Setting Boundaries

Hi there. My name is Chrystal Evans Hurst, and if you're finding me for the first time, I want you to know that I'm here and talk about all things to help you live your life well. And I want to ask you in advance, if this video is helpful to you, go ahead and share it and then make sure you like and subscribe if you're on YouTube or follow me on Facebook so that you will make sure you get the news when I go live the next time, because I go live every week. That said, today I want to talk to you about setting Boundaries. If you are like me, you need to set some boundaries in your life because life is just too much sometimes. And honestly, if you are not intentional about setting boundaries and guarding your time, you will live your life and then later wonder where your time went. I can tell you that's true because even though I would like to say that I'm still in my late 20s, and every now and then I do say that and people know I'm not telling the truth, but I don't care. Every now and then I say that, but the truth is I'm not. I'm a little bit past that. And I can tell you there are seasons of my life where I'm like, where did that time go? What was I doing and what was I spending my time engaged in that really doesn't matter for what really matters in life and where I wanted to be now? If you are not intentional with your time, your time will seep through the cracks and the crevices of your life, and you will not be happy with how you spend your time. There are too many things vying for your attention in this life, and the only way that you will spend your time wisely and be happy with how you spend it is for you to set boundaries so your time doesn't leak all over the place in all the millions of places that you don't intend to spend it. So I want to talk to you about how to set boundaries. Why? Because I want you to live your life well. So the first thing that I want to tell you, the first takeaway is that you have to say no. Now, as I was preparing for this talk, I realized that I probably need to do a whole nother talk about all the different kinds of ways you can say no, because y'all, we have trouble with this. We have trouble with saying no. So the first thing I want to make sure that you understand you might have to do is to practice saying no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And you might have to practice it until you get good at it, until it's a word that you're comfortable saying. I've always said you need to practice saying no, even if you have to say it to a tree. Get good at it. Practice. You will feel bad. You will feel like you're letting people down. You will feel like, well, will this get done if I'm not involved and engaged? Who's gonna do it if I don't do it? You're gonna have all these feelings, but here's what I can promise you: if you will say no, you will set boundaries in your life that will create space for all the things that matter that you never get to, that you never get to do the way that you want to do it. So you have to learn the art of saying no. On another episode, I will talk to you about exactly how you can do that well and give you lots of different ways that you can get that out of your mouth without feeling like you're a mean person. Saying no gives the room for your yeses. When you say no, you create boundaries on your life. And those boundaries on your life create room for the yeses that you really want to give, that you always feel like you never have time to give. There are so many things that are vying for your yes, things that do matter to you and things that don't. But if you're not intentional about saying no, you will never have enough room for the yeses that you really want to give. Don't overcommit yourself. Let me say that again. Don't overcommit yourself. If you're like me, you might think you have more time in the day than what you really have. Well, here's the news, newsflash. Everybody in this world, and I mean everybody, has 24 hours. If you've ever looked at someone else and wondered, how are they able to get it all in? I can tell you they are living with a lot of nos and few important yeses. And they are able to rocket, skyrocket to the moon in some areas of their life. They're able to pursue their passions, they're able to pursue their dreams, they're able to have the family time or have the career or, or build a hobby, or to do the things that you look at them and say, I wonder how they do that. They probably have said a lot of nos to make room for the few things that are really important to them so they have time for them. We all have 24, we all have an even playing field in terms of the amount of time that we have. Some of us are better at cultivating those hours in a way that makes room for the important things. Jesus is such a great example of this. He had 12 friends. He spent life with 12 friends. He had worldwide impact beyond his time on earth. He did spend time with the crowds, but he limited his time to the crowds. He pushed back in a boat. He left. He ran away. He took a nap. And then even amongst the 12, he had 2 or 3 friends. Do you know that in order for Jesus to change the world, he had to say no to the crowds? There were people that didn't get healed. There were people who never had a conversation with him personally. There were people who didn't like what he said and wanted to argue with him, and then after a while he was like, 'I'm not going to argue with