that be eliminated?

There are so many opportunities here to be the one who controls the situation versus continually riding the emotional rollercoaster and blaming the tasks or the clients or the social media platform for your issues.

BOUNDARIES, friend.

These are all signs, all triggers, and instead of just continuing full steam ahead, why not pause and dive inward and see what’s really going on?

Because feeling shitty all the time in your business isn’t sustainable, isn’t in alignment, and is making everything way harder than it has to be.

EFFORTLESS people! It’s a vibe. Okay?

What happens when you bypass all the red flags and alarm bells going off every day is eventually you land in the land of burnout and overwhelm and exhaustion and everything sucks and you have half a mind to just throw in the towel. And we don’t want that!

You have so much goodness to bring into the world, my friend. I encourage you to bring this question into your business and honestly into your life: how am I at cause for this? We’re not looking for wishy-washy answers like BECAUSE I SUCK but instead for real concrete steps that happened that arrived at this situation.

Real-life examples — getting frustrated in traffic and too many red lights. Great, how can you be at cause for that frustration? Could you have left 5-10 minutes earlier so that you wouldn’t be in such a rush right now that the red lights and traffic would trigger you?

Okay, what about getting pissed at your spouse or roommate for not cleaning up their dishes? How can you be at cause? Have you voiced to them that it upsets you? Do they know this is a pressure point for you?

Chances are they want a nice relationship with you too and if they learn that this is something that upsets you they will try to adjust their behavior too. Right now they don’t even know you’re upset, and therefore not paying you any special mind which in TURN is making you MORE upset and perpetuating the cycle.

In a lot of ways when I first learned of this concept it felt like giving people excuses or letting people off easy and I rejected it. When I dove deeper I realized it was because a part of me liked feeling like “oh they just don’t get it.” There was a satisfaction in that. The victim complex strikes again, right? The reason is that truly your subconscious will not make you a liar. So if you believe that the world is out to get you and nothing works out ever, then… that’s what will be reflected back to you and as sick as it sounds your subconscious will feel successful in doing its job and proving you right.

HOWEVER when you move to being at cause and you set the boundaries and parameters for what’s acceptable… then your subconscious will work to prove THAT correct.

And you will only live with people who are clean and you will only work with clients who respect you and it’s not magic or woo woo or wishful thinking. It’s saying THIS is what I am available for this is what is okay and this is what I accept and EXPECT. And maybe a little magic haha

I’m kidding. It’s not magic. I mean it is magic but it’s also just the freaking amazing power of your mind and NLP and living at cause.

What are the ways that you will incorporate boundaries into your business? Share with me on Instagram!

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