Bret Shuford 0:00
As a recovering, alcoholic, slash codependent slash, whatever you want to call me, I find boundaries to be one of the most difficult things in my life as an adult, I just wasn't taught it. It's not something that happens naturally for me. And so I also suffer with ADHD. So sometimes I can be all over the place. So the question I have to constantly reassess in my head is how do I hold to my boundaries? Sometimes I think magical thinking that if I create a boundary, other people will respect it is not true. People aren't going to hold your boundaries the way you will just know that it's not like, oh, I set this boundary. Now they're going to wait, why are they trying to encroach upon my other time windows and blah, blah, blah, you have to hold those things. And it requires, for me a real sense of ownership and discomfort, and not being afraid to nag and repeat myself. I mean, that's the truth. But what do boundaries look like? Boundaries are a mystery for so many of us, especially as you become a parent, let me just tell you, but the way I learned about boundaries, is understanding that it is not so much about the other people as it is about respecting yourself, in respecting yourself. You're teaching other people through the power of example, through you know, honouring your commitments that you can follow through and do the things you want. Why is that necessary, as a business person or an entrepreneur, you're going to constantly run up against this need to reassess your boundaries, people don't understand entrepreneurship, for instance, as an actor, right, and being an actor is entrepreneurship, you invest a lot of money up front, you don't make a lot of money to start, right with the hope that by doing all of that time and investment relationship building, you will hit it big, right? It's the same thing in any business, you you know, need an investor or sometimes you need to invest some time, money and training. And my family didn't get what I did, as an actor, they didn't understand like, in most like most people don't understand what being an actor means. Like, I remember in high school for career counselling, UB took an assessment. And the assessment said that I would be a great interior designer. And that job seemed more viable to the person in the career counselling me than being an actor. I was like, I don't want to be an interior designer, although I would be a great interior designer. Let me just say, I want to be an actor, I want to be on Broadway. And they were like, well, yeah, they kind of didn't know what to do with that. And the same is true with my family who was like, Okay, I mean, there's just no example for them of what it means to be a successful actor. So by saying, I'm going to do this, they didn't really respect it, because they don't understand it. And I think the sooner you know that, when it comes to starting your career, your business, your industry, you'll stop waiting for other people did hold that space for you. Because you have to do it yourself. You have to show up now then, as you start on that path, there's going to be competing interests. How do you stay healthy? How do you work out? How do you socialise how you what are your priorities, and that's going to always change, there's going to be seasons where you're making great money and you want to socialise more, and there's going to be seasons where, okay, I need to, like buckle down and spend my money on investing wisely and training and getting better and up levelling myself. What season are you when it is okay to say to people, listen, I can't do this right now, there might be opportunities that come up there that feel once in a lifetime. And I'm telling you right now, nothing is once in life, you will always get new opportunities and new things will come your way when the timing is right. I always see those opportunities when I'm in a certain season that I've created boundaries around their distractions, there are ways to test me to see if i How badly do I really want to go after my vision. So setting boundaries starts by getting really clear on what season you're in step one, are you in a season of contraction? Are you in a season of building? Are you in, like, where are you right now? Right? What is your vision? What do you committed to? I always say to people, you can do it all you just can't do it all at once. So what is your first step to get you towards accomplishment so that you can then move on to the next thing and focus on that and the things that you do right now need to align with that vision. Otherwise, it's going to take you longer to accomplish it.
I'm telling you, this is all based on my own history. I'm not telling you this out of you know, some book that I read, I'm telling you, whenever I find that I set really clear boundaries and I say to myself, I'm going to own not eat gluten for the next month, right? Or I say to myself, I'm not going to socialise, I'm willing to spend money on you know, on coffee or once a week instead of every day those little bit of boundary setting I can make for myself opens up different opportunities that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't done it. Right. My goal is maybe to save money. Great, now I can start looking for opportunities to do that, instead of just sort of running my life boundary free. So once you've made a decision, what season you're in, you want to ask yourself, what are the things I'm currently doing? That contributes to getting to that great, make a list? Okay, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. Where am I calendar? Because if it's not scheduled, it doesn't exist? Where in my calendar? Am I doing the things that are gonna get me closer to accomplishing this? And what are the things that are getting in the way? What are the things that don't align with this right now? Am I paying money for voice lessons? When right now I really want to be dancing? Am I paying money for you know, a class on social media, when what I really want to be doing is up levelling my skills as an actor write me? Where are you, right? Is it more of an internal process of work, then eliminate those expenses and those time consuming things that won't get you there? Right, take those commitments away, they will still be, there will still be opportunities for you to do those things in the future. I promise you, some of these people who teach courses and things, their marketing is so good, they're going to convince you you have to sign up right now. That's good marketing. You don't just know you'll have the same opportunity a year from now then finally, what is one or two things you can do every single week? Or more to add to your to your list of things to accomplish? What do you need to know? What do you need to learn? And who do you want to learn it from and make that commitment to do that, once you've scheduled those things into your calendar, it then becomes your job to communicate to people this is the goal. This is the focus right now, for the next three months, six months, year, whatever the goal is for yourself and focus on this, I'm telling my teachers, I'm telling whomever, I'm going to table this specific task because I want you know, God, the universe, whatever is telling me to go in this direction. For the time being and know you can come back to it boundaries are hard, okay, we can feel like we're losing out, there's a little bit of FOMO that will come in, you're also wet for people who aren't used to setting boundaries. When someone else sets boundaries. It feels like you're being mean it feels they're receiving it like why are you being so harsh, so mean? Because they don't know how to set boundaries themselves. So take it from someone recovering codependent addict, alcoholic, you're not being mean by setting boundaries. In fact, setting boundaries can be one of the most loving things you can do. Because when you set boundaries, you tell people, I care about you enough to set an expectation based on reality. And based on what serves me best, they can't deny what serves you. So know that if you're coming from a place of love, you're not coming from a place of resentment. If you're saying to these people, listen, I love you very much. This is not a fit in this time right now, for me, I want to come back to this, I want to revisit this in a few months. Phil understand. And if they don't understand that's not your partner. That's the person you're supposed to be in partnership with. So I want to I want to encourage you take this time right now to just assess as we go into the last quarter of the year, what season are you in? What do you need to learn? What have you learned that maybe you're lacking? What have you learned that maybe the universe is trying to guide you toward? And can you start to make some real clear boundaries around accomplishing that thing that you know you really want to accomplish. But you're letting yourself get lost in other people's idea of what you're supposed to be doing maybe an old idea of who you were, or maybe the things that you you know, you think that other people want you to do it's let go of that go for the thing you really want. It might start by just taking a class, you got to make space schedule it in and hold yourself to it. Let me know on Instagram comm take a screenshot of this episode. I want to know what are the things that for yourself, you're going to start to hold space for and commit to and tell people hey, these are this is my boundary. This is my goal and setting that come tag me on stories and let me know because I'm really really want to support you on this journey. If you're somebody who really wants support around this, I'm here for you. Alright, and I'll talk to you next week on another episode of the creative visibility podcast.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