you,' and he just said goodbye to the conversation. He limited his time to the people that he knew he was discipling and investing in that would affect real change. And everybody didn't get to go with him up on the Mount to see things that everybody else didn't get to see. So you have to know that even Jesus, who loved everybody, said no to somebody. And if Jesus had to do that, well then guess what, ma'am or sir, you do too. Get good at saying no, don't overcommit yourself, and focus. Focus on what you believe are your dreams, your callings. What are the things that would be you saying yes to God, yes to the people who really matter to you, yes to your family, yes to the stuff you put on the vision board last year, and the year before that and the year before that. Focus. Say no, don't overcommit, and focus. This is what entails setting boundaries. How do you know when you have lived beyond your boundaries? Well, one of the ways that I know is that I know that I'm beyond my boundaries when my brain, my body, and my heart are telling me that. Anxiety, stress, emotion, pain. My body is trying to say there's something that is pulling from you and you are going outside of your margin. You are you're going outside of your cap for emotional, um, um, stuff. You are going outside of your cap for time. You can't keep up. My body, my brain, and my heart, they tell me— the Holy Spirit tells me— but I have to be paying attention to my life to know when I've lived beyond. The signs are my children looking at me because I bark at them. My— the signs are that I feel anxiety in my chest. The signs are I haven't had enough time for the things I know that are important. Like reading my Bible, like praying, like reading books that I enjoy, like working out, like cooking at home and making meals that are not on the go. These are the things that I know that I can point to that when I don't have the time for them, I'm in trouble. And sooner or later, while I'm busy all day, I may not be doing the things all day that I really want to do. So I do know that living beyond my boundaries— my body, my brain, my heart, God in me— he gives me signals. I get signals. It's time to unplug when the stress and the strain of your life in areas that you can control— because I do realize that there are areas in which we can't always control— but in the areas that you can control, when the strain and the stress is going farther than it should go consistently, then you have to look around you and say, okay, I'm living beyond my borders here, I'm living beyond my boundaries. What am I— flashback to what I just said before— going to say no to? Setting boundaries means saying no to make room for your yeses. It also means paying attention to your boundaries and knowing when you're beyond your boundaries and letting your, your brain, your body, and your heart, God in you, telling you when you've gone too far. Another way that I know about me living past my boundaries is when, um, the things that are on the fringe of my life, like people I don't really know that well, projects that aren't that important, um, you know, just the things that are not that important, when they are getting an emotional response from me that they don't deserve. And the things that are close to me that really matter, that I want to matter long after I'm gone, that the things where I want to make an impact or an imprint, uh, ministry, my family, kids, uh, the, the calling that God has put on my life, when those things are not getting the response that they should get from me. Meaning if I am giving all of my juice to YouTube and social media and people that are acquaintances and my kids can't have a conversation with me today, I am living beyond my boundaries. When my kids who need a conversation with me are getting an emotional response from me— what, huh, uh— if the people that matter most to me are getting emotional responses that they shouldn't get, I'm living beyond my boundaries. That means I'm giving too much away in too many other places, and the best of me is not reserved for the things that matter most. You have to look at your life in concentric circles. Jesus, the 3. Jesus, the 12. Jesus, the crowds. What are the circles? Because the further you go out from the core of you, the colder those circles should get. The hot market, the hot circle is the one that you need to impact because this is where your impact matters most. The next circle, okay, you love all those people, you can disciple those people, you can have small groups with those people, you can run with those people, you can read books with those people. Okay, that's great. But they're not like your husband, like your best friend. They're not like your ministry at church that God has called you. They're not like, you know, the career and the people that you need to impact every day, or the goals that God has given you to achieve and knock out this year. You have to see your life and say, which circle is this in? Is this Inner Circle 1, Inner Circle 2, or Inner Circle 3? And don't feel bad about it because you cannot live and give all of your juice at the same level to all your circles. You just can't. You— well, you can and be ineffective. You can and not, um, not live with, um, satisfaction. You'll live with regret because you were trying to spread yourself too thin. It is not possible to live with focus, to have an impact, and live at the same level in all your circles. It's