The 3 Types of Boundaries Needed for Work-Life Balance

Hello, friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. So, y'all know I love talking about systems, automations, and how to make sure that you are streamlining the shit out of your business, to grow your business, and to get to that next level in a seamless way. But what all that I teach really comes back to, at the end of the day, is setting boundaries between you and your business, your personal life and your business, right?

Because that is what I have found in my own business, in my students' businesses, to really help them set those boundaries in a professional way that doesn't upset the clients, that makes sure that your clients have a better experience with you, and that you can actually reap the benefits of all the hard work that you put in, right? Systems and processes and automation allows you to spend time with your family and your friends and, most importantly, yourself, without having to work. They allow you to show up as the creative artist who wants to give their clients the best without getting burnt out or resentful. And so we're gonna be talking all about boundaries today, and we're gonna be talking about the three different boundary categories that I have broken them down into, to make sure that we can really understand our pillars, our constructive web of how all of these different types of boundaries need to be in place and to n- need to be supporting each other for you to have a well-rounded life and business.

So, if you're ready, we're gonna get into the three types of boundaries, and we're gonna get it started. We're gonna get it on and popping. Let's go. Let me guess.

You are a hustling, bustling hairstylist behind the chair, working so hard to build a beautiful career for yourself, one that gives you time, freedom, and energy to spend with yourself, your family, and your friends. But you feel like you're always working in your business, even when you're not behind the chair. My name's Hunter Donia, and I help you automate your systems and implement really beautiful strategies so you can grow your business without the overwhelm. And this is the Modern Hairstylist Podcast.

What's going on, Caitlin? How are you? I'm doing good, friend. How are you?

I'm so good, Caitlin. For the people who aren't familiar with, uh, who your beautiful self is, then please tell the people, please. Hello, people. My name's Caitlin.

I am a non-active behind-the-chair hairstylist. I moved to England recently, and I am working for Hunter now and doing a little bit of help with him on the podcast. I kinda just help to keep him on track and shoehorn in my opinion where I see fit. We had a, we had our first two-star review on the podcast, which I kind of celebrated a little bit.

We need to do a whole episode about this. I celebrated it because I found that I would not have learned the lessons that I needed to learn from it if it didn't happen. And I was like, "If you don't got haters, you're doing something wrong." So I was excited about it.

But what it made me realize was the person was like, the person said, like, "You didn't let your guest speak. Like, you were speaking the whole time, and they didn't speak at all." And I'm like, "She's not my guest." "She's my co-host."

And we love hearing from Caitlin. Like, I love when Caitlin spills the tea because she's so knowledgeable herself, and we're on the same page here. But Caitlin, Caitlin's role is to really just keep my, my ass in check because y'all know I get a little crazy. So, Caitlin, thank you so much for being here.

You're, I very much appreciate you. Yeah, absolutely. I thoroughly enjoy being here. Even, even though I only talk a little bit, it's still really enjoyable for me too, so...

And this was- Yeah. a really good learning lesson. Like you said, we'll do a whole episode on it. But, like, yeah- Uh-huh.

that's what I'm here for. I think a whole episode about, like, haters would be a really good one. So, we're gonna be talking about the three different types of boundaries today, and this is completely by my own definition. Like, I just came up with this for myself because it, it's really simple and it makes the most sense for me.

Like, I've seen some people, like, break down boundaries into, like, eight different categories, and I'm like, "Too much. Like, how in the hell am I supposed to apply this?" So, I'm, I'm dialing it all down to three, and they're just different types of boundary categories that all build on top of each other. Like, I want you to have a network of different boundaries that all support each other to make sure that you really understand how to hold yourself accountable to them and how to protect yourself and make sure that you stay on top of them.

So, I know that you guys know by, by now, if you've been listening to me and you've known me for a while, I have ADHD, okay? My ADHD is no joke. I've been diagnosed since I was in second grade, and it affects every single facet of my life. And I have been able to tap into a lot of different things that have helped me so much with still being successful in spite of my ADHD.

And through that journey, I've learned that I have needed to have things that hold me accountable. I've had to create support systems to hold me accountable, to having a higher level standard of joy, and to make sure that I'm self-regulating my, myself, my actions, my behaviors, what I'm saying yes to, what I'm saying no to, um, and how I'm staying on, on track with things. And this is a massive part of that, having these three different categories all in place to make sure that I'm not screwing myself over and that I'm staying on the right track for my own life. So, let's talk about it.

