318: Healthy Holiday Boundaries

Struggling to maintain healthy boundaries during the holidays? Discover how to protect your time and energy without sacrificing relationships or success. In this essential episode of the Superabound Podcast, master coaches Erin Aquin and Steve Haase reveal powerful strategies for creating and maintaining boundaries that serve both you and your business during the festive season.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How to create effective time boundaries using AI and mindset tools - so you can deliver what you promised without burning out
• The art of setting emotional boundaries - learn to protect your energy while staying connected to what matters most
• How to master the "empowered no" - say no to the wrong things so you can say yes to the right ones

Why This Matters:

As a vision-led entrepreneur, your ability to set and maintain healthy boundaries directly impacts your success and wellbeing. When you learn to protect your time and energy effectively, you'll find yourself more productive, more present, and better equipped to serve your clients at the highest level.

Connect With Us

Ready to transform your approach to boundaries and create a business that truly serves your vision? Apply now to work with us one-on-one in 2025. Visit besuperabound.com/consultation to start your journey toward building a generous business without sacrificing what matters most.

Full transcript:

Erin Aquin  0:00  
Welcome to the Superbound podcast with master coaches Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where vision led entrepreneurs learn to build a generous business without sacrificing what matters most. You are listening to episode 318, healthy holiday boundaries. All right, tis the season for reminding you of what it feels like to have healthy boundaries. Now this episode, of course, you know we are always speaking to the business owners in the room, but I think this is going to be useful for everyone. So if you enjoy this episode, if you think it's going to be helpful to someone in your life, we just want to suggest and thank you in advance for sharing it wide, far and wide with everyone in your life. Because the more people around us, even if they're not business owners, the more people who have a sense of healthy boundaries, that have a strong personal filter, the better the world will be.

Steve Haase  1:13  
And the holidays are one of those times when we just feel the pull of obligation, the full the pull of I must say yes, and that is the crack in your boundaries. In the end, it's you acting on it that actually breaks the boundaries. But that feeling of oh gosh, we really should is how the mayhem begins and how so many people end up in January with a big old hangover because they said yes to too many things and no they didn't their no was not strong. So we're going to teach you all about how to have an empowered No, how to create emotional boundaries and how to create effective time boundaries so that you don't find yourself running ragged at this time when so many do.

Erin Aquin  2:04  
So let's first talk about time boundaries. And I think this is, again, this is appropriate, whether you are a business owner or just a busy human. Time boundaries around the holiday usually are the first thing to really feel like they're being squeezed. I have felt this. We don't do it like we don't have a lot of crazy things, but in the last couple of weeks, we have had, I think, we were out of the house four or five days in a row, which is so much more than I usually do, as in pretty much a very happy introvert. I am usually in bed on a regular night before by 9pm and there were nights in the last little while where we were out very late for some really lovely and exciting things. And then, you know, there's, there's been some some things in our personal life that have been happening unexpected with family, so there have just been more more time and more emotions than would be normally, present at an already kind of busy time of year. So the very first thing I, you know, I've had this on my radar for a few years. I we always kind of shut down. We do a holiday shutdown. We learned this when Steve was back in tech, yeah, when you were, I mean, you're in tech still, but he worked for a company that it was a it was revolutionary. At the time, they shut down between December, like 23rd until January 2. And I was like, wow, they are just working with like a skeleton crew. No one had meetings. There were no calls. There was this week where Steve was like, hanging out, and at the time I was building my business, so I didn't really take that down time as a coach. The new year is often a really fortuitous time in our business, because people decide they're really ready for a change, and it's often when people want to do consult calls they want to hire us when we were relationship coaches, primarily it would be when people would have those big conversations or those big blowouts that would lead them to say, Okay, we do need to Get some support in our relationship as business coaches now and leadership coaches, this is the time when people are thinking about 2025, getting those things in place. So for many years I would watch Steve, not many years, but for a few years I was watching you have this nice stretch of time while I was like working my. Off. So a few years ago, we decided that we too would begin officially, sort of closing the business for about two weeks. And this is officially the first year that I have no anxiety about it.

