The Art of Saying No: Mastering Client Boundaries as a Creative - Sheila M. Wilkinson | New Orleans

Boundaries aren’t a one-way street.

You might think you’re the only one involved in setting boundaries, but that’s not true. Boundaries need to also be respected – by you, your friends and family, but particularly, by your clients – and if your clients don’t respect them, then you need to double down on them AGAIN. When you dilly dally about putting boundaries in place with a client, you’re only hurting yourself. You know this intellectually; but it’s the emotional knowledge we’re working on here.

So, let’s talk about boundaries – how to set them and how to enforce them.

When I was starting out in my career, over 25 years ago, I can honestly say that I RARELY set boundaries – with anyone. My clients, my friends, my family, my relationships, my colleagues. No one. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was afraid. Being an orphan will do that to you.

My parents died when I was young – my mom when I was 16, my dad when I was 12. I raised my sister, who is 8 years younger than I am. When people talk about trauma with a little t or a Big T? Well, that was BIG T TRAUMA.

So, when it came to boundaries, I just didn’t set any. I was so scared that if I upset someone, I would lose them. I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of being alone. I was afraid that if I told people what I wanted, that they wouldn’t care, they’d laugh in my face and then they’d just walk away.

The effects of Big T Trauma.

But, I think you’ll agree that you can only put your needs aside for so long before you get smacked in the face one time too many.

That one time too many was in the early 2000s. I was dating an addict, an alcoholic, an abuser – emotionally, not physically – or so I thought. One weekend, they went on a bender. I knew they didn’t want to be found, but what did I do? I canvassed the French Quarter in New Orleans with a photo and a pleading face: Have you seen this person? I finally pieced together where the trail took them that weekend. Not dead in a ditch, but close to it. When I finally gave up because my calls and texts weren’t being answered, I sat outside the house until they finally came home at 3 am on Monday morning.

And that, my friend, was the first time I was ever punched in the face. Closed fist. Full-on, clocked in the face.

And that’s when I learned the hard way: boundaries are a two-way street.

I didn’t have any boundaries back then. But to be fair, my partner didn’t have any, either.

I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near that bender that weekend. I just didn’t want to be abandoned. Rejected. Not included. Not wanted. Not liked. Not loved. Not appreciated. And to be honest, if I pulled what they did to me that weekend, ghosting them and refusing to answer the phone, they would have gone all over town looking for me worried I was dead in a ditch, too.

And even though there was a very good reason I wasn’t supposed to know where they were, the more I was ghosted (before ghosting was a coined term we used to describe … well, ghosting) … the more silence there was, the more I pushed. The more I tried to PROVE that I was worthy of attention and being included. The more I tried to PROVE that I deserved to be as close to them as possible. The more I sacrificed myself for THEIR happiness and comfort and ease. I never once took into account what *I* wanted.

So what does all this have to do with clients and boundaries? Everything.

Because I didn’t truly understand that I had a problem with boundaries until it literally hit me in the face. I thought that I was supposed to handle whatever was dealt me with a smile on my face, to suck it up and say “yes, of course” (even though my body screamed no), to push through exhaustion just to prove I could do hard things, to show how much I could sacrifice of myself in order to make the situation the best it can be for the other person. I didn’t know when enough was enough. I didn’t know how to let go. I was afraid to NOT have pressure, being left alone with my thoughts and feelings. I was so stuck on being accepted and loved, I avoided the truth of what was going on in my life.

I was a people-pleaser through and through. And maybe you are, too.

I tried so hard to know all the answers. I overanalyzed. I second-guessed myself. I spent decades trying to attract attention, hoping someone would love me enough.

Except *I* had to love me enough. That’s how I got boundaries with everyone around me. I decided that I was important enough, that I was worthy enough, that I deserved MORE.

I was 23 years old when that punch came.

I’m telling you this story because the day I got punched, my entire life changed. I started doing what was right for me. It was a practice. Freaking hard at first. But it was a practice. I gathered the right support around me – you remember me talking about Nadine last time, yes? – and I started to do what I knew was right for me. I started taking the steps to protect myself in every single exchange – because the truth is there’s only so much you can control. Recognizing what you can control and not is key to boundaries.

