Do you find yourself feeling overwhelmed sometimes? Or even in a state of panic? Do you feel anxious? Maybe you have design clients you dread?

 

When you decided to go out on your own and start a freelance business, you became the CEO of your new organization! The buck stops with you. And when you’re the CEO, you’re the one who sets boundaries and communicates them.

 

If you don’t think about the issue of boundaries with intentionality, the actions of your freelance clients will determine your boundaries for you. And those boundaries, not considered from your perspective, will push far into your comfort zone. Likely, they will leave you depleted and gasping for air.

 

When we work for ourselves, we are the only ones who can create and communicate our boundaries. But this is great news, and we’re going to show you why.

 

Wondering what $12k branding clients really want, and how you can attract them to your freelance business? Join our free $12k Client Attraction Masterclass to find out!

Boundaries are the Markers of Your Principles

A boundary is a marker. It isn’t a rule. It’s not a law. It’s a sign of respect. A healthy fence that says, “This is what I expect, and this is what I do.”

 

When you work with a client with healthy boundaries, you’ll notice two incredible things:

• They say what they’re going to do before they do it — and they do it, just like they said.
• They have energy, room, compassion, time — even for the frustrations and delays of the jobs they complete.

 

Boundaries help you screen the “noise” out of your professional (and personal) life. You can then focus on the “signal.” This is how successful freelance brand designers, web designers, and graphic designers repeat their growth for long-term business profitability and sustainability.

 

Think of boundaries as a series of small actions based on known parameters that add up to a steamroller of emotional and professional health.

Why Are Boundaries So Essential for Freelancers?

To sum it up: boundaries help you avoid problems, help you handle problems with grace and ease, and they give you mental clarity — especially when you work for yourself.

 

Think about a farmer with a good quality fence around her pasture. She doesn’t worry about livestock wandering away and she doesn’t worry about others using her fields to graze. She’s confident, when she rides out on the land, that she knows what area she’s responsible for and where it starts and ends.

 

It’s a peaceful, quintessentially quaint feeling to see her split-log fence stretching to the far horizon. Her fence is a positive thing. It benefits her in practical ways and gives her mental clarity.

 

The metaphor is the same, except t you aren’t running a farm. You learned how to get graphic design clients. Now you have their deadlines, software, and design projects to manage! You have software to manage. Business decisions to make.

 

Marketing to do. Networking to get going. You have family obligations and relaxing times with friends. You want to do it all. And, within your fence line’s healthy boundaries, you can! (We hyperlinked a couple of great resources to help with freelancing specifics, too.)

 

 

Take the Boundary Self-Test

How many “yes” answers do you give to the following questions. Be honest with yourself. (And, at the end of the article, we’ll give you the way to assess your score.)

• Do you have more than a few difficult/dramatic relationships?
• Do you find it really hard to make decisions?
• Do you feel like you don’t ever want to let someone else down?
• Do you feel guilty often?
• Do you feel anxious frequently?
• Do you feel inexplicably tired sometimes?
• Do you find yourself oversharing with new people?
• Do you often feel you are the victim in professional or personal situations?
• Do you think “nothing ever goes right for me”?
• Do you feel others don’t give you a normal level of respect?
• Do you sometimes ask yourself who you really are?

 

Did some of those questions resonate with you? They are common to entrepreneurs and freelancers (as well as the general population), so don’t panic. But let’s talk about how boundaries can help you answer a confident “Nope, not anymore!” to each of them.

 

The 3 Types of Boundaries You Need

Your new design business needs you to establish 3 sets of healthy boundaries. They are:

1. Professional boundaries (with clients)
2. Personal boundaries (with friends and family)
3. Self-boundaries (agreements you make with yourself)

 

Here are some quick tips on how to establish healthy boundaries in each area:

• Professional boundaries – focus on contracts & communications
• Personal boundaries – focus on being selective about what you say and what you do
• Self-boundaries – focus on creating stronger self-discipline

 

In addition to healthy boundaries, you need an amazing design portfolio to land high-ticket clients! Our free portfolio workshop will show you how to present your work effectively so $12k+ design clients can find you.