not possible. You're going to have to set some boundaries. You're going to have to lovingly say no, and then you're going to have to regularly say yes to the things that matter. I want to make sure that if you are not subscribed to the podcast, that you subscribe. Go to chrystalevanshurst.com and then forward slash— this is one podcast I want you to listen to immediately— 286. chrystalevanshurst.com/286. I just had a conversation last week with my friend Nicole Staples, and she talked about this very thing, knowing what God wants her to do, knowing when she needs to stop one thing and start another, and how she knows. And that involves getting still. It involves quieting the noise. It involves listening to her heartbeat, her body, her brain. And if you want to know more about that, I encourage you to check out that podcast. And then when you do, if you're not already subscribed on Apple or Google Play or Spotify or Stitcher or all the things, because I'm on all the things, I want to encourage you to do that because I'm always putting out content that will help you. But that podcast is about this very thing right here: how to know you and how to know when you need to invest in other places when seasons are up and it's time to do new things. Here's the question that you need to ask yourself: What is the legacy that you want to leave with the people you love? Let me repeat that. What is the legacy that you want to leave with the people you love? That question— what you want them to remember from you, what you want to give them, what you want to impart to them— will determine how and where and when you set boundaries. Something I've always said, setting boundaries starts with the establishment of what you determine to be the blessed life. What is your best life? Your blessed life. Do you hear? They're really close. Blessed and best. You need to determine what will define that. What does your life look like to be a blessed and best life? And then you need to set boundaries that will provide the foundation and establish the framework for you living that life. And only you can do that. Only you can look into your own soul, the soul that God gave you, and say, what will I regret not doing? Who will I regret not reaching? Who will I regret not having time for? What is God calling me to do that I will regret not doing and moving forward in the power that he's already given me, taking one step at a time? Once you identify that, then those are your yeses. And that means you gotta start giving some nos to make room for them. In real life, you gotta get quiet. In real life, you have to know when your body is telling you to slow down or do something different. And in real life, you have to isolate what really matters. What is my blessed life and what is my best life? Listen, my blessed life means sitting with my kids at the dinner table, even when I'd rather just serve them dinner and go to bed. My blessed life meant sitting with my mom when she was living and well, doing nothing. Having time to sit there and watch Family Feud, just being with her. My best life means making room to write and making enough room to write so that the words that are coming up out of my soul land on paper, not the words from my head. I can write from my head, but writing from my heart, that is my best life, and I have to have room to do that. My best life is making sure that I'm always ministering to women in my local church, in my home, and yes, ministering to women here on YouTube Uh, and, and elsewhere, my best life is supporting my dad in ministry. My best life is making sure that my husband knows that he's a priority and that my kids do too. This is my best life. And that means y'all, as much as I want to take 25 million women to coffee, I cannot do it. This is why there is a Coffee with Chrystal Hurst on YouTube, because this is my way of living my best life for the rest of the day. And then setting some time in the morning, uh, if you're watching this on Monday live, or if you're watching this in the evening on Sunday night or any other time, to spend time with you. These are the things I would tell you if we were going to coffee, but I can't take all 25 million of y'all to coffee. So this is me living my best life, is sharing what I've learned and what God is teaching me. But that means that there's a no, there's a time when I have to log off, and there's a time when I have to say, all right, enough time with the Q&A, let me go get my kids out for school and make oatmeal yet again. Another Monday morning, it is what it is. It's what we do every Monday morning. That, that's my best life. That's my blessed life. And I have to remind myself when I'm saying no to things that I kind of want to do, that they are going to get in the way of my best and blessed life. Listen, when people are on their deathbeds, they regret very few things. There are actually books written about this, people on their deathbeds that, um, that, uh, that, that, and their regrets all center around the same thing. They didn't spend enough time with the people they loved. They didn't take risks and pursue their passions. Um, they wasted time on things that didn't really matter, but they were pressured. They felt pressured to do them because everybody else was doing. They were more married to their to-do list than what God would give them, uh, what God would give them kudos for having done when they get to the pearly gates. Listen, your