What Happens When Boundaries Become Effortless

At first, setting boundaries takes effort—you remind yourself to say no, protect your time, and stay firm. But what happens when boundaries stop feeling like work and just become who you are?

In this episode, I’m sharing a powerful shift that happens when boundaries become second nature. It’s the moment when you stop managing them and start living them—because they’re no longer just rules you follow, but a reflection of your standards and values.

If you’ve ever felt like setting boundaries is exhausting or something you constantly have to “work on,” this episode will show you what’s waiting for you on the other side.

In This Episode, We’ll Explore:

• The mindset shift that takes boundaries from effort to instinct
• How this transformation changes the way you make decisions
• What it really means to own your time and protect it without guilt
• Why this is the key to long-term control over your schedule

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You are in the right place! Sign up for this free, on-demand training and learn how to gain control of your time no matter what life throws at you!
>>> https://www.megansumrell.com/freetraining
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Thanks for tuning in!
Megan 🩷🐝

www.megansumrell.com
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Do you want to change your relationship with yourself? Well, today I'm going to tell you exactly how.

[00:00:10] Today we're going to be diving into an area I haven't really talked about before. And it is the long term effects of implementing boundaries. And we're going to be talking about this as it relates to your time. Now I talk about boundaries a lot. I've had podcast episodes here about boundaries. Boundaries are such a critical part of learning how to plan and manage your time and actually controlling your calendar.

[00:00:40] Again, it's so critical that it's actually one of the nine components. Inside of the top framework, all right, and I have an entire master class on boundaries because believe it or not, we actually have different boundary what I call personality types, if you will. So again, boundaries are an incredibly important part of really learning how to take back control of our time and calendar, and ultimately our life, right, but today I want to dive into.

[00:01:13] What happens over time as you start creating and honoring the boundaries? Okay, so first let me give you some examples of the types of boundaries I'm talking about. And I actually looked up, there's a ton of interesting definitions for boundaries out there. And one that I found that, that relates the best here is this, it says the emotional, physical, and mental limits a person sets for themselves.

[00:01:43] Alright, so when we think about boundaries as it relates to our time, I'm going to share with you some of the boundaries I have. Talking about, you know, my calendar, my time, et cetera. So, for example, I have a boundary. I don't work after 2 p. m., right? Anytime I try and squeeze in planned work related activities during that window of post school and dinner, it's, it always turns into a disaster, right?

[00:02:11] If I let down my boundary and go, yeah, I'll take that phone call at 4 o'clock, the dogs are in my office, you know, it's just, it's a, Excuse my language is a shit show. So I have a boundary. I do not work after 2pm. That is when I take off my CEO hat and I go into, you know, time for myself, my family, loved ones, etc.

[00:02:33] Another boundary as it relates to my time is I don't say yes to things out of guilt. Alright, if it's something that I know is going to create stress, anxiety get me overscheduled or overbooked, I don't say yes to something out of guilt, out of feeling like I should or being worried what somebody is going to think about.

[00:02:54] Now, is that still a work in progress? You bet. But I've come a long way. Another boundary I have with my time is learning, I've gotten much better at this, learning how to ask for help when I need it, right? Hey, I need help with this one thing, meaning can I, I no longer be responsible for it and get help from someone because otherwise I will get over committed.

[00:03:15] I don't multitask. Now, are there times when, when someone would, might say I'm multitasking? Yes, but I do the good kind. So for example, if I'm cleaning, I might be listening to an audio book. All right, my mind doesn't need to be on the cleaning, so I'm listening to something. But what I'm not doing is trying to answer a work email while also having a conversation with a family member, etc.

[00:03:41] All right, I've cut that out of my life. because of these boundaries, I know what my time is worth and I don't sell it short. not saying yes to things out of guilt, et cetera. So I just kind of wanted to set the stage here of when I'm talking about boundaries with my time, some of the ones that I have now, this entire podcast episode was kind of born.

