Learn How To Set Boundaries with Christy Fechser

Today's guest is Christy Fechser. Christy grew up in a small town in Wyoming, USA and quickly decided that small town living wasn't for her.  After trying out several different career paths, she finally landed on entrepreneurship. She now coaches women about the energy, emotion, and tools for effective goal setting. Her course teaches real-world tools that will help you overcome the inner and outer blocks you face as you strive to take yourself, your business, your life – to the Next Level!

In this episode, Christy and I will visit about how to set boundaries. Boundaries are important for yourself, your business, and your life because every time you say yes to something you don't want, you're saying no to something you do want. Overdelivering for someone else is taking you away from yourself, your family, and your own life.

Grab Christy's free guidebook to get you moving in the right direction on her website here:  https://www.christyfechser.com/guide

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Transcript

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Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, magic Barkley, and today Christie Feer rejoins us to teach us to learn how to set boundaries. Welcome back. Hi, magic. Thanks for having me back. I'm so excited to be here and to talk about this today. Thanks for rejoining us. Now, in episode 180 4 when we were giving tips for creating wealth, you mentioned setting boundaries, and I think this is just so important, whether they're personal boundaries, business boundaries, family boundaries, no matter what, because we can set boundaries for ourself, As an identity, I guess. So how do we do that? How do we go about setting boundaries not only for other people to learn how to treat us mm-hmm but also for ourselves? You know, I think that one of the first things that we need to recognize when we're talking about boundary setting, a lot of people are going to first, and this is actually interesting because I have a course, for women that is just, it's called Next Level Living, and it is solely focused on helping women really identify who they want to be and how to become that person. And one whole module of this course is talking. Specifically about boundaries and how to do that. and one of the things that I get the feedback the most on is that when it comes to boundaries, people will either be shocked that I'm recommending that they have them, because one, they're like, what the heck? Why would I have boundaries then that means that I can't serve people, or, you know, they like make up a rule about how that looks. Or two, They say, I don't have a boundary problem which is actually funny cuz one of my dear, dear friends, she's one of the ones that was like, I don't have a boundary problem. And I'm like, oh no girl, you do. Let's talk about that. I guess first of all, we need to talk about what boundaries actually are and why you would want to have them, what that even means. Because there are a lot of people that have kind of, Misconceived notions of what that is, um, and why you would want to have them. So first of all, I think that it's really important to recognize that boundaries are a way of having self-respect. It's a way of being able to identify your own value and say, I am worth saying no. I am worth not engaging. I am worth walking away from these types of interactions or activity. Or people, whatever it is that's going on in your life personally, you're setting boundaries from a place of wanting to have self-respect and that it isn't about just setting like this hard. No. Although sometimes it is exactly like that. Sometimes it is exactly like a hard no. so I think that first and foremost that's important to clear up for people to understand that boundaries are about self-respect. And taking care of yourself. So if I can give an example, when we talk about moms, for example, one of the things that we will happen when a woman first starts having kids is that they, when a baby comes. They eat, sleep, breathe, live this baby, right? Because their needs have to be taken care of by somebody else. The problem comes in when we don't kind of pull back from that and go back to ourselves and being ourselves, and we continue to feed into that. Now you can have that same type of behavior that I give myself to you, behavior in your marriage in. You know, just in your regular relationships, you can do that in your job with your boss, with, employees, coworkers, you know, whatever that looks like. it's different for everybody, obviously, because we all live different lives. But, I have a good friend I was talking to, and as we were talking about boundaries, she said, oh, I recognize that I let my patients walk all over me. So this isn't just one person. This happens to, I can't tell you how many women over the years when I talk to them about boundaries, they're like, oh my gosh, I need you in my ear all the time. Because I don't know how to tell people, no, I don't know how to set boundaries for myself. And these are women all across the board. They are women who stay home and raise children, or they are editors or they are doctors. Like it's all across the board. This isn't like a, a one. Little focused area and, and I know that this is also true of men, that men can also have a hard time setting boundaries. So when we talk