to-do list will never end. There, you should see— I printed out my to-do list from a note in Apple Notes, y'all. It was like 36 pages. Double-sided. It's like I just kept adding to it. Your to-do list will never end. Never. This is why I'm always in favor of you waking up in the morning and having some quiet time to ask God what's important for today, because maybe what's on your to-do list isn't important for today. So setting boundaries says, what is my blessed life? What is my best life? And how am I making room for that every day? You don't want to have regrets when you're 70. Of things you could have thought forward now, 25, 35, 45, 65. And if you're 70 and you feel regret, guess what? That is a pain point that can power move you in this season, in this very season where you are. You don't have to keep regretting it. You can still get busy. And if you can't do it for whatever the reason is, you can empower and encourage someone else to do it, and they need your voice. So the regret is still a motivator. It's still something that can, you know, give you a little zhu zhu, you know what I mean? I just made that up. A little zhu zhu, it's like a little girl motorbike something happening on the inside of you to get you going. Fast forward, if you don't do fill in the blank by the time you are, let's just say 70 years old, what will you regret? Think about it and then backwards engineer that into today. When I was with my kids making dinner when they were little and changing diapers and doing all these things and pushing the double stroller and jogging with a double stroller and thinking, I can't wait until they're grown, all those little things, reading books to them. Now that they're teenagers, now that they're young adults, that was my blessed best life right there, right there. And that meant that I couldn't meet all the friends for coffee because I didn't have like a babysitter and we couldn't afford that and I didn't have that, and I was thinking, I'm wasting my time. This feels like I'm wasting my time. I remember my mother said that. I wondered when y'all were young and I was staying home with y'all if I was wasting my time. Well, I don't think she did waste her time, and I think if you look at all 4 of us kids, you see the fruit of her best and blessed life. Your best and blessed might be studying in school right now and saying no to all the things because you gotta study. You need to prioritize. This is the The deep dark days are your best and blessed life. So you commit and you say no to all the things that you don't have time for right now. You are committed to your career, you're single, you can travel, you can do all these things, and your friends are like, you're never home, and we did this thing and you missed it. And yeah, you may have to miss some things in seasons of your life to commit to others, have balance. But what is your— what does God say to you is your best and blessed life? Setting boundaries on other things that are not a part of that is how you win. That is how you win. In order to not have regret, you have to stop measuring your moments by the boxes you check and start measuring your life by what will give you the blessed life and the best life. Your online life, social media, it's the same thing, y'all. If you are spending more time on social media and in your DMs responding to people you really don't know than the people who are a part of your blessed and your best you are wasting your time. Now, I'll jump in my DMs like anybody else. I jump in my primary DMs because the people that really know me can get to me there. I jump in my general DMs, but the people that kind of sort of know me can get to know me there. And then I jump into my I don't know who you are DMs every now and then, but that's not where I spend the bulk of my time. I spend the bulk of my time with the people who know me. See, even Instagram gets this. We know that you can't handle all the messages from all the people all the time, so they break up your inbox into 3 categories. What did I say? You have your inner circle 1, your inner circle 2, and your inner circle 3. And some of us have been duped into thinking that the people that we don't know on Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat, if that's even a thing— are people still even on Snapchat? But we've been duped into thinking, especially if you're, you know, my age, Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z, you have been duped into thinking that these people are your life. I have a kid who ran around and created a whole YouTube video of dares for YouTube because he's trying to increase his followings and get monetized. What? What? Listen, Gen Zers, if you're here, I hope you're here because this— I'm about to teach you something that'll bless your life. Your social media following, those are not your people. Now, they may be circle 3 people, they're not your circle 1 people, so don't give them circle 1 time. I wish I had a mic to drop. So I wanted to show you something. This is how you set screen time on your phone. Okay? You turn your phone off. You turn your phone off. Let me show you again. Go to Settings. This is on an iPhone. You go down to all the things, Screen Time. You turn on downtime or you set limits on your app, right? Do it. If you can't control yourself, let your phone help you. And I'm sure there is an Android version for that, but this is not an iPhone Android, uh, debate. So