Ep. 364 Business boundaries for solopreneurs: How to create a sustainable work life

Is your business thriving on paper, but secretly leaving you tired and resentful? In this episode, Anna Lundberg reveals the critical role boundaries play in building a business that truly works for your life – not just your bank balance. Tune in for practical advice and eye-opening truths about why productivity might not be your problem, and how setting the right standards can bring you the freedom, fulfilment, and sustainability you’re longing for.

Key moments:

[00:00] Intro: Why your boundaries matter more than productivity

[00:39] The real meaning of boundaries as a solopreneur and business leader

[02:35] Boundary-blurring and the roots of burnout and resentment

[04:01] Pricing Boundaries: Setting your minimum and integrity rates

[07:23] Time Boundaries: Defining and protecting your ideal hours

[10:35] Communication Boundaries: Platforms, response times, and policies

[12:34] Scope Boundaries: What’s included, what’s not, and how to redirect requests

[16:24] Boundaries with clients, prospects, and even friends

[17:36] Why boundaries get blurry—and how to enforce them

[19:24] Big-picture perspective and wrapping up

Resources mentioned:

• If you’re starting to feel like something needs to shift – whether it’s your hours, your offers, or your whole way of working – you can book a free strategy call to explore what might be possible, and what your next step could be.
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Business boundaries for solopreneurs

This episode is for you if your business is working on paper, you’re booked, you’re delivering, you’re earning. But underneath the surface, you’re tired, feeling resentful. You’re wondering, how long can I actually keep this up? Let me tell you something. The problem is not your productivity, it is your boundaries. Welcome to Reimagining Success, the podcast that helps you build a profitable business as an independent expert, one that works for you and your lifestyle. I’m your host, Anna Lundberg, former corporate insider turned business mentor, executive coach and mum of two. Whether you’re a solopreneur, a coach, speaker, consultant, I’m here to guide you in creating a business that gives you freedom, flexibility and the fulfilment you’re looking for. Ready to redefine success and build a business that you love? Let’s get started.

I’d like to think I’ve talked a lot about boundaries and I hope you think I don’t talk too much about boundaries, because the truth is, boundaries are so critical to building the business that you want. So we’ve talked about the intentional business model last week and that’s great. On paper, having clarity on what those boundaries are and then bringing that to life is where the rubber hits the road, right? It’s your boundaries and how you actually honour those and show up day to day. I do work with leadership teams and talk to them about, okay, you have your culture on a PowerPoint presentation, deck on the wall, on a poster. Doesn’t matter if you’re not role modelling that. If you’re saying there’s work, life, balance here, whoop.

But your leaders are sending emails at 9 o’clock on Friday night or expecting you to have a meeting, seven on a Monday morning. I don’t know what that looks like these days. Then the culture is what it is, right? It is how you actually show up. And ironically, you might not think about teams and cultures when you’re a solopreneur, but you are everything. You’re the boss here, you are the leader, you are the individual contributor and your company culture, if you’ll allow me to talk about it that way, is what you do. And so if you have decided in theory that you want freedom, flexibility, fun, and yet you’re not living that in the day to day, then something’s gone wrong. And I’m not saying this to call you out and make you feel bad, I’m saying this to bring your awareness to that. And if you’d like to change things, listen up and see how we can make some of those shifts.

Perhaps to some extent, we’re talking about burnout, but it doesn’t even have to be that. And I say extreme, and really, burnout isn’t even that extreme. So many of us go through it anyway. But what I mean is, it’s not just a wellbeing piece. It’s not just about being too busy or working too hard, hard. There’s something deeper going on, I think, and it’s because you are overriding your own needs to meet other people’s expectations, whether they’re real expectations or they’re imagined. You can build a business that is successful on paper, that works, maybe that you enjoy, but still quietly resent the people that you’ve built it for.

And boundaries, they’re not about being rigid and limiting yourself and holding back and being less ambitious. They’re about just being clear on what your vision is, how you’re going to bring that to life, and then implementing the things that protect your time, your energy, your creativity, and allow you to deliver on that vision. If you’re constantly just reacting to other people’s expectations and emails and doing whatever people throw at you, you’re not going to have the time for the deep work, for the creative strategic thinking, for building what you actually want to build. And that’s no good for you, it’s no good for your clients. It’s no good for anyone, really. So I want to talk to you about four sets of boundaries and this might be a bit different to how we’ve talked about it before. It might be, yeah, hopefully more tangible than. Than just.

And more. Also varied, more broad than you might have thought about this before. So the first one is pricing. Yes, you can have pricing boundaries. So this is the one that most of us feel first, I suppose, money. There’s that awkward moment when you quote a price and someone says yes and you instantly feel underpaid because you think, oh, no, they said yes so quickly, I probably went too low. And then when you sit down to do the work, you realise, oh, my gosh, I’ve got all this stuff to do. I’m going to have to work during school, half term holidays, I’m going to have to travel there, do this, that the other, and they’re only paying me X amount.