[00:04:03] through a conversation that I had with a coach that I am currently working with. I believe in the value of always leveling up. So I am working with a coach to help level up the pink bee business. And we were on a phone call and I was discussing a, what's called a B2B opportunity, business to business.

[00:04:22] I do a lot of deals with businesses around going in and training their staff or sometimes doing keynotes, things like that. And I was sharing with her that I had lost a deal that we were working on. I had presented the proposal and it ended up coming back a no because the price point was just one that was not in their budget.

[00:04:40] And so she asked me, she's like, well, how do you feel about that? And I instantly responded and said, I'm totally fine. I'm totally fine with it. And she said, well, why is that? I said, well, because I know how much time I would have spent to deliver on what I had proposed to them. And I know it was worth what I was charging for it.

[00:05:01] And so if that was just out of their reach right now, that is fine. I'm 100 percent fine with saying that was not the right deal for me instead of. Lowering my price in order to meet what their budget was. at some point she said, wow, you really have clear boundaries on your time. But then she stopped herself and she said, no, no, it's not boundaries.

[00:05:27] You've shifted your standards. And in that moment, we both kind of paused because we knew we had hit on something really important, which is, I believe this relationship between boundaries and standards. And that's what I want to dive into here today. Because I have been thinking about this for weeks since we had that conversation.

[00:05:55] And I even remembered in the moment saying, Ooh, I think there's a potential podcast episode here because this is bringing up a lot of things for me. I want to kind of take you on a journey of what I believe time management boundaries and standards, what that journey kind of looks like. So when I teach planning, my approach to how I teach people how to plan is I'm telling them upfront that learning time management is absolutely going to change your relationship with time.

[00:06:29] So many of us right now think of time in the negative. Right. There's never enough of it. We want more. We're striving for more. Well, when we gain control of our time and our calendar, and we learn how to plan in ways that support what we want out of life, it heals that kind of negative connotation that you may have with time that you don't even realize you stop focusing on the time you feel like you don't have.

[00:06:58] And instead you start zeroing in. on prioritizing the time that you do have. when we get that shift out of there's not enough to, Ooh, I'm going to be super intentional on how I'm spending it. What happens is we get more joy back in our life. We get more purpose back in our life. We have less stress.

[00:07:19] We have less. anxiousness, and ultimately we end up with more freedom. And so this is why this is such a critical skill, especially for women to have. And friends, I'm here to tell you, mastering, planning, and managing your time 100 percent requires you To establish and honor clear boundaries with your time.

[00:07:45] Now I shared what some of mine was here at the beginning, right? There's a reason why if you were to look at my planner or look at my calendar, every single day starting at two o'clock, it is blocked off until the dinner hour. That is my visual reminder of my boundary of no, do not accept anything. You do not work at this time.

[00:08:05] Now you might see something in that slot for a family member, right? Maybe there's a doctor's appointment or something like that, but you're not going to ever see me having work related activities during that window. as I just said, you know, mastering time management means you're going to have to have clearly defined boundaries with your time, but there's a shift here that you need to understand setting up boundaries with your time.

[00:08:31] When we hear the word boundary, we often go into the negative, right? Well, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. And I've used this example before, but I think it really resonates well when we're talking about boundaries, you know, a lot of times you'll see a visual or an image representing boundaries and you'll see a fence, right?

[00:08:49] People are like, okay, well, I'll put the fence up and I'm going to keep everybody out. Well, you also need to realize putting a fence up is not necessarily about keeping things out. It's protecting what's in, right? I've got two puppies that I love very, very much. If you don't know, we have two dogs here, Queso and Cheddar.

[00:09:08] They are the loves of, of my pet life. We have a fence in our backyard. It's not to keep people from coming in and playing with our dogs, right? It's for us to protect our dogs from something else coming into the backyard, right? I'm protecting Protecting what I love and my time boundaries, such as I don't work after 2 p.

[00:09:30] m. is protecting time for me, for my family, for my friends, for my loved ones, right? So it's not about what I'm keeping out. It's about what I'm protecting in with my time. Now when you're first learning to establish boundaries with your time, it can feel very hard because maybe you've never even thought about it, right?