I'm just going to leave that there. Anyway, that's what I could show you, and I wanted to share that with you. Set app limits. You don't have to respond to every comment or every DM. You don't have to reply to every email. Um, think about how you can best serve your extended concentric circles, but always be aware of the limitations that you need to have because social media is never-ending and it suck your time dry. It just will. Oh, another tip: turning off your notifications on the weekends, right? Or turning them off on the weekends, or off during certain times of day, or putting on do not disturb. My sister was trying to call me the other day, and my phone, when I got a new phone, it automatically had do not disturb turn on at nighttime. And, um, she was like, I've been calling you and texting you all night long. Let me tell you, I slept so good. And then I realized that was because my phone had decided for me that I needed some time off. So I had to adjust my settings. But the point is, I had such a restful evening with all the things that were coming through that I didn't know about. Sometimes you need to protect yourself from yourself. Know your limits and be willing to communicate them clearly. But I want to make sure you're communicating them graciously. Setting boundaries, even though it says no, doesn't mean you have to be mean and nasty. You can always say no in the spirit of a yes. I would really love to do that. I think it's so exciting that you're celebrating this or that you're creating that, or that you're sponsoring this, but I won't be able to this time. Maybe keep me posted. So maybe the next time I can. Do you see how I said no? I clearly said no, but it was in the spirit of a yes. There are so many ways that you can say no and not feel bad about it. And again, that's probably a whole nother video for another time, but you can always affirm people. You can always affirm who they are. You can always affirm their value. You can always affirm what they're doing without having to be a part of it. You only got 24, girl. Set limits. Occasionally you need to go through the people that you follow and purge. Occasionally you need to look at the circles of your life and purge. Do you realize that every friendship was not meant in your life for every season? Did you know that every person that you knew in high school does not need to be a part of your life when you're in your 40s. Some do, but a lot don't. Do you realize that every person you follow on social media and every person you followed 3 years ago is not necessarily who you need to be following right now? So every now and then you need to look at your circles and say, who should be here? Because listen, honey, your time is valuable. And it doesn't mean that you have to be valuable making deals. It doesn't mean valuable creating product. It doesn't mean valuable because people are vying for your time. It's because God gave you limitations on your time. It is a finite resource, and every minute that you spend— you know, I don't want to stress you out, but many of the minutes that you spend, you should know why you're spending them, where you're spending them, and what should come about, what fruit should come out about as a result of what you're doing. So you're valuable, your time is valuable. Say no. So Here's what I want to ask you. Hopefully, again, this has been helpful to you. And I hope that if it has, that you share it because that will help other people see the message and hopefully get some encouragement and some real talk from a girl who loves God that will bless their life. So I want to ask you what tips you have for setting boundaries on your life, how you find the ability to say no, how you are able to set limits and know who belongs in your circles. How do you set boundaries on your life? I'm not asking you, should you? I'm not asking you, do you? I'm assuming that you know you should by now, and that hopefully you do a little bit. But what I would love for you to share in the comments or even in the chat, how you do it, what have you learned? You know, I always say it, we are better together. Now, I hope this video has been helpful to you. And I'm so excited to share this video and go live with a live audience in my Inner Circle every Monday morning. So if you're watching this later, then you're watching the replay. If you would like more information about becoming a part of the Inner Circle, then go to ChrystalEvansHurst.com/innercircle and know that that will allow you to join in at any time and watch the lives. But there are special levels that only open up at certain times. And on April 1st, all the levels of the Inner Circle will open up with a lot of opportunities for you to grow and to grow together with other women who love God. So if you're interested in that, go to ChrystalEvansHurst.com/innercircle and mark your calendar for April 1— so much good stuff coming soon! And have great day... set boundaries say no! No-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-all right y'all hopefully that was helpful The End. Thank you for watching this video of Christine Linton's Tips Tricks series on how to be more assertive at work or school. www.christineliton.com/blog/2016-04-set-boundaries.html Alright ya'll hope it helped out but I'mma go ahead 'n end now ...theeend!!! Please share if useful bye-bye!! Bye guys!!!! Allright yeah all hoffily dat wuz helpfull theeen nuff !!