Coach Rajika joins ideamix to discuss the importance of setting boundaries in a hybrid work environment and doing what is best for you. In a society that has normalized the idea of living to work, Rajika turns this idea around and discusses how this can negatively affect our health, relationships, and family. Tune in to learn how you can create a schedule with a perfect balance between your work life and personal life.
Transcript:
Narrator [00:00:00] Successful individuals use coaching and mentorship to help them unlock their potential. Not all coaches are created equal and that’s why we work with the top 5% of coaches at ideamix. Welcome to Coaches You Need, brought to you by idea mix.
Jamie [00:00:18] Welcome to Coaches To Know, a podcast short by ideamix radio. This brief podcast is designed to help you, our audience, understand what coaching is and how it can help you. I’m your host, Jamie, and today I’m here with coach Rajika to discuss how to set boundaries in a hybrid work environment. Welcome, Coach Rajika, and thank you for joining us here today.
Rajika [00:00:45] Great to have you.
Jamie [00:00:47] Thank you. So let’s just start by introducing and if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been a coach and sort of give us a little insight into your background?
Rajika [00:01:00] Yeah, absolutely. So I have been a coach for five and a half years and my background is I am a certified transformational coach and have been studying these transformational tools, gosh, for almost a decade. And originally, you know, I was working in the health industry for about eighteen years, managing a practice, felt overworked, burnt out. And never appreciated. And it was a little bit hard for me to walk away from being in the health care industry because I really loved it. But I started noticing how it affected my health, my relationship. It was not a place that was supportive of my–the life that I wanted to create. So I walked away–pursued my passion of really helping people to change their lives. And, you know, I started going, you know, went to a certification and started really learning and teaching and really implementing these transformational tools for myself first and then, you know, that has been my journey. So, yes, I’m a transformational life coach. I am a positive, intelligent coach and also a Reiki feeler that I help my clients with because they are different modalities that can support them.
Jamie [00:02:33] Thank you. And tell us who your clients are.
Rajika [00:02:37] So my clients, who I, you know, love to work with, are busy professionals who are feeling overwhelmed. They are feeling like it’s just go, go, go. They’re burning the candles on both ends and, you know, sort of them wants to leave a part of them and saying, hey, I want something different. But it’s the fear of the unknown, the fear of, you know, can I walk away? How can I walk away? And what happens in that place is that we get so–the fear is just so detrimental and it just kind of collapses them into a place of like mode: it’ll get better and they kind of go into this dialog off like, just hang in there, it’ll get better. It’s just this event or this project. And so it’s really helping them to gain clarity on what is the life that they want to create and be in the driver’s seat of their life, really help them to reframe some of our limiting beliefs or patterns that we have created because that has created the results that we are seeing in our lives and really put the “how” on hold and really saying, okay, if I could do anything or if I could change it, what would that look like and really start helping them to take steps towards that.
Jamie [00:03:58] So busy professionals who are sort of in a holding pattern or I would say, but feeling overwhelmed and you help them, you help quell the overwhelm.
Rajika [00:04:11] Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Jamie [00:04:13] Well, it sounds like to then you are the best expert to speak about healthy boundaries. So why don’t we start defining what is a healthy boundary? What does it look like? And are there any misconceptions around what a healthy boundary is and isn’t?
Rajika [00:04:27] Yeah. So you know, what are boundaries, right? What is a healthy boundary? It is–it is being in a place where you are honoring yourself, honoring and taking care of yourself, as well as showing up as that professional as that mom as that dad in your life. Right? I kind of say it–I kind of put it in this way: It cannot be any private good. It cannot be good for the employer and not be good for me. Because if I am burning myself out, if I am just sending myself beyond what I can in the capacity it’s going to have negative consequences in my health, it’s going to have consequences in my relationship, and at some point, you’re going to reach a place of anger and resentment because it’s not going to be supportive of a life that you want and it’s not going to help you show up as that even more confident and really a person that is being of service and showing up fully for your team, for your life.
Jamie [00:05:44] So appropriate boundaries is really about finding balance between our multiple identities, right? Because many of us, we are many, many, things all at once. So tell me a little more. Let’s explore. Like what do appropriate boundaries, when you’re setting them, what does that feel like for the individual?