[00:09:52] But here's my promise to you. Over time, it just starts to become second nature. I don't have to think twice about making sure I'm not booked back to back weekends in a row with travel. I know that's not good for me. If I see I'm going to be gone one weekend, and there's an opportunity for something the following weekend for travel, It's instinctively, I'm going to be like, Nope, I probably can't do that, right?

[00:10:17] But again, this comes from practice. So as I've really sat and reflected on my conversation with Eleanor, my coach I really started to, to think through what does the journey of this kind of time management and boundaries look like? And here's what I believe to be true based on my own experience and what I'm seeing from other women that have been.

[00:10:41] Implementing this themselves through the top program. You start with this. You start with learning how to plan and control your calendar, right? We have to see all the stuff that's competing for our time and learn some key systems. on how to get control of it. All right. And that's foundational of what I teach in the top program.

[00:11:05] That's what learning to master weekly planning is all about. Now, as you're doing this, you start to get awareness of spending a lot of time here, or boy, I keep seeing myself getting stuck there or wow, I had no idea I was spending this much time doing these things. And so then you start to create. And honor boundaries with your time, but first, you've got to learn how to create a plan and see everything you're juggling.

[00:11:32] Right? So we start with that. Then we start building in those boundaries, right? I didn't, I didn't start off saying I don't work after 2 p. m. The plans that I built and then the realities of what happened showed me this is where I need to put in a boundary. by implementing that boundary. It starts to change over time your relationship with your time, right?

[00:11:57] I see it very differently than I used to. And then it starts to highlight for you what your time is worth. When you see where your time is going, and you see how much time you have, Clearly laid out in a plan for yourself, it starts to really change you understanding how much your time is worth. And then, as those boundaries just start to become second nature, you're not focused on it going, Oh, I've got to keep that boundary.

[00:12:29] It changes your relationship with yourself. Right? And that's what this is all about. And I see it time and time again with women in the TOP program. After, several months of really getting on top of weekly and monthly planning, they start to hold themselves at a higher value than when they started.

[00:12:53] all starts with changing your relationship with time. As you master your time, you become someone who sees and recognizes the value of your time. You know what your time is worth. And when you're there, then you evolve. into standards. Now, I looked up in the dictionary, these two words, boundaries versus standards.

[00:13:22] And it's interesting because the dictionary says that boundaries are all about controlling yourself, right? And even, even as I shared the boundaries I have around my calendar, they're boundaries that Only I can control. I can control saying no to certain things, right? I can control not multitasking, all of that.

[00:13:40] Standards are about what I will and won't accept. It's very subtle, but it's incredibly powerful. So because I've implemented these boundaries with my time for as long as I have, I know what my time is worth. And I have standards about what I will and won't accept, which is what made it very easy for me to say, no, thank you.

[00:14:07] I'm going to pass on that business opportunity. I am not going to accept that because it wasn't the right value proposition of my time. And so I want to kind of end this today with a quote. from Eleanor that she shared when we were having this conversation that I think really hits it home well. And I'm going to go ahead and read it because I knew I wouldn't get it right in from memory.

[00:14:34] And she phrased it this way, learning time management doesn't just change your relationship with time. It changes your relationship with your own value, permanently and deeply. And friends, this is why I am so passionate about what I do. It's so much bigger than time management. It's so much bigger than learning how to plan and control your time.

[00:15:06] It's bigger than boundaries. Right? It's about the relationship you have with your worth and your value. And when you have that, man, you become unstoppable. Now, if you have not been introduced to any parts of my top program, the framework that I mentioned, you know, I said boundaries is one of nine components.

[00:15:30] I'm actually going to be conducting. A live top bootcamp at the time you're hearing this the bootcamp is going to be happening mid March 2025. So if you want to come check this out and start to see like where boundaries fits in and start to see how you can completely change that relationship, all you need to do is head over to the top bootcamp.

[00:15:56] com. You can go check that out. It is the perfect place to get started.