So, first and foremost, we have personal boundaries. So, personal boundaries are the boundaries that you set to hold yourself to a higher standard of joy, and they are very much like self-regulating boundaries. They're, they're the decisions that you make upon, like, based upon your own actions, right? And how you're treating yourself in your life.

And so personal boundaries could include not checking your emails, DMs, and texts at certain times and days of the week. So let's say that you have certain family time that you just wanna be focusing on your family, then that would be a personal boundary where you personally do not check your own texts, DMs. You're- you don't open your phone because you're just focused on your, on your family. Not scheduling yourself outside of your regular working hours.

So this is, again, another action based upon your own decisions and behaviors in which you are making sure that you're staying within a certain range of hours for work, so that way you can spend the other time, you know, actually living your life and, and investing into your personal well, well-being and, and, uh, enjoy. And then setting aside specific time to spend with your friends, your family, or yourself. So going along the same lines, making sure that you are setting aside very specific focus time for your friends, your family, or yourself. Another thing with personal boundaries is, like, let's say you really wanted to make sure that you got up at a certain time to go to a educational class, right?

Like, let's say that you wanted to come to Beauty Boundary Workshop, um, which is going to be our free workshop, which we'll be talking about a little bit more with you soon. Let's say that you wanted to come to Beauty Boundary Workshop and you wanted to make sure that you would get up nice and bright and early and attend the workshop, take notes, be attentive, not have any distractions, right? That would be a personal boundary of, "I am going to go to bed at this time, and I'm gonna set an alarm for this time, and I'm gonna get my ass up at this time. I'm only going to be focusing on what's right in front of me.

I'm not going to be focusing on anything else," right? So that is a personal boundary. So your personal boundaries are by far the hardest things. Like, your personal boundaries are the most difficult things to be holding yourself accountable to, because there's no, like, barrier between you and somebody else.

It's only up to you, right? Like, there's no boss telling you that you are going to do this. Like, you are the boss. Like, you are the only person who is responsible for these.

And so it's really hard to self-regulate, especially when we don't have other boundaries to support us in these decisions, what we'll be, which we'll be talking about in just a moment, and that's why this is so important. But these are by far the most difficult, yet they are the most important. And so we really wanna be taking sh- making sure that we're taking our personal boundaries seriously. I just wanted to add with personal boundaries, I have been on a big old boundary experience since I met Hunter last year, and I don't know exactly what made the switch flip for me, but I have very strict personal boundaries when it comes to work and family time, and I, I think it's probably just because I only get so many hours with my family, like, throughout the week.

Like, we work different schedules. So I basically have to tell myself when somebody asks me to, like, work outside of my hours, or if somebody's trying to get in on a weekend or whatever, like, in- during my family time, I have to tell myself that I am... I'm not only depriving myself of family time with, like, my husband and our animals and stuff like that, but I'm also depriving him of family time as well. So, like, when you really put it in those really simple terms, it does make it, in my opinion, a lot easier to stick to those boundaries as well.

Yeah, I agree, and I love that you brought up, you know, that you're not only taking away from yourself, but you're also taking away from your family, right? Like, think about how this isn't just affecting you. Like, this also domino effects, like, everything else around you. That's the thing about boundaries, is that we think that boundaries are so selfish, when in reality, they are the most selfless thing that you can do.

Brene Brown says that the most selfless successful people that she has interviewed over the past, like, 15 years are by far the most boundaried people. Boundaries allow you to show up better for yourself and the other people around you, and so that's why this is so important. That is why I love it so much, and that's why I teach it. So thank you so much for sharing that.

So the second type of boundaries are relational boundaries. So relational boundaries are the boundaries that you set between yourself and others to support your personal boundaries. Relational boundaries are super important because they support your personal boundaries. So again, let's go back to you wanna attend Beauty Boundary Workshop.

It's a 9:00 AM class and you wanna make sure that you get up for it. You wanna make sure you're not distracted. You wanna go to bed early, so that way you wake up bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ready to go. You make sure that you have the k- kids fed, you put the Peppa Pig on the iPad, you're like, "Get over there.

Leave me alone. I have a class to attend," right? So that is a relational boundary, right? Is making sure that you have done everything that you need to do with others around you to support your personal boundary of just focusing on the thing in front of you, or whatever it may be.

