I always prided myself on my excellent customer service. 

I always made sure to “go the extra mile” with every one of my customers.  

When I first went out on my own I totally thought I was killing it. The hustle was real and I took that as a win…

10 years ago I wouldn’t bat an eye at …

• Working late…

• Coming in early…

• Going in on my days off…

All to accommodate a booking. Literally one single booking sometimes (too many times to count). 

My eagerness to please and deliver “excellent customer service” turned into an excuse to keep boundaries out of my business. 

And in turn, kept me from having boundaries in my personal life. (It’s one of those, what came first scenarios, I’m pretty sure I never knew what healthy boundaries were, you too?)

Being so new in business I was scared …

•  “What if it all suddenly stopped?”

• “What if all my clients leave me?”

• “What if they expose me as a fraud?”
  

But I was also so full of pride, my ego had been fluffed from the high demand and I wanted to make all these people happy (the struggle of a recovering people-pleaser, ya feel?). 

Hearing things like: 

“But Dawn, no one else can touch my hair and I need it done tomorrow”

Made me feel like a super-star. OF COURSE I was gonna make sure they got in. 

I finally had to learn one of the toughest lessons: My lack of boundaries came from a place of wanting people to like me… (anyone else brave enough to admit that? It’s HARD!).

It was so hard to learn that by saying “yes” to my clients I was saying “no” to other areas of my life. 

I said “NO” to my…

• Life outside of work

• Marriage at the time

• Friends

• Physical health

• Family 

My life revolved around work and making sure I was keeping all of my clients happy, all the while forgetting my own happiness. I literally had no boundaries. I replied to calls, texts, emails at all hours any day of the week.

I had turned into a 24/7 hair-care helpline. 

Before you start saying “Yeah, well, your clients should’ve known better”. The blame does not go to them, I had taught them how to treat me, I was the one who trained them that way. 

Tough love with Dawn moment: it wasn’t about them, it was all about me. 

Don’t let yourself be fooled like I was, convinced I was providing the most excellent customer service.

• I was forced to take multiple sick days

• My back would go out in an instant from overworking

• My marriage collapsed

• I lost good friends and my quality of work (not to mention life) suffered. 

I was exhausted, burnt out and overwhelmed. And I know you’re feeling the same way. You’ve been working so hard to make everyone else happy, you’ve forgotten about yourself. 

You’re ready to implement boundaries in your business, but you’ve been doing things this way for so long that you don’t even know where to start. Don’t stress, I gotchu.

I’m giving you permission to…

• Say “no”

• Take a day off or even just cut back your schedule

• Stop working extra hours

• Spend time with your family or friends

• Make yourself happy first

I’m granting you that freedom. It’s going to be uncomfortable and saying “no” the first time is going to feel like a foreign word in your mouth, but with time and practice you’re going to become more comfortable with placing boundaries. 

Who knows, with these newfound boundaries in place you may fall back in love with why you started in the first place. (That’s what happened for me!)

If you’d like to learn more about how I implemented boundaries in my business you can check out my podcast episode here (I even sing a little for you!).