There’s a corner in my office I love. It gets beautiful light in the morning and I even bought a beautiful chair so I can sit there and look out into my back garden while I drink my tea. There’s just one “problem”…

Every time I go to sit on it, this ^^ is what I see.

My inclination is to laugh and let her stay there while I find another place to sit. But I also know that boundaries are very important for pups, as much as they are for humans. If I don’t set the boundary with her, she will start to creep in on other boundaries and it’ll cause problems.

So I tell Sadie to get off the chair and take my place in it. She can come up and sit with me if she’s invited.

Dogs develop behavioral issues when they don’t have good boundaries in place. We’ve all seen the episodes of the Dog Whisperer battling a cute yet rabid Yorkie who’s been allowed to rule the roost for too long. Deep down that dog is miserable because he has no boundaries–that’s why it’s acting out. Humans are the same.

The thing about boundaries most people completely miss is HOW closely your boundaries are tied to the success of your goals. Boundaries aren’t just your protectors or walls–that’s a very rudimentary view. More importantly, boundaries are clear messages telling the Universe what you ARE (and aren’t) available for. That means boundaries are KEY to the successful manifestation of your biggest goals.

There’s another big mistake even the BEST boundary setters make. I promise, this is not something you will have thought of, because when I teach this, people go wild.

The mistake is this: you set boundaries that work for you right now. That’s not how you set boundaries to help you manifest your biggest desires. You have to set the boundaries your future, wealthier or more impactful self would have, right now. Otherwise, you’re letting the Universe know what you’re open to only right now and forgetting to tell it what you’re open to in the future.

I recently received a message from a client, let’s call her Katrina, who was having some major boundary issues with a long-time, beloved, and high-paying client (let’s call her Stella for purposes of this story). This was a big deal because one of her biggest goals when she hired me, was to build her Embodiment Capacity™ so she could feel comfortable charging premium level prices for her services and start working with high-profile, high-earning people.

When Stella reached out to work with my client Katrina she was honored. Stella was the owner of a prestigious, multi-million dollar business, and Katrina was pumped to support her. She really wanted to work with Stella, so when Stella asked for a few concessions, Katrina obliged in order to secure her as a client. Except, over the next few months, something alarming happened.

Stella first asked for a few sessions that were “out of the scope” of the original plan Katrina had negotiated with her. Katrina obliged and charged an extra fee for the extra sessions. But then Stella started asking if other team members could come on the calls, which wasn’t in the original scope of their agreement. You might think “so what? She’s making more money!” but this was a symptom of worse things to come.

Next, Stella started canceling sessions last minute claiming she was “busy with big deals she was negotiating” but expecting them to be rescheduled, even though Katrina’s policy clearly stated sessions canceled without 24 hours notice would be forfeit. Because this was the first offense, Katrina gave her a pass. But when it happened again a month later and Katrina didn’t give her a second pass, Stella acted surprised and a bit offended.

Katrina was audibly distressed in her voice note to me. She was dealing with a boundary and scope-pushing client who was paying her a lot of money. But Stella’s constant need to change the original boundaries of their agreement was creating a lot of extra and unpaid labor for Katrina and her team. She didn’t want to lose the client nor the relationship she’d built with her. What to do?

This is where we got a chance to make sure her current boundaries were aligned with the Boundary Capacity of her FUTURE self– NOT her current self. Because THIS is how we use boundaries as tools to manifest our next-level goals.

Katrina wanted high-earner clients who paid premium prices that compensated her well enough to offer the level of support these kinds of clients need. But when we looked at how she was embodying and setting her boundaries, she was out of alignment with what she said she wanted.

Her current Boundary Capacity deficits meant she was easily pushed around by Stella’s constantly changing needs. Katrina’s current level of Boundary Capacity made it so she kept making concessions which communicated subconsciously to Stella that her time wasn’t valuable nor respected. Naturally, Stella began to treat Katrina’s time as such.

“So what would future Katrina who already works with many high-powered clients and has next-level Boundary Capacity do in this situation?” I asked her.

I knew this wasn’t an easy question. If you’re not that person yet, how do you know what your boundaries would be in the future?

You know that saying “it’s easier to see others than to see ourselves”? It takes time and a mentor who can already see you as your future self to figure this out. We did exactly that, spent about an hour digging deep into expanding her Boundary Capacity.

By the end of the session, she realized she hadn’t been showing up with the boundaries of a person who has the kind of clients she wanted to attract. She’d been communicating “I’m a doormat” to her busy, powerful client. She realized clients like Stella need to be met with non-triggered, non-emotional, but firm boundaries… or they won’t respect her.

After our sessions, she scheduled a call with Stella and told her, “it seems you’re needing a lot of things out of the scope of our original agreement, so I think it would be best if we renegotiated the terms of our work together and put you into a custom package that would better meet your needs so we reduce the back and forth that’s been going on. How does that feel?”

You know what happened?

Katrina upgraded Stella to a $150,000 package. And by the way, this much more premium package STILL had boundaries in it. And when Stella tried to push them Katrina didn’t budge, nor feel afraid of doing so. This energetically let Stella know she had to fall in line and honor the boundaries of their agreement, so she stopped pushing the boundaries.

When loved ones or clients start to push your boundaries, is your response communicating your FUTURE self’s boundary capacity? Or is it communicating boundaries that are out of alignment with who you’re trying to become?

When people complain they don’t have the money or ask for more of your time than they paid for, you might want to say yes and make them more comfortable. But that would only end in your discomfort. And it’ll delay manifestation because every time you say yes to something you want to say no to, you’re telling the Universe to send you more of the things you don’t want.

Just like I need to let Sadie know where she is in the pack and show her my leadership, it’s important to do the same in your business with clients or in your life with others. Is there ever a time I let Sadie sit in the chair? Sure! But it’s on my terms.

It’s when I invite her and make the conscious choice to allow her. Just like you might make a conscious choice out of extra capacity to give a client a bonus session, not because they whined and demanded it, but because you felt good giving it.

A GIFT FOR YOU: On Wednesday, April 18th at 11 am Pacific I’m going to go LIVE on my Instagram page here, with my friend Gary Cassera, who is an incredible dog whisperer and behavior specialist. And we’re going to talk about why boundaries are so important for dogs AND humans. Join us!

Just head over to my IG profile here, follow me, and come back to the page at the date and time above to join us for a fun discussion! Every time I talk to Gary, I learn so much about dogs AND humans.

Ps: if you’re ready to do that deeper dive into expanding your Boundary Capacity™, that’s what we work on EVERY month in Capacity Shift™. One participant just signed two new clients at her new higher rate last week, another just found out her company is headed for 7 figures, another finally hired a nanny so she can focus more on growing her business and yet another participant had her first $40,000 month. Learn more about Capacity Shift and enroll here.