Another relational boundary could be, um, charging everyone full price for their service, right? Let's say you have a personal boundary of you are gonna start to not emotionally discount anybody anymore. You're going to be paying yourself exactly what you're worth and what, what it should be on paper. So a relational boundary would be then charging that person, right, uh, that full price.

You'd be starting to say no to somebody and making sure that the boundary between you and the person you have that relationship with, in whatever way, shape, or form, is taken care of, and it's in line, in alignment with your personal boundary. Breaking up with a guest because they don't make sense for your business or respect your boundaries anymore. So let's say that you have personal boundaries of not coming in on Saturdays anymore. You're not gonna be able to support that personal boundary unless you put in place that relational boundary of breaking up with that guest because they're, like, being assholes to you about, you know, not coming in on Saturdays....

saying no to anything requested of you that doesn't bring you joy or breaks your personal boundaries. It's, this is, so basically, long story short, this is about saying no. These are the boundaries that you set between yourself and others, so that way you can, you can respect and stay accountable to your own personal boundaries. So, Kaitlin talked about how she has been on a boundary journey herself, and so Kaitlin and I, we work together pretty closely, and Kaitlin, and I'm fucking crazy.

Like, I'm like, I'm absolutely wild, as y'all can imagine. And so Kaitlin will have, if she wants to go spend time with Taylor, her amazing, uh, husband, right? And I, like, need to go on a meeting with her at some point. If I ask her, like, "Hey, can you meet at this time?"

Then Kaitlin's gonna be like, "No. However, I can meet at this time instead," and that's her supporting her personal boundaries by implementing a relational boundary between me and her, right? And saying no. So, that's relational boundaries.

Do you have anything to share, Kaitlin? I can give another example . Please, please. Uh, I recently actually, um, I've been making lots of new friends in England, uh, and with that always comes the, like, dreaded, "I'm a hairstylist" talk, and then everybody in the room is like, "Oh my God, can you do my hair?"

And I'm not working behind the chair. So, it is a hard boundary. I have, I got screwed over so hard when I first started doing hair that, like, I will not do hair outside of the salon. Right.

And so, like, my husband is the only one that gets a haircut outside of the salon. Yep. So, of course, all of these new friends are like, "Oh my God, do, do you wanna, like, do my hair on the side?" There was this one person specifically that I was like, I wanted to help her so bad.

Right. Her haircut was just rough, and she's been cutting her own hair. I'm like, "Fuck, I really wanna help this person." But I'm like, "Nope, I made a promise to myself.

I have a very, very strict rule that I will not do people's hair outside of the salon. So, I will help you try to find a stylist that can help you," but I had to stick to my guns. And the other person sitting at the table with us was actually like, "Wow, like, I'm proud of you. Like, that's an amazing thing to be able to say no about."

I was like, "Thank you so much." So... Dude, thank you- That's my whole story. so mu- no, thank you so much for sharing, because it, it goes so perfectly with our next type of boundaries, which is systematic boundaries, okay?

Systematic boundaries. And this isn't gonna specifically apply to that story, but if you were still doing hair, then we would have the perfect solution, and I know that you already know what it is. Systematic boundaries are the boundaries and the systems that you set in place to support your relational and personal boundaries. So, you see the relational boundaries were supporting your personal boundaries, and now your systematic boundaries are then going to support your relational and your personal boundaries.

Systematic boundaries could include online booking only, right? So, no pre-booking in the salon. You can only book with me online. Why?

Because that holds you accountable to your relational and your personal boundary of not coming in early, staying late on your days off, and you're able to say no with this system, right? So, this system supports you in saying no, instead of you having to feel all awkward and stay strong about it, or you giving in and booking somebody in on your time off, right? When that is one of your personal boundaries you wanna have, is not doing that. This system supports you in doing so, right?

Automated new client application and onboarding process. So, like Kaitlin's example. This is so perfect. So, let's say that you are working behind the chair, unlike Kaitlin, right?

And you have this person. You're like a- making new friends. You're at a dinner party, you're somewhere, and this person comes up to you and they are like, "Oh my God. Like, can you do my hair?"

And you're, in your mind you're like, "I do not wanna do your hair. You seem crazy. Like, your hair's busted. Like, I'm not, I don't wanna do it."

We've all been there, right? With a new client application, a way where every single one of your new clients only books with you one way, and you have a screening process where you're making sure that you know exactly what you're walking yourself into, you can say, "Sure, I'd be interested in getting the process started with you. You can go to my website and you can fill out the new application, new client application. We can figure out if the r- if we're the right fit from there, and then, um, I'll reach out to you about it," right?