Steve Haase  5:21  
Why not? Because of my

Erin Aquin  5:22  
emotional boundaries, the this, I think this is a hopefully, it's a sign of maturity, but I know that my all my clients, are in an amazing place. They do not depend on me or having sessions with me to make it for two whole weeks. And really, one really fun thing is a few of my clients who are business owners, have decided that they too, are going to have a holiday shutdown, that they're going to take a couple weeks off, that they're going to be fully present with their family. I used to do it, and my my mind would still be churning through that time, but this year, I'm really feeling like I'm I'm looking forward to it. I don't feel like there's a big rush to get anything done before the end of the year. Everybody's in a good place. My clients are all incredible, and they're going to be ready for January, and so am I,

Steve Haase  6:34  
and I love how you connect the emotional boundary to your ability to have that physical time boundary. It's so true. And what I've noticed is that the experience of that trepidation, that nervousness, is often the trigger for the reduction of those boundaries, just kind of opening the flood gates. And I'll respond to emails. In fact, I'll be checking emails. I'll be hopping on meetings. I'll be, you know, any of those things start with that emotional disturbance, and so when you're looking to create better boundaries for yourself, notice that moment, not when you say yes to something you wanted to say no to, because at that point it's already too late, but the 10 minutes before, or even the 10 seconds before, where you start feeling like you should? You start feeling that sense of obligation, that sense of unease, it can also feel like something positive. It can feel like being needed, or like you know you have to help, but there's some kind of emotional experience that when you don't kind of encompass the whole thing and say, regardless of these emotions, I'm going to care about myself and about my experience over these two weeks, You're going to be acting out of them. And so the emotional boundary is taking that bird's eye view and saying, no one is going to be in trouble during those two weeks. In fact, I'm going to set up the system so that everybody knows in advance they have all their resources that they need. They're going to know that I'm offline and what they should do if something comes up, but in the end, no one will have any trouble. We're not performing surgery here it's, yeah. It's our business. Yeah, you know,

Erin Aquin  8:30  
yeah. And I think that that's, that's an important thing. Sometimes people will hear me say, Oh, I'm taking about two weeks off the end of the year, and they'll say, Oh, that's a great idea. I want to do that, too. And then I will speak to them before they attempt this, and they will tell me how stressful it was to try to prepare it. I want to share that I didn't decide yesterday I was shutting down for two weeks. I have known that I wanted to do this since last year. At this time, whenever we have big like whenever we have more than a few days off, I also make sure my clients know at least a month or two in advance. No one is finding out about this three days before I go on vacation. They're getting a reminder about it. They are getting a reminder and because we really believe in self investment, they're going to get a reminder with saying this is how we practice what we teach, and hopefully it inspires you to really honor your downtime and treat your rest time and your holidays, whatever, however you celebrate or don't, with a level of sacred self respect. And I've heard that that's really helpful, or that's really helpful for other business. Owners to know that they want to have that really spacious amount of time, whether it's a week, two weeks or more, but having it not just be a time boundary, but having your emotional boundary set up ahead of time is really helpful and just a little tip of the hat, it's been so much easier to prepare for that time off. I think this is also why I don't have any anxiety about it. We've been using all of the AI tools that we've been talking about. Last week, we went on a really deep dive on the show about some of the more advanced tools, things that go beyond just chatting with your AI, your chat, GPT, any of that. Having those systems and those pieces to collaborate within our business means I really can, I can totally unplug. We'll have our little skeleton crew. We'll make sure that if our clients have something that they need, they will be responded to, but it won't be me. So it's really fun. Thanks. Ai. Thanks automation. Thank you, Steve, thank you systems.

Steve Haase  11:16  
Yeah. So the final point that I want to touch on in terms of healthy holiday boundaries is the Empowered no we talked about emotional boundaries, and how not being clear about that can have you saying yes to things that you really didn't want to because a lot of people are afraid to protect that space. They're afraid to actually set that boundary for themselves and have the response be No, but that's why we like to couch it as the Empowered No, because what happens is you discover where things are actually at if you say, Hey, we're shutting down and your customers freak out, that means you did not set them up well enough. That's the lesson learned there. And so if you're afraid of that, freak out and you therefore just say, Yes, you are not empowered. You are actually acting from fear. You're acting from a sense of just trying to get by that empowered setting of a boundary requires forethought. It requires planning, and most importantly, it requires that self respect that you were just talking about. And so that's why it's it's not a negative, it's not a pushing away, it's actually a you speak about this a lot in your relationship coaching work. It's, it's a you're showing the world how to treat you. You're, you're, you're demonstrating how you want to be treated. It's a source of power for you as the business owner and as the leader. Yeah, and

Erin Aquin  12:57  
thank you for that, because I forgot that. I mean, I've definitely talked about it in the relationship coaching in that work, but I think the very first time that I ever talked about empowered no was in my very first book about teaching yoga. It's like all the way back. It was way back when, when I wrote the A to Z of being a successful yoga teacher. Haase Zed, sorry, we're in Canada. Don't. Don't pick on me.