Rajika [00:06:06] You know, this is a great question because I think, as you alluded to, we do wear different hats. And I know from a women perspective, as a woman, as a mom, as a wife, we are just the nurturers and we are taking care of everybody. So for us to really say “No, I can’t do this” or “I can’t show up for a PTA meeting” or “I can’t volunteer” feels uncomfortable because we have had an image of ourselves that we need to be everywhere. And what happens is when we are doing that, not only are we overextending ourselves, but we are feeling that if I don’t do this, maybe I’m missing out on things. Or it could be also FOMO, right? Like, I have to do this because if I don’t do this, oh my gosh, how is this going to impact it or how is it going to impact my work? So I think it’s setting healthy boundaries inn the early stages does seem uncomfortable because it’s a behavior pattern that you’ve had for such a long time. So it is shifting that and saying, okay, say “No, I cannot do this”. “No, I you know, I would love to do this, but my schedule or, you know, my schedule doesn’t allow it. And maybe I can circle back with you at the next time”. [00:07:35]So I think it’s changing, flipping the dialog in our mind, saying it is okay to say no, not from a place of shame or blame, but really saying it’s okay to say no because I want to have a place where I show up even more for myself first and for my family and for the work that I’m doing in the world. [19.8s]
Jamie [00:07:58] Thank you for that. So what’s–you’ve alluded to this and you’ve talked about it, but let’s just clarify for the audience. What are the symptoms of having a lack of boundaries? Let’s let’s be specific about what that looks like.
Rajika [00:08:13] You know, so, the few symptoms that I know I was experiencing was I was perpetually tired. I was not sleeping. I was having sleepless nights because I was waking up in the middle of night. “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t do this. I didn’t do this project right. I had to get this out…” So it was having interrupted sleep. And as we know, that we need sleep in order to restore our health. And if we’re not having good quality sleep, it is going to impact the productivity, our alertness, our mood, all of that. So sleep–that’s your sleep. Or food choices because you just want that caffeine or you just want that boost of energy. So you might not be making the best choices and that can lead to weight gain…you can feel sluggish. You just feel, you know, you are not having that energy to show up fully. So I would say, you know, and then relationships, right? Because you come home, you’ve had a rough day. You’ve had a long day. How are showing up for your spouse or your kids or your partner? Right? [00:09:31]So we’re not setting boundaries. Not only will it impact us, but it impacts the other spheres of our our lives.
Jamie [00:09:45] So not having boundaries that has knock on effects or sort of the decisions that we make in our life, right? And it sounds like sometimes people get in a sort of negative feedback cycle around their decision making, and at least that’s not exactly how I want to phrase it but, you know, they just are continuing to make bad decisions because they’re not able to sort of pull it together because they’re stretched so thin. Yes, I can I can relate. I think many of us listening today can relate to that. Let’s go into how can coaching help an individual sort of turn things around and get out of that negative cycle?
Rajika [00:10:31] Well, so you know, coaching–how coaching is supportive and really empowering is number one. And the framework that I really help my clients to come from is really creating a vision of what is the life that you want to create: six months, one year, two years. And we encompass all areas of our life because often the culture is, you know, work is the end all and be all. Really changing the dialog of “Yes, work is a component of my life. How do I–what are the, you know, when I’m at work, number one, what do I want to create? What is the work that I want to produce?” But also looking at the other quadrants of our life, which is our health, which is our relationship, which is a good time and freedom that we have, right? So it’s looking at the vision as a whole picture versus just saying a work is the only, only peace that we are coming from at all times, really. So I help them to create a vision that incorporates all four sectors. Why creating a vision is so important is because within, we have a vision. A couple of things happen. Number one, what happens is we are looking at where we might be feeling out of alignment, right? Because we are feeling out of alignment because we’re not clear on what it is that we want. So we feel out of alignment, but creating a vision helps us to take the decision fatigue out, look at the calendar and say, okay, what do I have on my calendar? Is it really reflecting the life that I want to create? Where is the time that I’m putting in with my family? Where is the time I’m putting it for myself, really reflecting. I think the biggest transformational tool that I help my clients work with is their calendar–is really creating a calendar that feels extensive, and not a to do list. Because we all have a lot of to do list. But we are–we want to be in a place of who do I want to be in my life? I’m looking at all four sectors and it’s–the second part is how coaching will help and really transform is we are shifting the dialog of it’s okay to say no and it is honoring ourselves, but it’s also changing the patterns and belief systems that we might have picked up, maybe seeing our loved ones, our parents or other people in our lives modeled to us and shifting it and reframing that that inner dialog.
Jamie [00:13:08] Thank you so much. I love that about basically get it, you know, laying out a vision and making sure that your calendar, which we so much of all of us rely on, is aligned with that vision. It’s so practical and beautiful at the same time. Coach Rajika, thank you so much for your time today. We are out of time. To our audience, if you would like to work with Coach Rajika or any of our other coaches, please visit us at theideamix.com. Thank you for listening.
Rajika [00:13:41] Thank you.
Narrator [00:13:45] Thanks for listening. Please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach at www.theideamix.com. Special thanks to our producer Martin Milewski and singer songwriter Doug Allen.