Instead of feeling all awkward in the moment and feeling like you have to say yes or you have to say no, you can have a system that supports you in implementing that boundary. That is so impactful. Like, that is so helpful for you, my friend, because then you don't have to emotionally labor over saying no or saying yes, right? You just have a system to back you up, which I think is beautiful.

And the automation part about this is really important as well. Like, my new client application that I teach in Pre-Visit Pathway, literally, my people, you only have to press a button once you get that submission in, and it sends an automated email whether they're re- whether you want them to book with you for the specific service that needs to be booked for, or you have a deny button where you can very kindly automatically, with a click of a button, decline a client, right? In a very professional and beautiful way, and you don't even have to think about it. You don't have to write up this email and think about what you're gonna say, because you already have a pre-done email, and I give you the temp- template for it, right?

And you can just click a button. So easy. So, that supports you in your relational boundary of saying no to anything or anyone that doesn't bring you joy, which then supports you in your personal boundaries of h- holding yourself to a higher standard of joy, and not burning yourself out, and coming back home to your family and giving them your 100 fucking percent, because you can't do that if you're spending time serving people that make you miserable. Another systematic boundary, sign policies every single appointment, right?

When you have policies that your clients are aware of, it then supports you in your relational and your personal boundaries, right? Because you're making sure that you're not letting anybody step all over you. You're making sure that your time is respected, right? And that you're making the money that you need to be making.

And then a client-only portal to remove your online booking link from the public and reduce texts, DMs and phone calls. So I'm a high, I'm a high key believer that we should be removing our online booking link from our web- um, from our websites. I, I don't think new clients should have access to that. I think only your existing clients should have access to that.

And having a space where your clients can get all the things that they need, such as a client-only app, which is another thing I teach in Pre-Visit Pathway. Then they can go into that app and they can get done everything that they need to get done without having to reach out to you, which then holds you accountable to your personal boundary of not working when you're not fucking working. So do you see how important and impactful systematic boundaries can be for holding you accountable and helping support you in your relational and your personal boundaries? Caelyn, what do you have to share?

I just love a good full circle moment. Like, it all comes back to the boundaries in the end. Everything supports the personal boundaries, 100%. And like, that's the thing about this is like yes, these are, like, business strategies, like, these are structural changes to help you grow your business and actually, like, have a streamlined business.

But at the end of the day, this is very personal. Like, this is super personal and impactful for you as a service provider, as a human being, as possibly a mother, a parent, like, a partner. If you're going to be running your own business, especially, if you're going to be in this business where we're creating these really personal relationships, you need to make sure you have the systems in place to support you in doing so, so that way you can come back home and give yourself and everyone else 100%. And your clients.

You can't serve your clients unless you have these in place. You can't give them your 100% unless you have these in place. So, my friend, I hope that the breakdown of these three different types of boundaries was helpful for you. I hope that you can see now how in order to have one boundary, you need to have others in place to support them.

And we're gonna be teaching all about this and breaking it down even harder in my free workshop called Beauty Boundary Workshop. At the time of this recording, we are gonna be coming up on Beauty Boundary Workshop very, very soon. We're gonna be running, um, multiple workshops between the 17th of October 2022 and the 24th of October. We have four different flexible dates that are convenient for you to sign up for free, and we're gonna be literally diving so deep into your own business, your own mindset, so that way you can show up better for yourself, you can help us change the narrative of this industry collaboratively, and you can finally reap the benefits of all the hard work that you put into your business day in, day out.

And you can learn how to say no to your clients without upsetting them or harming your business. So I high key recommend that you sign up now at hunterdoniya.com/boundaries. And we're gonna leave that link in the show notes for you so that way you can conveniently sign up there.

If you have never attended before, this is a very rare class. I only do this two times a year, and it's completely free. So I am super excited to see you there. I have so much freaking fun doing this class, and I have heard so many beautiful transformations and people taking immediate action after taking the class.

And I've just seen people do really badass things, like finally fire the client with confidence that they absolutely hate, finally do the price increase that they were so scared of doing without any pushback. And so I want the same transformation for you. And I promise you, my friend, I'm gonna deliver it to you at Beauty Boundary Workshop. So I'm super excited to see you there.

I hope that you enjoyed this episode of the Modern Hairstylist podcast, and we are looking forward to seeing you in BBW. Peace out, girl scout. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.