You know when a client has gone too far. And you don’t have to be subjected to a client’s abuse – even in microaggressions – simply because you think that it’s normal, or par for the course, or even deserved. You don’t. And no, it doesn’t have to be as obvious as a punch in the face, but when someone degrades you, someone doesn’t appreciate you, someone nickels and dimes you, someone tries to make you give them a discount even when you’ve worked your butt off – in other words, if someone doesn’t recognize your value and worth – those are the signs you need to start putting yourself first.

But remember what I said earlier: Boundaries are a two-way street. You have to set them, but they also have to respect them. And if they don’t, then it’s on YOU to respect yourself and enforce them for yourself. That’s why having a streamlined intake and onboarding process is so important. That’s why having an air-tight contract, a living document that’s forever evolving, is so important. Because unless you’re paying attention to the lines in the sand that matter to you, no one else will.

The truth is, we think that clients will simply respect us just because we’re professionals. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

When you have strong boundaries that stick, then you don’t need to keep waiting for people to respect them. They exist. You communicate them. When they cross them, you enforce them. You take action, and you make sure the consequences become real.

The big problem with boundaries is that we’re all being too freaking polite. We’re all trying not to “lose the client” before we even have them. But I would suggest to you that maybe, just maybe, you don’t want every client. That in fact, for a while, you shouldn’t take every client. Maybe, just maybe, you should say NO more often than you say yes.

I mentioned earlier about all the things I feared when it came to setting boundaries in my personal life, but the truth is, the way we interact and hold boundaries in our personal life is, more often than not, how we handle boundaries in our professional life. Our personal lives bleed over into our professional lives, into our businesses, into our contracts, into our working relationships with our clients. How you learned to set boundaries in your personal life is how you set them in your business.

A lot of creatives are people-pleasers and feel afraid when they try to set boundaries. They have a real, genuine fear of loss, a fear of rejection, a fear of abandonment. That comes from how we were raised, and not just by our parents or guardians. It comes from our teachers, our clergy, our friends, our elders, our books and media and music. Those messages of WHO we should be and HOW we should be? They run deep. So deep that we often don’t see the programming until it hits us in the face.

And that’s the stuff that will kill your creative spark – it’s the stuff that needs to be healed, which is why I encourage my own clients to do therapy while we’re working together. Together, we’re reconnecting the intellectual knowledge to the emotional knowledge. You need both in business.

Because in business, whether you call yourself a solopreneur or self-employed or a freelancer or even a creative entrepreneur, the fact of the matter is that when you trade money for deliverables, you have a business. Even if you don’t call it that.

And the shifts in the mindset of being an employee to self-employed to a business owner is a subtle one, but an important one – and it all starts with boundaries.

I want you to stop pretending that being available 24/7, answering the phone anytime of day, even answering texts and emails right away, staying up late at night to work on a project, not taking time off so you can rush a project no one asked to rush … that somehow, that’s being a great service-provider. Because it’s not. Actually, it’s toxic.

You remember my story about how I worked 100/120 hour weeks for 10 years, building a multi-million dollar business? Money is not my currency. Money is necessary, but it comes and goes. Instead of pretending that people-pleasing is the way to be “nice” and “a good service provider,” I want you to start setting boundaries little by little.

If I could tell Younger Sheila (I’m still young, you know!) how to set stronger boundaries with clients, I’d tell her to start small.

So, “What Would Sheila Say” to Younger Sheila?

🎧 LISTEN HERE FOR 10 PIECES OF ADVICE! 🎧

Which of those 10 stuck out to you? Whatever it was, I want you to start practicing it this week. Little by little. Tiny bit by tiny bit. And grab those scripts – they will save your butt.

Alright, let’s start wrapping up.

If you’ve been trying to let go of bad clients, terrible projects, and atrocious pay, then setting baby boundaries are your first step. You might have already said yes to something or someone, but my big takeaway for you today is that you can always, always, ALWAYS change your decision.

And, to help you start figuring out the right level of boundaries for yourself, I want you to go deeper – look to your contract.

What does it say about terminating the agreement? Does it say anything about early termination? What’s the timeline on your projects? Are you biting off more than you can chew all at once? Do you want to take big projects and break them down into smaller, mini-projects, so that you can focus and not get overwhelmed? What does your contract say about availability? Response time? Communication expectations? Anything?

