Boundaries are a Good Thing

At worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived ~ Rose Macaulay

Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite blogging about following routines in one post and then touting the benefits of setting boundaries in the next. This time hasn’t been so bad. On Sunday, my post was about NOT becoming monster in pursuit of your goals.

Labor Day Weekend I took a quick trip to Colorado to take care of some business. I stayed with my longtime friends and we talked about my writing routines. When I explained that I stopped writing every day when I reached my 500 word count goal, they were shocked.

“What if you are in the middle of a really good part?” I stop writing and move on to the next task for the day.

“What if you forget where you left off or what the next step was?” Sometimes I write myself a note, but I stop writing once I reach my goal.

I keep a hard boundary around my 500 word count goal for two reasons. The first one is because if I didn’t have that goal, it would take forever for me to get a novel written. The word count is a minimum goal. My goal is also a maximum goal. If I didn’t stop when I reached the goal, I could spend all day writing and not get anything else done some days.

Boundaries help me to reach minimum goals and not over do it either. How do boundaries help you?



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Can't get enough of the 5 Steps? Look at the archives in my original blog:

Define Boundaries