Steve Haase  13:27  
I'm the American man.

Erin Aquin  13:30  
It just It rhymes the A to Z of being a successful yoga teacher. And that was kind of like a series of essays, blog post that went through the alphabet, because that was, that was where my writing was at at the time. It worked. But E was stand stood for empowered No. And the practice that I was encouraging those business owners who tend to be very heart centered, they very much want to say, Yes, I was one of them. I am one of them. It's I want to please people. I want people to be happy. I want to give my clients all the best stuff. Then I burnt out. I burnt out as a yoga teacher, and I actually, ironically, had to close the businesses that I had spent I was also an acupuncturist. I had to close those businesses that had taken a decade to really build up to a level of financial success, of Yeah, of personal fulfillment, because I wasn't good at saying no to the things that just weren't actually aligned with the bigger vision, that weren't bringing life blood into my business, and I had no energy to start saying yes to the things that would so this. Goes very deep. If you have not read our book, Superabound, that's the one I'd recommend you reading. You don't need to read the A to Z of being successful Yogi teacher, but definitely read Superabound, because one of the main themes of that book is learning how to articulate and live in alignment with your vision. If you don't have a vision, if you don't know what your next lantern is, if you don't know what the top of the mountain that the legacy you want to leave behind is, you're going to probably flail around and say yes to whatever people throw at you. It leads to resentment for people. It leads to burnout and empowered. No looks like saying yes to what is aligned and really funneling your energy only to that. It's really not about the No, but the practice I often suggest for people who do have trouble saying no, is this is perfect for the holidays. It's a really easy idea, hard in practice, any request that comes in. Let's say you get an invitation to a holiday party. Let's say you have a client who can only meet on the week that you are shutting down to recharge, or a consult that that really wants to meet with you before the end of the year, but they can't make it happen on a work day. Your job is not to automatically say no to that. It's not about saying I'm going to be so rigid, and I said I would only go to three holiday parties, and I'm going to say no to number four. I'm not going to take any consults while I'm on my my downtime. I'm, you know, I'm done. That is not necessarily in my mind. It's actually not a healthy boundary that is more of a reactive boundary that's about you checking off something on a list. A way to practice kind of a more empowered personal filter, is to ask yourself the question, is this aligned with what I want to create. What I will often suggest is people get used to putting a time buffer before they respond. So 24 hours is great. If someone says, Hey, we're having a party next week, and you come instead of saying, Oh yeah, sure, you say, let me get back to you tomorrow. I'll have to check my calendar if the person offers you a time. Say, it's not ideal, because I'm not, I'm not available that day. Can you get back to me with other options? But ultimately, your personal filter is not a hard stone wall. It is a malleable membrane. Or in the book, one of the ways that we talk about it is it's like a mosquito net. You're keeping out things that are not aligned, but you still want to let air flow. So if you need to have rigid boundaries, because you're just such a say saying yes sir, practice giving 24 hours before you respond, or 12 hours, if you have a little bit more self awareness, maybe to understand what's aligned and what is not answer from that place and empower know when done well doesn't leave anyone feeling rejected or On the outside. It is something that helps you stop from leaking energy, so that you have what it takes. You have the fuel and an inner fire that is well tended, so that you can go and reach your vision. Rest is part of that. You know, one of the things we talk about in the book is The tending triad. And one of the pieces of the tending triad, besides personal filter and visionary practice, which is the direct connection with that vision is sustaining rituals. So on my two weeks off, I'm going to be doing a lot of sustaining rituals. I plan to go into the new year and have those first sessions with my clients be some of the best, not because I'm going to be so amazing and full of energy, but because I will be clear, I will be open. I will have had time to think at the level of a visionary business owner. Mm. That I don't normally have in my regular weeks. As fun as my regular weeks are, this is going to be something that's special and that's a reset, and hopefully inspires more of them to give themselves that same healthy boundary, whether it's the holidays or or any old time of year.

Steve Haase  20:19  
Thank you for sharing that that's a powerful stuff. And if this sounds like something that you need in your business and in your life, really, we have openings for a few more VIP one to one clients in our business, you can head to besuperabound.com/consultation, to apply to speak with us and have that as part of your support system for 2025

Erin Aquin  20:45  
Yeah, that is something else that really does help me, is when I want to take a break knowing that, like next year my support is set. There's something really incredible about doing that, so definitely apply. We will have our skeleton crew working over the holiday, so I will be off. You won't be able to talk to me, but you will be able to get some answers, and if it's a fit, we will talk to you in 2025

Steve Haase  21:19  
amazing. Thanks, everybody you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai