The Importance of Time and Energy Boundaries with People
If you generally feel depleted, stressed, or just straight-up tired, learning the skill of protecting your time and energy without compromising your effectiveness can be a game changer for your quality of life.
Being a generous person who gives good energy to others, listens well, and is willing to help are all positive qualities that make someone likeable and charismatic. However, being kind to yourself is important too.
The first key concept is quality over quantity when it comes to interpersonal relationships.
If another person expects you to give a lot but doesn't reciprocate, spending too much time with them can begin to drain you. Over time, this imbalance can create resentment. Even if that resentment remains unspoken, it can still affect the quality of the relationship because it changes the energy between two people.
In many cases, it's actually kinder to manage your time and energy more carefully than to continue spending excessive amounts of time with someone while secretly feeling drained.
Would you rather someone spend lots of time with you whilst holding background resentment towards you, or spend a little less time with you whilst genuinely feeling good about the relationship?
A simple way to assess this is to pay attention to your mood and energy levels after spending time with someone. If your energy is generally enhanced, fantastic — the relationship is likely nurturing you. If the opposite is true, you might benefit from reducing the amount of time you spend with that person until the relationship no longer has a negative impact on your wellbeing.
This doesn't necessarily mean cutting someone out of your life. It might simply mean that seeing them once a month is a win-win, whereas seeing them multiple times per week leaves you feeling depleted. It's about finding the right dosage for you.
Another point that often resonates with my clients is that around the right people, you don't need to try so hard. You don't need to force conversation or manufacture connection — it simply flows.
Once you've warmed up, talking to the right people should feel easy, and both individuals should leave the interaction feeling nourished. If every interaction feels like hard work, a performance, or a constant struggle to keep things going, then it may not be a natural connection.
Whether it's a friendship or a romantic relationship, connections that require constant effort and compromise simply to keep them alive can become exhausting. The healthiest relationships are often built on two people being themselves and the connection feeling easy and right.
Another useful concept is that there are two modes in life: giving mode and receiving mode.
In giving mode, you can accomplish a great deal through action-taking. Growing a business, excelling at work, improving your fitness, solving problems, and creating positive changes in your life all happen in this mode. However, giving mode requires energy.
Receiving mode is where you refill your cup.
You could also think of it as giving energy to yourself. It's where you step away from effort and move into enjoyment. This might look like taking a peaceful coffee break and appreciating the beauty around you, relaxing in the sunshine, spending time in nature, or enjoying a nurturing social environment where you don't have to perform, impress, or force anything.
In receiving mode, you can let your guard down, relax, and simply experience life.
It's similar to being on holiday. The world often feels different when you're in holiday mode because you're approaching life from a more open, receptive frame of mind and allowing yourself to be revitalised.
Taking time to receive is not a luxury, and it isn't selfish.
It's a more sustainable way to live.
In fact, receiving often makes your actions more effective because you have the energy required to do things properly. Rather than simply existing and pushing through life, you create space to actually enjoy it.
As a coach who spends much of his working life in giving mode, I benefit greatly from coaching clients within clear time frames, managing my time and energy around different people, and regularly taking opportunities to refill my own cup.
Doing so allows me to be fully present, energised, and available for the person sitting in front of me during each coaching conversation.
If you're looking to receive more from life, create a more sustainable balance, and feel more energised day-to-day, feel free to join my YouTube livestreams (PhilMorrison), attend one of my events (virtual events coming soon), or reach out for a taster coaching session.
🙂
Phil