about setting boundaries, I think it helps to kind of identify some of the ways that we are allowing people to take advantage of us so that we are not having boundaries. And I'll give an example of this. So years and years and years ago, my husband decided that he wanted to do web development. And he was really good at the development side of it, but he wasn't really great at the business side of it. And so I jumped in because I love business. I jumped in and helped him run kind of the business side of it and I would do a little bit of the development stuff with him from time to time. And we had this client from California, who had found us and I think that this is actually where I learned to create my own boundaries. Actually, she did not want us to have any boundaries. Like she would call us at 10 o'clock at night wanting a change made to her website and she wanted it done overnight right now, instantly all the time. And she wanted us to charge what she wanted us to charge. And it became this situation where it was like you become resentful against the people that you don't set boundaries. Because there comes a breaking point where you're like, I hate this and I don't want to engage in this anymore, and I don't want it to be like this. I don't want it to feel like this. I don't wanna feel like I'm on call all the time to this person's needs and. The thing about situations like that often too, is that those people don't even realize that they're doing it. You've just allowed it to happen. And so they just continue to do it because you're the person that they can go to when they need something and then, you know, you like run to them and they're like, oh, I got it figured out. And you're like, oh my gosh, I literally just dropped everything to come here and to help you. And now you're saying that I, you don't need me. So it. can create this resentment inside of us. So I went to my husband and I was like, so there's this one client and this is what's happening. And I don't think that it's healthy. And from a business standpoint, I know that it's not a, a good business practice to behave in this way. And so we need to, one, raise our prices so that we can kind of like start weeding out clients that don't wanna pay us what we're worth and two, We need to set hours, working hours, and we do not answer the phone. We do not answer emails. We do not engage in conversations outside of those working hours. And so he was like, yep, I totally agree. We raised our prices, we set our business hours, and I let all of our clients know that that was what was happening. And this one client from California had a fit. She called my husband and I could hear her across the room screaming. At him about how horrible I was because I was changing the deal. I was setting these boundaries, I was changing the price. I was changing my hours. I'm not gonna answer her phone call at 10 o'clock anymore. And it was this, this, this huge thing, and I think it really was one of the first times in my life I was like, I created this situation because I allowed. And I recognize that I'm no longer allowing it, and I will never allow it again. But it's, it's those kinds of things where, you know, we engage in a relationship, whether it's a work relationship or a personal relationship, and we allow people to kind of walk on us to a degree. not that that was their intention even, but that we allowed it. And then when we decide, I don't want it to be like that anymore, when we feel enough resentment. That it's kind of like that moment where you're drawing the line. Then it can shake things up a little bit. And there are going to be people that are like, if you're not going to let me walk on you and you're not going to be the person that I need you to be, then I don't want to be in your life anymore. And that's awesome. Let those people go. Do not beg them to stay. You don't need them. I, I think that's really, really important. I just, sorry, I just wanna stop you there. Yeah. Because that's something that listeners need to keep. Let those people go, They are not your people. They are not there for you. They are there for them. And if your setting boundaries makes them uncomfortable, show them the door. Yes. Here in Australia we have, you know, an an old saying, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Yes, yes. Say it. Yes. Yeah, I was telling my daughter, she's 20 now when she was 18. she has this one friend and he does not have boundaries and he doesn't like it when she has boundaries. And it's just his personality. He's just fun and kind of spontaneous and I don't think he means, you know, it to be ill. Uh, it's just that she also likes fun. And so it's just, you know, they like to talk and, Sometimes that's all hours of the night and then she's scratchy or you know, like there's ramifications that happen from those not having boundary moments. And so I was talking to her and I was telling her, you need to set boundaries and you need you, not only do you need to do it for him, but you need to do it for yourself. You need to be able to have these boundaries because when you engage in this behavior, it's not healthy for you. And I said, the thing is, is that if he doesn't like that, The one thing that's true is that the only people who are gonna get upset about you having boundaries are the ones who benefited from you not having any boundaries. So sit with that for