Hello, gorgeous.

I hope your life is feeling like a good place to be right now. Always, actually. But right now is the time I'm in front of you, so we'll call it now. 😉

I wanna share something I've learned about boundaries. Boundaries are a key part of the success framework we work from (you can see the whole model, just below). And I've found that creatives especially find boundaries difficult to create, maintain, restore, etc.

Since boundaries ARE a part of the success framework — and we want success in our lives, right? — we'll find ways to have those boundaries in place, one way or another.

Here's the most common way this plays out with artists:

You get sick. Regularly. You work hard. You do a lot. Achieve, achieve, achieve… and then crash. You're sick.

And when you're sick is the only time you'll allow yourself things like a ton of sleep, comfort food, enough hydration, general REST (*not* looking at a screen… just BEING), and setting limits that you'd feel too selfish to set if you were fully well.

Eventually, you get better and instead of choosing to add in better sleep, comfort food more often, enough hydration ALWAYS, no-screen quiet time, and healthy boundaries for how you spend your time, you most likely get BACK on the cycle of working hard, doing a lot, achieving, achieving, achieving… and then crashing. You're sick again.

Sound familiar?

Now, if you're someone who's done a little work around this and you've gotten OUT of the cycle of only crashing out when you're sick, repeating the sick cycle a few times a year, it may look a little more like this:

You just spend your life "slightly sick." Because if you're ever fully healthy? The reward is getting to work yourself sick again. And rather than ever sign up for that again, you just keep this low-grade, chronic illness that's annoying enough to keep you from pushing hard… and that gives you the excuse you need when you allow yourself treats and rest and boundaries.

Here's the news flash:

We can actually END both of these versions of the artist-sick-cycle by just getting started with setting boundaries.

Asking ourselves what we need in terms of down time or quiet time or free time or alone time or uninterrupted focus time… being HONEST about the answers to those questions… and then setting boundaries that have consequences for being violated (especially when they're violated by US, trying to do a little people-pleasing instead).

Think about how beautiful life is when it's *easier* to set healthy boundaries than to either stay sick all the time or do the artist-sick-cycle of work hard/crash out. How does it become *easier* to set boundaries than to choose either of those setpoints?

Practice.

What's a boundary you can set and practice keeping?

Share with me just below in the comments. I'd love to support you as you try this out — especially in this extra crunchy time of year!

Before we part ways today, I'm excited to announce my year-end WEBINAR (of course it's free) coming up on December 18th! It's called Plan Your Aligned 2022 and, yes, it's for the woo-curious. 😉 I'm gonna walk you through how to identify your most important 3 months of the year, as well as your theme for the energy of 2022 overall. Woo HOO!

Yes, there's a replay if you can't make it, but only if you sign up.

Looking forward to our time together!

Much love,

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!