How To Be REALLY Productive

Chapter 6

Tough love: setting boundaries and saying no

You know you can’t be everything to everyone, right? But, even when you know, it’s still hard to put it into practice. Here are some practical ways of setting healthy boundaries and expectations, managing your availability and saying no with grace and confidence.

Why we struggle to define boundaries

We struggle to define boundaries because we think they are about keeping people out. We don’t want to be rude, ungenerous or unwelcoming. We don’t want to turn clients away or put people off. We don’t want to offend or upset. We fear putting our jobs or our relationships on the line, because we don’t want to push people away:

‘I don’t want to be too specialist because I don’t want to put people ...