That’s a trap that leads to resentment. And so with my clients, we talk about having a resentment rate, which is really that low number that you don’t want to go below, and you can work it out based on, you know, how much do you need to earn to cover your costs and so on. If you’re not even covering that, unless I should caveat this, there’s always a but. You are getting, you know, incredible exposure and testimonials and footage that you can use content, you know, it’s a really big brand that you’re working with or, or even you’re just experimenting at the start and you’re wanting to get some experience, you know, before you, you’re just kind of learning, you’re doing beta pricing, whatever, that’s fine. But ongoing, you do not want to go rate because that’s just not sustainable. You’re not going to be able to sustain this business if you do and you’re going to feel awful about it. Right? So this isn’t just about being paid enough, it’s about feeling good about it and having it be sustainable and delivering your best work. If you’re feeling, I can’t believe they’re paying me so little and I’m having to do this, that’s wasted energy that you could be channelling into delivering incredible work.

Also, we’ve talked about this, but undercharging naturally leads to over delivering, ironically, and over delivering leads to burnout. Burnout leads to all sorts of problems. And again, that’s no help to anyone. So ask yourself on the pricing and hopefully you’ve done this for yourself. But what is the minimum you can charge and still feel proud, grounded, generous even. Right. You don’t want to just. I’m not the kind of coach who goes, oh, triple your pricing and woohoo.

Or just add a few zeros onto that. No, you still have to feel like you can deliver that value. But I would hazard a guess that most of you are undercharging. If you’re listening to this, if you’re the kind of person I usually work with, you could definitely charge more and still sit in integrity. And it’s, it’s, yeah, that’s, I’ll leave it there. That is the truth. So what is that minimum? And I know it’s tricky, you know, we’re not talking about pricing by the hour, but knowing a kind of price for your hourly rate is really helpful to know. Okay, this is what I need so you can work it out.

Okay. If it’s a one hour workshop, it’s not just the one hour, it’s the prep before, after arriving, it’s the tech test, it’s the calls with the stakeholder before that, or if you’re coaching someone, it’s Also, you know, maybe you’re doing work in between or voice notes in between or emails or feedback or whatever it is. Right. So really thinking about that, the time you’re putting in and what’s the minimum you can charge without feeling resentful and then really what’s the integrity rate is where we’re aiming for, where you really feel, as I said that, you know, I’m giving you incredible value. Value. They’re getting a steal and I’m feeling amazing. This feels really wow. Yes.

This is, you know, gonna put food on the table. But more than that, I’m really being rewarded for my genius, which is how we want to feel. Okay, so pricing boundaries is the first one. Think about your resentment rate and your integrity rate. The second one is perhaps a more obvious one is time hours, availability, how many hours you’re actually working and when. So if we’re talking about the four hour day that I’ve started talking about, you know, then okay, what does that look like in terms of actually availability? You might techn have a flexible business, but if you’re just kind of haphazardly doing a call here, a thing there, a content there or whatever, then you know, your brain never shuts off, you have no. You’re constantly sort of context switching, which is never good, multitasking and so on. Right.

Maybe you’re taking meetings outside your preferred hours. Again, that causes resentment. Whenever I have, against my better judgement, taken a call on a holiday or you know, late in the evening or something, I. So 95% of those cases the person hasn’t shown up, they’ve cancelled or it hasn’t been a good fit. So start as you mean to go on. If you want to deliver work within core hours, then let’s also do your calls in those hours. And for example my accelerator, the group calls are every other Thursday. And so when I do workshops that feed into that accelerator, I actually do the workshops on a Thursday around the same kind of time because I’m thinking that way if someone’s available for the workshop, they’re probably available for, for the, the group coaching.

Right. And if I do like an 8 o’ clock in the evening, that’s a very different audience or a seven o’ clock in the morning. Of course there are time zones and all sorts, but you need to choose a time that works for you. And are you working evenings and weekends without consciously choosing to. I’ve gone through phases and right now it’s not one of those phases because I’m very tired in the evening and I’m being very clear with my boundaries on the weekends because I’m working very hard during my actual hours, which is not always the case. I’ll be honest, right now I am working hard and therefore I’m not doing evenings and weekends. Okay. Unless consciously, let’s say my partner takes the kids to his parents or takes them out for the day or something.

I might then use that time. Probably more likely I’ll do things like, you know, tidying and laundry and stuff that I don’t usually have time to do or admin or something. Woohoo. My life is so exciting. However, sometimes I do choose to do. I’ve done, you know, content in the evening or maybe it’s just a temporary get on top of things or I don’t know, your partner’s a way and so. Or you’re very excited about something, by all means, but do it intentionally. Don’t get into the trap of suddenly.