What Do Freelance Client Boundaries Look Like?

Good question! Let’s look at the nitty-gritty and we’ll focus on your professional boundaries with clients first. Here are some great ‘boundary-positive’ statements that show wisdom and emotional health:

 

“Thanks for reaching out. This is my after-hours’ auto-response. I’ll be checking my emails during the next business day and will respond more fully then.”

 

“I’ve attached a copy of our contract for reference. Your files will be sent by (specific date) as outlined in the contract.”

 

“I’d be happy to work on that (additional scope). While that isn’t included in the deliverables of your project described in our contract, I can add that requirement for $(extra price).”

 

“Thanks for calling. This is my voicemail. If you need to speak with me urgently, please send a quick text to this number. If this matter is not urgent, please shoot me an email at (email address). Have a wonderful and creative day!”

 

“Bi-monthly, I take a creative rejuvenation week for rest and curiosity. I won’t be able to make the meeting on (specific date), but let me know if you’d like to schedule a coffee after I’m back in the office.”

When you are setting boundaries with clients, think about the following guidelines:

• Boundaries should be understandable (KIS Principle: Keep It Simple)
• Boundaries should be consistent (predictable and a repeating pattern clients become accustomed to)
• Boundaries should focus on project scope, time elements, communications methods
• Boundaries should be set as soon as possible in the client-freelancer relationship
• Boundaries should be framed in positive language for best reception

 

Here’s what you’ll avoid when you set healthy boundaries with your clients:

• Your clients won’t push you constantly with “scope creep” (increasing project demands).
• Your clients won’t be contacting you constantly (overwhelming and disproportionate communications).
• Your clients won’t wonder when to expect project milestones, delivery, and completion.
• Your clients won’t expect unlimited revisions.

 

Remember to frame your business’s boundaries in the following ways:

• Early: start with clear boundaries…say what you do and do what you say!
• In writing: document your client relationship, use contracts for your service agreements, have the important boundaries clearly itemized for your clients’ reference
• Positively: you can always turn the wording of a “I don’t” around to a positive “I do” statement that is easier for others to receive

 

What About Personal Boundaries and Self-Boundaries?

If you’re new to the idea of having healthy boundaries, you’ll want to work on self-boundaries first. What you learn by setting healthy self-boundaries will help you design and implement great professional and personal boundaries quickly.

 

It’s difficult to set a self-boundary and to stick to it, because self-boundaries require self-discipline. An undisciplined person likely has few (if any) boundaries.

 

And we all want to cultivate more self-discipline, right? Even someone who wants to live a bohemian-style freelance life of creative and business freedom needs deep reserves of self-discipline to accomplish their dream.

 

If you create healthy boundaries for yourself, you’ll become:

• More focused
• More productive
• More positive in your outlook
• More creative
• More stable emotionally
• More reliable
• More free
• More rewarded

 

Only you know what your self-boundaries need to be. They probably relate to the areas of self-improvement that you’re often revisiting.

 

At the start, pick one or two that you can maintain for at least three weeks (the time it takes to establish a new habit). Maybe you’ll:

• Only tell the truth, even when the topic is sensitive
• Eat dessert only after dinner
• Go to the gym three times a week
• Work at your new freelance business five days/week for seven hours/each day
• Repeat your positive life affirmations to yourself before walking out the door, every time!

Start with a couple. Write them down. Start incorporating these boundaries into your days and weeks. After three weeks, if you’ve been fairly consistent, you’ll have new and healthy habits. These habits are actions that relate to building self-boundaries.

 

The boundaries might be something like this:

• I will be a person whose word can be believed and counted on; I don’t compromise the truth
• I am a person who maintains a healthy body weight
• I maintain a physically-fit body for mental clarity
• I am my own boss and don’t work a 9-to-5 anymore
• I am a positive person who exudes confidence and is helpful to those I meet every day

 

With friends and family, you’ll establish different boundaries. Essentially, you want to think carefully about those questions listed at the beginning of this article.

