Your misaligned priorities are sabotaging your relationships
We had no idea how we were sabotaging our relationships when we were just "working hard" to be successful.
Here we were again, texting "Finding parking now, be right there"... a message we could have put into a keyboard shortcut because we'd sent it so often. We were once again running "just a little behind", completely stressed out, blaming parking for why we were literally running in heals down an icy Chicago sidewalk because our friend had been waiting alone at the bar of a crowded downtown restaurant for over 30 minutes. But to be honest, it had nothing to do with parking, it wasn't even that we had left the office at the same time we were supposed to meet her. We were doing it AGAIN, a consistent pattern we started to recognize and neither of us was ok with any longer.
We've all heard that old adage "You can't find the solution from the same thinking that created the problem". You need a new perspective or you will just relive the same situations. We were finally seeing a new perspective and realized we were falling into the same pattern again and again, continuing to overstep our own boundaries because we had ineffective communication and allowed others priorities to dictate our time, energy and focus. At the time it was a tough pill to swallow, we had been living out of alignment for so long and blaming external factors, and we had no idea how to address it.
So we are going to give you, in just a few sentences, what it took us 10 years and countless seminars to learn. How to live in alignment and honor relationships in your life. We have had many husbands thank us for teaching this to their wives and employees thank us for teaching it to their bosses!
Here are the 3 factors contributing to how your misaligned priorities are sabotaging your relationships:
- You are not enforcing your own boundaries. Boundaries are only as effective as the ones you enforce. When you say that you have set a boundary, but you don't enforce the it, it is just as bad, if not worse than if you had never set it in the first place. And a hint for real boundaries, the first person you need to enforce them with is yourself.
- You have ineffective communication. Understanding your own style of communication is incredibly important to improving it. So often the women we work with believe that they have effective communication, but the relationships and interactions in their life say other wise. Ensuring that you have expressed your actual request or expectations is pivotal for effective communication. You may be "in" the same conversation, but you and the other person may not be "having" the same conversation, ensuring that expectations will be missed.
- Your actions are out of alignment with what you say are your priorities. Your actions don't match your words. Often times we see this lead to guilt, frustration and burnout. Because people believe that they are aligned, but their actions are not.
We realize now why that friendship suffered and she stopped letting us know when she is in town. We know now that the stress we felt that night was coming from the fact that we had finally realized that once again we had crossed our own boundaries and allowed our work priorities to dictate our actions. At the time we hadn't even realized our priorities were misaligned, because she was also a leader, we were sure "she would understand". Now that we know so much about priorities, boundaries and communication we recognize that were missing in all three of those areas. We didn't have strong enough boundaries to leave work to be on time to meet her. We weren't communicating effectively because people continued to come to both of us even after we thought we set the boundary and we were prioritizing our teams instead of what WE THOUGH was our priority, being a reliable friend. It sank in hard, when we were apologizing yet again and she gave us that "it's ok" nod, but we could tell we had pushed it one too many times. Now we are the ones that are there on time because being a reliable friend and honoring our word are priorities for us.
If you want to have a different experience and learn to master setting boundaries, having effective communication and aligned priorities, let us know! We can help you. Check out our programs at www.believeblueprint.com
Katie & Lynn
Founders BELIEVE BLUEPRINT LLC
