Values and Boundaries

I once had a bookkeeping client, let's call him Toby. 

One day I was working at Toby's place when I had a call from one of my son's friends saying that my son Daniel was hurt and an ambulance was on the way. 

I dropped everything and ran out the door.  

Like...of course I did, right?  

I didn't even pack up my laptop. I just left. 

Daniel had been kicking a ball around with some friends at the school grounds and, in what can only be described as a very random turn of events, his knee gave way underneath him and he was on the ground in agony. 

The ambulance took him to A&E who eventually sent him home with a suspected sprain of his knee, telling him to rest up, but that night we ended up back at A&E because he was in so much pain. Turns out he had a broken his patella (kneecap) in 3 places and he needed surgery to pin it back together again. 

Yep! Ouch, right?! Pretty random, pretty extreme, and pretty unexpected. 

If you've ever had occasion to go to an A&E department, you'll know that the wait times can be excruciatingly long and as I'd just dropped everything to get there we were completely unprepared.  No food, no entertainment, no phone charger. 

And no laptop to finish the work I had been in the middle of. 

On top of that you're anxious because your child is in pain, and you're doing what you can to make him comfortable and keep him entertained. 

Daniel eventually got admitted and we ended up in that hospital for about 3 days.  

Now, most of my clients responded to this situation with care and compassion, telling me not to worry about things, perhaps asking me what to do about, say, payroll, until I could sort it later. 

They worked with me and didn't want me to worry about anything other than looking after myself and my family during a time like this.  

After all, in our line of work there is very rarely anything that could be described as a true emergency, right? We're not talking life and death here. 

And as Marie Forleo's mum says, everything is figureoutable.  

Values 

Family-orientedness is a huge value of mine. I was working around my kids after all. Most of my clients knew this and were supportive of this as they had the same value of family-orientedness themselves.   

But not Toby.  

Toby was quite young. He was ambitious. He was a bit cocky.  He was demanding. His business was a little out of control and he was stressed. 

So instead of being able to focus on my son and our family, I was fielding his phone calls, trying to work from my phone, and then once I got my laptop back, from my laptop, to meet his demands. 

It was so stressful! 

Toby had zero compassion for the situation I was in, and he was unrelenting in his expectations that I do what he wanted me to do as if I was still sitting in his office. 

It was my fault too 

I, of course, have to take some blame for things occurring the way they did because I was not enforcing my boundaries at the time, and so I was essentially letting him get away with this. I was trying to keep him happy.  

But I can assure you, I would do things differently in hindsight. I would express my boundaries clearly. I would enforce those boundaries so that I could focus on my son. 

And quite possibly, I would not even take on a client like Toby in the first place as there was clearly a values mismatch. 

Boundaries 

Boundaries are so important to our work as a bookkeeper. Being caring and nurturing is something that adds a lot of value for our clients, but it also means that we can be somewhat loose about our boundaries by prioritising our clients’ urgencies over our own (and often their urgency is a lack of planning on their part), and by taking phone calls and responding to emails at all hours. 

That's not helpful when you're building a bookkeeping business. You need headspace. You need thinking time. You need to replenish your heart and soul with friends and family time. You need time to yourself. 

Where in your bookkeeping business, or even in your life, do you have a values mismatch? Or somewhere where you are not enforcing your boundaries? 

Remember, this is your business. You get to create it so that it works for you. 

😃Stephanie 

PS: Interested in working with me as your bookkeeping business coach? Send me an email  or Message me to start the conversation.