I love contractual boundaries. I’m a consultant and for some of my projects, primarily the fixed bid projects, we outline very specific deliverables in the contract. We specify what the deliverables are, approximately when they are due, and what the client has to do to facilitate their delivery. When the client asks for something that is not on that deliverable list, I can choose to provide it (and sometimes I will if it is small and will facilitate getting the other deliverables) or not. If I choose not to provide it, I am empowered to say, “I’m sorry, but that’s not in our agreed upon scope of work.” Once those words come out of my mouth, the client really has no wiggle room because they agreed to the contract including the specific deliverables. If it turns out that I can’t deliver something on time because the client missed a deadline, I can point to the contract and say, “You were supposed to do this and because you didn’t, I wasn’t able to complete my work. Please let me know when you’ll be able to complete your task and I’ll provide you with an updated timeline.”
Unfortunately, in our personal lives we vary rarely have such clear cut boundaries and expectations. However, learning to enforce contractual boundaries has helped me to set and maintain better boundaries in my personal life. It has helped me to set boundaries by thinking about human interactions in terms of boundaries before things get sticky. For instance, I live with my adult children and I own both the cars that they drive. I don’t want to be paying for gas for them to be gadding all over the country so when I agreed to let them drive the cars and pay for insurance, I set expectations about who would pay for the gas. My son drives one of my cars to work almost every day of the week so I told him that he was responsible for buying gas (with his own money and not my credit card). I did add that if I ended up doing a lot of running when I was home, I would refill the tank. My daughter is home most days and doesn’t do a lot of running. However, she is going back to school in the fall and looking for a job. The expectation for her is start paying for gas once she gets a job.
There have been a few times when my son hasn’t filled the tank, but overall he’s maintained his end of the deal. And when the tank hasn’t been filled, I’ve maintained by boundary by not rescuing him and filling it. He wants to get to work, he fills the tank. In the past, I would have just assumed that since he’s driving he’d know he needed to pay for gas and we both would have ended up frustrated when the tank was empty or when he used my credit card to buy gas and I yelled at him. By setting this expectation up front, the guidelines were clear cut and easier to maintain.
I’ve gotten better at maintaining boundaries as well because having to enforce them at work has helped me find my voice. Since I’m more anxious about the repercussions from my boss of not enforcing them than the client’s reaction, I’ve had to find that courage to say, “I can’t do this because it’s not what we agreed to.” Practicing enforcing these contractual boundaries has made it less scary to enforce personal boundaries. I’ve realized that although people may be unhappy and upset, chances are they aren’t going to hate me. Once they take a step back and realize, “Oh, that is what we agreed to…” we can have a realistic discussion about it. It’s still uncomfortable sometimes to stand up for myself, but just like anything else it gets easier with practice.
Cairn by Cairn 