What do you do when you feel like others aren’t respecting your time and boundaries?
A few weeks ago my friend, who has a successful Osteopath clinic, shared how a few of his clients were consistently going over their scheduled time and how this has been impacting his business.
This is important because if you aren’t owning your worth and making yourself as important, odds are, others won’t either.
This principle applies to business as well as with relationships with friends and family.
So, how can you effectively own your worth and ensure that those around you respect and value your time?
There are three ways you can show up.
You can be Passive.
You can be Aggressive.
Or you can be Assertive.
My friend, in this instance, was being passive.
Rather than ensuring his appointments ended at the allotted time, he was allowing his clients to stay and chat for as long as they liked. And in one extreme case, the client would stay over an hour past his scheduled appointment.
By being passive and not speaking his truth, his business and his well-being were both negatively impacted. For instance, he was increasingly late for clients and started to lose customers; he regularly missed his lunch, after the sessions, his energy felt depleted, and his confidence had decreased.
By being passive and not speaking his truth, he was making others more significant than himself.
This is a principle that Dr. John Demartini teaches.
When you are passive, it always leads to being aggressive.
Imagine a spring. Every time you are passive and making someone else more important than yourself, it’s like putting more pressure on the spring, until eventually there’s too much pressure, and it bursts open.
When this happens, it leads to you becoming aggressive.
When you are aggressive, you act out the opposite and make yourself more important than others.
In this case, my friend was becoming aggressive with himself. He was angry and hard on himself. He was also becoming aggressive by not wanting to take on those clients anymore.
Aggression can look like lashing out, but it can also look like leaving or taking off.
I see this often in relationships or with a career. Someone puts up with something for so long and eventually gets fed up and just leaves.
The key to navigating this situation in a loving way is to be assertive.
When you are assertive, it means you are making yourself as important as others.
Not more important or less important, but as important.
When you are doing this, you are coming from a loving place.
Many people think that by only supporting others, they are being loving. The truth is love has both support and challenge, not only one side.
By just ‘supporting’ his client, my friend wasn’t loving himself or them.
What was happening was the opposite effect.
By undervaluing himself and overvaluing his clients, he created an imbalance in the relationship, which led to resentment and anger, resulting in him not wanting to help that client and vice versa.
In this case, being assertive could look like having a conversation with the client about the time. If the client continues to go overtime, charge them for that time.
The key is to both support and challenge. That is loving!
Whether it’s business, relationships, etc., the key is to do both!
The more you can be assertive, the more you’ll increase your self-worth and confidence and the more you’ll attract people who respect and love you for who you are!!
I invite you to take a quick look at your life. Where are you being passive or making yourself less important?
Also, ask yourself, where are you being aggressive and making yourself more important?
Rather than stopping yourself from being aggressive, try and find out where you are being passive and focus on taking baby steps towards being more assertive in that area.
If you are looking for more guidance on owning your worth, you can register for a free 1:1 clarity call with me.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear about what area of your life you would love to be more assertive in. Comment below 🙂