 

What is draining your energy? What feels toxic to you? What do you dread? What is leaving you depleted? What are you feeling negative emotions about?

 

If you study your attitudes and emotions, you can then draw the line back to what types of situations and people trigger these emotions. For many people, this is a really difficult process.

 

In fact, you might even want to add some personal therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy sessions to your self-boundary to-do list, in order to learn more about how your relationships with friends and family affect you.

 

You will learn deep insights and, if you have the goal of setting healthy boundaries with the information you learn, you’ll be well on your way to improving your relationships (and your quality of life!).

An Insider’s Boundary “Secret”

There’s one archetypical principle that affects every boundary you set and its likelihood of success. This principle is key whether your boundaries are personal or professional, and it’s the core to why self-boundaries are a bit “different” than the others.

 

You can only set a boundary you can legitimately and reasonably control.

 

Let’s think back to our ranch farmer. She’s got a lot of land. But she is governed by her county’s laws and can’t put her fence anywhere she wants to, even if it’s a beautiful and functional fence! She has to put the fence on her land only. That’s what she controls. It’s legitimately hers and it’s reasonable for her to think she can control it.

 

Think about this now, in terms of other people. You can make a boundary that says you will only have short coffee visits with your aggravating cousin. But it wouldn’t be within your control to suggest that your cousin shouldn’t attend your sister’s wedding because of your “coffee-visit-only” boundary.

 

Same for clients. In professional settings, this reality is more obvious (it’s more often assumed by both parties), as we are less emotional in client relationships than we are with friends and family. In fact, legitimate and reasonable boundaries you set with your clients are likely to be “professional, best-practices’ business norms” that everyone acknowledges.

 

The psycho-corporate term for this principle is leverage. If you have leverage over a decision, you can set a boundary. If you don’t have leverage, you’ll either have to internalize your boundary setting (i.e. your boundary will be a self-boundary for you only) or you’ll have to pick a more reasonable boundary.

 

Going back to the example of your aggravating cousin’s attendance at your sister’s wedding, you might ask your sister to place you at a different table for dinner, or you might determine that you’ll only visit with your cousin for twenty minutes before moving along to visit with others, in order to avoid being drawn down by their toxicity.

 

You have leverage over these boundary decisions, even if you don’t have leverage over the wedding’s guest list.

Let Go of the Guilt

Like everything else you’ll do in your freelance business’s growth, you will learn from trying. Mistakes aren’t really failures because, without them, there would be no forward progress at all!

 

So, be brave, let go of your worries and (false) sense of guilt over what others might think of you, and quietly set yourself some new, healthy boundaries.

 

Setting boundaries is an “invisible” way to improve your character. Having good boundaries and maintaining them means you will be more predictable, more understandable, more decisive, and more confident when you interact with others. Those are some pretty great side-effects to a bit of boundary work, don’t you think!?

 

Reward your successes, be patient with your misses. Go for the long-game. Keep practicing, keep trying again when you fail, and be as consistent as you can be.

Let go of the guilt — you were the only one feeling it, most likely, anyway! (And, if others are heaping guilt on you, your new boundaries can’t arrive too soon — start them immediately!)

 

We promised the ‘answer key’ for those hard-hitting and introspective questions we asked you to self-evaluate at the beginning of this blog. We saved this bit of information for the end, because the questions we listed are triggering for lots of people and our answer-key hits just as hard.

 

The truth is… if you scored even one “yes” on that list, you will benefit from establishing boundaries.

 

Great boundaries are about living in a zone of great respect. Not primarily from others (although that will be a natural by-product), but mostly respect for yourself. Welcome to the club of freelancers with a healthy level of self-respect — and a treasure-trove of quiet and effective boundaries reinforcing their long-term freelancing success!

References:

Healthy Boundaries – 12 Signs You Lack Them (and why you need them)