Hang on a second, this is seeping out into my life. Okay, so of course you need to ask yourself what are your ideal working hours and are you protecting them? And do your offers and your calendar blocks and boundaries and so on. Enforce this or are you allowing your offers and the actual day to day of your business to quietly erode those, those hours? You know, a four hour workday isn’t going to stick if clients have complete access to your calendar and can book you anytime you want they want. Right. The model has to match the boundary, otherwise it doesn’t work. Okay, so pricing, boundaries, time, boundaries. Next is communication boundaries, fastest path to resentment. Clients message you on WhatsApp when you’re at soft play with your kids.

Being available across three different platforms seven days a week, that’s not generous, it’s not helping anyone. Again, there’s a bit of that savour, saviour complex I think I talked about last week where they’re beginning to depend on you and it’s exhausting. You know, it’s not just where clients can reach you and pricing and so on, it’s really when and how quickly they can expect a response. You know, there can be a standard kind of oh, I’ll respond within 24 hours or during office hours. I could reply quickly on a Sunday evening, but I on purpose try not to do so until the Monday. In my case, when I work with individuals, I am role modelling anyway, boundaries for them. So I think that’s really important.

I’ve seen leaders put, you know, they’ve gone viral. A few of these sentences like a little PS on an email saying, you know, I’ve written this email at a time that’s convenient to me. Please reply at a time that’s convenient for you. Which is very nice. But even better would be if they don’t send the email late at night at all. Right. Because you can schedule things and all sorts of things. If I run a group programme, I need to have really clear boundaries and clear processes to say, okay, if you have a question, this is the process.

You first, you know, watch the training. You then wait until we have a call. If you can’t wait, you know, if it’s super urgent, then you message in the group and only then do you escalate to, you know, whatever it is, right. To the support or something. There are clear channels for how to get an answer before you go, oh, yes, no problem. I’ll jump on a call right now and I’ll solve your problem that you have to think through. Okay, how are you helping them so they can help themselves as well? So ask yourself, what’s your preferred method of communication? Is it email? Is it WhatsApp? Is it the Facebook group? Is that clear to your clients? Do clients know when you’re going to respond and what counts as urgent? That’s another thing to say, you know something, you know, from my corporate days, I remember everything was urgent, right. And that’s not the case.

And do you have a communication policy? Because if not, that’s, that’s certainly a boundary that you can build. So communication boundaries and then finally scope boundaries. And this is pretty big, but it’s, it’s quite important. So what’s included and what’s not, you know, every time, if you’re working, I don’t know if you’re designing something and every quick tweak or just wondering if can add up. Right. So you have to be clear on, okay. And I found this with, with corporate, for example, because of my fiercely independent nature and protectiveness of my time, I do not want to be sucked into lots of alignment calls before or it’s multiple stakeholders. I have no control over when those calls are.

Of course I do them if it’s the big project and if it’s a long standing client. And there’s lots of, you know, situations where I might consider it, but generally I try to avoid that. So I’m super clear in the brief, okay, this includes a call to align on blah, blah, blah with whoever. And then you can of course be super clear on saying any additional calls will be charged. That’s an hourly rate of blah, blah, blah, Again, if you’re working with companies, they can fall into the trap of treating you like an employee and it’s really important that we keep that separation. No, I’m not an employee, I’m an expert. I’m an external consultant or trainer or speaker or coach. And I’m not being, you know, I’m not being paid a full time salary to be at your beck and call.

So that sounds a bit kind of harsh, but that’s the case. But likewise for individuals, for B2C being really clear on, you know, to be honest, if I should admit this, I always say this to one to one clients. I’m not sort of beholden to a number of calls. That’s why the hourly rate doesn’t make sense. Because you know what, if you’re stuck on something, I’m happy to have an extra call. Clients rarely, if ever, I’d say ask for that because they, they get what they need. But it’s not about the minutes. If we won the day go over, I build in a bit of a buffer and another day we maybe feel complete earlier.

That’s totally fine. It’s the value, right? It’s not the minutes on the call. That would be absurd if you kept the call going when, when you feel like actually you’ve got what you need and vice versa. So you know, you, you say yes to be helpful, but that just sets a precedent that drains you. And if you, if you imagine again, I’m giving you lots of different examples here because it depends on your business model, but if you have a group programme with only a couple of people in it, yes, at the start you can check everything, reply to everything, and maybe you will because you’re starting out and you want to over deliver. But think what would future you do if you had the 50 people or 200 people in this programme that you’re building towards? Can you deliver that same level of service? Of service? Of course not. Now, yes, you can evolve things as you go, but it’s really valuable to already anticipate that as you begin. So ask yourself, is the scope of your offer crystal clear to you and to your clients? Do you have language? Maybe practise or you know, find some, some sentences, some templates to use to politely but firmly redirect extras.

