Do you ever feel like you need to respond to somebody super fast or that you are suddenly on someone else’s schedule when a second ago you were on your own?

If you’re allowing yourself to get pulled around like that, you might need to examine your boundaries and that’s not always easy, but it is definitely necessary because it is okay to not respond to somebody right away, do not text them back the second that they text you and to have boundaries that allow your time to be your time.

This is the same reason why so many experts suggest not opening your email first thing in the morning or not feeling like you have to respond to things first thing in the morning and taking that time for yourself.

Those are excellent boundaries to set up.

If you have a habit of doing that because if that is your habit and you’re trying to break it, you already know that when you go to open those emails or respond to those texts, your entire morning is going to go in a different direction. your energy is going to go in a different direction and you’re going to have a different outcome then if you stuck with your priority and follow through the way that you really want to and to show up for yourself in that way, so create those boundaries and see what happens. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised and I think you’ll also be surprised that people are fine with that for the most part and if they’re not, then we’re really giving you the respect that you deserved anyway.

The second thing is to allow yourself space and that is also kind of the same as allowing yourself time just because somebody else, you know, their lack of preparation doesn’t make it your emergency just because somebody else thinks they need your time right now doesn’t mean that it’s your responsibility to give it to them.

Of course, there are instances that are true emergencies or when it is really in everyone’s best interest for you to respond quickly. but I think you can tell the difference between that and somebody that’s just being impatient or feeling like maybe their time is more valuable than yours, which is not, we all have the same 24 hours in the day and we all have the same uncertainty with every single day that we live.

So there’s a time is a great equalizer and we’re not when we act urgency, culture can have us act like we’re running out of it. you know, it always makes me think of the hamilton song, you know, why do we feel like we’re running out of time and wow, we don’t need to live or right or behave as if we’re running out of it, you know, one day we will be running out of it.

But it’s no different than acting like every day is your last yeah. you know what one day you’re gonna be right? but what about all those other days? you know, you and if it really was going to be your last day or if you really were running out of time, would you honestly be trying to like speed and scramble and go crazy for the things that you’re going crazy over and acting like you’re running out of time about?

I highly doubt it. I think that you would want to slow down would want you to just take things in and soak it up. and if somebody asks for your feedback, your opinion, or your response just remember it doesn’t have to be immediate.

It’s okay to say yeah, you might even already know what you’re gonna say to that person and it might feel like easier to respond right away. but we have to remember that we teach, we train, we show people how to treat us.

So if you respond right away all the time, that’s what people are going to come to expect from you, because it’s what you taught them to expect from you.

So if you want people to be more patient, sometimes you need to make them be more patient. and it’s also amazing if you’re spending a lot of your time and resources responding to people in answering questions a little bit of time often will drive people to find the answers on their own in a lot of circumstances.

So just keep that in mind and realize that just because the whole culture of needing to be urgent about things seems to be kind of running rampant right now, it does not mean that you need to adopt it