a second. The only people that are gonna get upset with you having boundaries are the ones who benefited from you not having any boundaries. The people who genuinely care about you and want you to be healthy and happy are going to be like, okay, I can honor and respect that. So it's important to. Have those conversations with those people and to say, okay, these are my business hours, or these are my working hours. If you're an employee that your boss doesn't get to call you all hours of the day and night, or if it's with a spouse, you know, you can say, this is, you know, I don't like to engage in this type of conversation. Or like, it could be yelling or it could, you know, whatever. There's a lot of things and it's different. It's unique to everybody. It's so unique. I'm just, it surprises me as I continue coaching the things that I come across and I'm like, oh, well that's a boundary issue we need to talk about. You know? It could be the little old lady living down the street that needs your help. Well, that's fine. To a degree. Would that little old lady, if the roles were reversed, would she do the same thing for you? So it kind of comes down to this place where, yes, we want to serve, yes, we want to show up. Yes, we want to be kind. Yes, we want to help all of those things, which is, you know, in large part what women feel kind of called to do is to be the nurturer. But when we do it at our own expense, Then there has that. It becomes unhealthy. It becomes unhealthy for you, which is then going to be unhealthy for you and all of your relationships because you've stopped putting yourself first and filling yourself up and allowing yourself the space to say no. And that is one of the biggest things I think that. You know, if I can kind of go in that direction is that a lot of people struggle with saying no. One of the things that I tell people all the time is that when you say yes, when you want to say no, you're saying no to something you actually wanna be saying yes to. When you say yes to something, you wanna say no. You're actually saying no to yourself, to your kids, to your spouse, to your dreams, to your goals, to your job, to your hobbies, whatever it is that is important to you. And. It's important for people to be able to feel okay if you're, if you're looking for permission to say, no, I'm giving it to you. Here's your permission. You can tell people no. So in your mind, you can say that one lady on that one podcast told me, I can say no and no is a complete sentence, and I don't have to justify why I am saying it. There's your permission. You can tell people, oh. I'm not interested or not today, or it's not the right time, or I'm not in that season of my life. I actually had a woman the other day, they were needing somebody to take in a meal to a woman in our neighborhood that had had surgery. And I'm like, oh, I can do that. And this woman called me and she's like, I just so appreciate you being willing to do this all the time, you know, to take a meal. And I'm like, you know, there are a lot of things I can't do in this season of my life, but I can cook a meal and take it to somebody. So understand what those things are. You don't have to be all things to all people. You're not supposed to. You have to first figure out who you want to be and what is valuable to you and honor that. I just wanna go back to that lovely word. No. And I wanna remind the listeners, when you were a baby or when your kids were babies, what was one of the first words they learned? And then as toddlers, what was the word that you wished you never heard again? It was no. Yeah. Do you wanna take a bath? No. Do you wanna pick up your toys? Do you wanna go and play outside? They'd say nothing. Cuz yes, that's the answer, but they're not gonna say yes. They just wanna say no. So the thing that we first learn as human beings is to draw boundaries. What makes you lose that ability? Listeners. And why is it such a bad thing in your thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, whatever? How come it became such a shameful thing to say no? Like really look back at toddlerhood and go, I had all my shit together. Then when I learned to say no and bring that back cuz it's not a dirty. No, it's not, it's not a dirty word at all. It's actually a, it's a very self-affirming word. It's a, it's a good thing for you to say no because it allows you the opportunity to say yes to the things that you really want to. I love that now you have so much to offer people and within your boundaries and to teach them how to create boundaries. So I'm going to send people to christie feer.com, so that's C H R I S T Y F E C H S E r.com. You can get in touch with Christie there, her fabulous podcast, all. Tools and trainings, uh, everything is located there. So listeners, definitely reach out. Thank you for rejoining us for this episode. Oh, thank you. Magic. I love being here. I love being able to share this information with people. I think it's probably not talked about enough. It's definitely not. And I'm so glad that we were able to air this for the listeners today. So the, this was your episode 180 5. In 180 6. Nicole Laron is coming to talk about cognitive health. So all things cognitive health, can't wait for that one. Christie, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Magic listeners, thank you for your time. Go forth and create your magical life.