These pieces are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to boundaries with clients. If you don’t have all of these things, then make sure you go do the free interactive guide that I have, it’s called “12 Tweaks for a Clearer Client Contract!” and it will help you start to formulate those words, formulate those boundaries, formulate that spark in your work once again. It’ll help you start working on your people-pleasing tendencies (we all have them from time to time, you know – it’s totally normal – and it’s up to you to work on them, because clients are not going to respect boundaries that don’t exist).

Obviously, the story I told you earlier was quite personal, and the important thing to remember is that I translated those lessons into my business. But it didn’t happen overnight. It took me a couple of years to get a contract that felt super solid and clear. I had to really work on laying out my non-negotiables, making sure that all my lines in the sand were clearly communicated with clients, both in writing and verbally. Because if I got pushback, I had to give myself permission to let that client go so that I had the space for the good client who would respect my boundaries. And you can do that, too.

Once I had the clarity about the boundaries I wanted, I had to practice setting them (and sometimes failing, too) in order to feel confident enough to create a contract that made ME feel COURAGEOUS.

Us people-pleasers want to protect the peace. Except we fail to realize that protecting THE peace is not the same as protecting OUR peace.

At the end of the day, I wanted to protect MY peace more than I wanted to sacrifice it.

If you’re struggling as a people-pleaser, maybe even feeling shame about how hard it is to set boundaries, know that you’re not alone. Especially if you’re just starting out. Feeling joyful and excited about running a business is possible, but to do that, you have to set those strong boundaries, reset those expectations of yourself and others, and to make decisions that feel good – not forced. Your contract is a perfect place to start doing exactly this.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this exact conversation with a client. I had a client a while back who was struggling with a client. Exasperated, frustrated, and annoyed, he was was fed up waiting to get the content he needed for a site he was working on. Together, we evaluated his contract, determined the exact language that applied to the situation, and drafted an email for the client together. (This is just a tiny bit of the work I do with clients). In that email, we respectfully explained the situation, explained that the contract required content within a certain number of calendar days of requesting it, and that if he didn’t get it, he would do no more work on it. And that if he didn’t get it within a certain number of days, that he would terminate the contract and they’d owe an early cancellation fee. That put a fire under the client’s butt and guess what happened? He got his content within 3 days. THREE. DAYS. That is the power of strong boundaries. And it’s a testament to a clear contract.

Having a contract that addressed what would happen in the event of a delay was the lifesaver in that situation. He didn’t need to be a people-pleaser. He just had to point to his contract and say, HERE. While for him, the section was about Termination, for you, it might be something different. That’s why I want you to go deeper into your contract and see where you can start setting little boundaries now, so that when you have to bust out the big guns, you can.

Society wants you to not respect each other as humans.
Society sets unrealistic expectations, convincing us that we have to be exhausted trying to make our clients happy.
Society tells us to look externally for validation and love and direction.

And Society couldn’t be more wrong. I care about helping you get it right – and that starts with your boundaries and expectations and decisions.

I care about helping you be more than just a service-provider. I care about helping you bring your creative spark to the world and to help make it better.
I care about infusing who you are into your work in a way that doesn’t drain you and doesn’t require you to be a people-pleaser.
You and I are better than what Society wants us to be. We can do what works for us, and still be incredible humans working with incredible humans.

And look, you could avoid this altogether. You could pretend that boundaries aren’t really the problem, and instead, it’s all the humans out there who are taking advantage of you. But the truth is, if you set boundaries, then you’ll feel more peaceful. More hopeful. More satisfied in your work.

So, try it this week. See how it goes. And know I’m here if you need or want help with that people-pleasing. You’re better than that.

And, if you need support, I’ll be running an 8-week Contracts Course soon – I’ll throw the waitlist link into the show notes – but also, go do my free 12 Simple Tweaks Form to help you get a clearer client contract. I’m here if you need me.

Next Steps

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Hi! I’m Sheila, your guide to a Joyful and Thriving™ creative life! I have lots of titles: attorney, social worker, coach, consultant, keynote speaker, educator. And while I’m proud of those titles, I am a human first and a title second – just like you. I want to help you reset expectations, set boundaries, and make aligned decisions, so you can streamline and focus your energy on the people, projects, and pay that actually matter to you.

Instagram: @sheilamwilkinson | LinkedIn

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