By the way, it also goes not just for clients, but for prospects. If someone is asking for lots of free stuff and they clearly aren’t going to pay you for your services, then there’s a, you know, I say, oh, you know, actually I’ve got The podcast here or this resource. Why don’t you start with my book or something just to give them value, but politely and firmly make it clear that you’re not just going to be delivering free expertise to them because that’s your job, that’s your work that you get paid to do. And yeah, are you charging for your thinking? Are you giving it away between the lines? You know, as coaches, it can be so blurry. Actually, that’s why boundaries are even more important to differentiate. I can be it. And I was at a kids party the other day where people were chatting and they’re like, oh, Anna can advise and like, yes, I can. But you know, on a Friday evening at a kids party is not the time for me to give you my best thinking.

So then, you know, if you would like to explore that, and it doesn’t have to be that I charge them, but I’d like to have a professional setting where we have an hour’s call or we meet or. And that’s, you know, I put on my coat Anna hat rather than mum friend Anna, which is a very different vibe. And again, it’s not about charging there, but it’s just about having that integrity and the ethics to be clear on what, what is, you know, within the scope, dare I say, of that friendship relationship. Okay, so pricing boundaries, time boundaries, communication boundaries and scope boundaries. And this was supposed to be a slightly shorter episode, but here I am chatting away. The final thing I want to talk about then is just where boundaries get blurry and why, I suppose, okay, because I’m pretty sure you might know what your boundaries should be, but maybe you’re struggling to hold them and it’s important to recognise that it’s not just like, yep, no worries, this is my boundary because it’s comes up against things like people pleasing. I want to be liked. I feel really uncomfortable when, when you’ve sent that email to say, this is my price or I’m not available that time or I don’t take calls on Fridays, however honest you want to be with it, oh my gosh, I might lose a job and they might not hire me.

And you know, all these questions come up. So people pleasing, scarcity, thinking, yes, if I say no to this client, there won’t be another one ever. I won’t be able to grow my business. These are all that, I mean, fear of losing the clients, even if they are working with you now, they won’t renew. I don’t know, wanting to be seen as nice, wanting to be seen as giving value so really the hardest part of boundaries isn’t in setting them in the first place, it’s actually enforcing them. So communicating them clearly to the people who need to know. Your clients, your prospects, colleagues, partners, family members, and then enforcing them and making sure you’re kind of training them to understand as you know, as per further, you don’t have to be passive aggressive about it, but yeah, just to remind you that, you know, on Fridays I’m with my family, but I’d be happy to answer Monday morning. So just, you know, send me an email or post in the forum or why don’t you try sending to the group in the meantime and, but really think about how you’re enforcing those boundaries day to day.

So if your business feels heavy or unsustainable, really for the long term, then I’d really recommend that you start with your boundaries. Don’t start with your task list and trying to be more productive and hacking your way and whatever. These are standards that you’re setting for yourself, right? And, and I promise you, when you hold them with integrity, the right people will respect those boundaries. They will respect you more for having those boundaries and want to work with you. And I mean, worst case, they won’t even notice. I’d say best case, they’ll admire you for it and, and maybe quietly envy you for the fact that you’re able to role model this. But really most people just go, okay, get on with their lives. People don’t think about us half as much as that you think that they do.

So not to, you know, belittle your incredible work, but actually at the end of the day for a company, a few extra hundred or thousand pounds isn’t going to make much of a difference to the budget holder. You know, an extra call here and there or an email today or tomorrow is going isn’t going to rock their world coming back to that kind of false urgency again. So let’s have some puts things into perspective. Treat each other as grown ups and think about the whole person as well. Big picture. Okay, so that is it on Boundaries. Next week I have another interview for you and then, oh my gosh, it’s Halloween and then we’re into November and then it’s December and deep breath, we’ll see what we go. But for now I’ll leave you with the idea that boundaries may well be the answer to helping you feel lighter in your business and to making this more sustainable and not just, just financially successful on paper, but really successful in a meaningful and enjoyable way. Bye for now.

If this episode has you thinking that something needs to shift, whether that’s streamlining how you work, redesigning your offers, or finally building the business that you actually wanted when you started, let’s talk about what’s next for you. We can look at where you are, what you want these next few months and years to feel like, and whether one to one support or the Business Business Accelerator would be the best fit. Just book a call at onestepoutside.com/call. It’s a simple conversation to explore what would make the biggest difference for you right now. That’s onestepoutside.com/call.

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