What are your Non-Negotiables in your Business?

Have you created a list of non-negotiables in your business yet? I believe no one should be running their business without them - they’re that important.

Non-negotiables are essentially boundaries that you put in place to protect your time + energy so you can show up at your highest vibe and attract your ideal clients. Here’s a surprising truth:

Boundaries in your business lead to boundless results.

In today’s post, I’m covering a number of external factors in business that regularly threaten to attack your boundaries and how you can protect yourself against them.

Read on to find out what my non-negotiables are and learn how to create a powerful list of your own that will result in greater sales, profit, happiness, freedom, and overall impact.

What is a non negotiable in your business?

Do you set boundaries aka non-negotiables in your business? Or do you feel like setting boundaries is something you struggle with?

A good indication is to look at your life as a whole. How you do one thing is how you do most things, so if you find that you don’t do well at setting boundaries in your personal life, you may also be struggling in your business due to a lack of boundaries.

When you have the proper boundaries/non-negotiables in place in your business, you protect your energy and freedom so you can grow your business from a place of abundance, from your highest vibe.

 
Here are some examples of my own non-negotiables

To help you better understand what non-negotiables look like in business and what they’re in place to protect, here are a couple of mine:

- Every week, I make time to identify and honor my wins from the week. I do this because wins beget wins. And when you can celebrate your wins, you end up creating even more wins. If I didn’t have this non-negotiable in place, I would likely forget to honor my weekly wins and instead focus on everything I didn’t accomplish, which isn’t the way I want to draw abundance into my business. I do that by celebrating regularly. That’s a non-negotiable.

- I reserve Saturdays as a non-working day. I do this because my energy needs a day off just for me. This day is sacred for me to renew my resources so I can be there for others when they need me. I do not open my computer. I do not set meetings. By making this boundary, it makes decisions easy when they come up and ensures that I don’t let other people’s needs/schedules override mine.

- Family comes first. Period. This non-negotiable is rooted in my personal values. By setting this as a non-negotiable, it means I stay true to my values. If something comes up and one of my family members needs me, even if it’s in the midst of my workday, I drop everything and make them my priority.

- I do a grounding practice to start each and every day. Whether it’s breathwork, meditation, visualization, or some other form of mindfulness practice, I make it a non-negotiable to start my days with a high vibe intention so I am prepared to handle whatever the day ahead brings my way.

I have a few other non-negotiables that relate to my life and business, but generally, I keep the list short. Keeping your list short makes it memorable so when things crop up that threaten to overthrow your focus, you can easily bring to mind your non-negotiables list and make decisions accordingly.

Creating your own non-negotiables list

Begin by asking yourself, What do I want to create in my business?

When you think about your ideal day, what does it look like? What did your dream life look like when you decided to become an entrepreneur?

From there is a good place to begin determining what kind of boundaries you need to set in order to achieve that desired outcome.

If you escaped the 9 to 5 to get away from working 60+ hours per week and yet you find yourself similarly overwhelmed as an entrepreneur, you need to add some non-negotiables to your list to better protect your schedule.

Consider also your personal values when making your list. What is important to you? What do you want to prioritize in your life, above all else?

Lastly, think about your own energy levels and what restores and depletes them. Building non-negotiables around this will allow you to honor the energy cycles of your own life so you can bring your highest vibe to the table where & when you need it most in your business. Protecting your energy will make a huge difference in your ability to show up for yourself, your clients, your family, and everyone else in your life who is important to you.

What external influences are attacking your boundaries?

Once you’ve made your non-negotiables list, there are a number of external factors that can pop up to challenge those boundaries. It’s wise to be mindful of them, so you can better protect yourself against them.

Here are a couple of the biggest boundary-pushers that regularly attempt to derail your business progress:

- Pick your brain meetings - These are those random messages you receive from people asking if you can grab coffee, grab lunch, hop on a Zoom, set up a call, etc. with them so they can “pick your brain.” These can happen far more often than you realize, so it’s important to decide what your policy is for them. Whether you love them or hate them, determining in advance what you do when you receive these requests helps maintain your boundaries when it comes to your time.

- Email management - How often do you check your email? Do you have a boundary in place regarding how often you let emails dictate your time + energy? Or does your email control the flow of your business day? It’s important to remember that when you open that inbox, it’s a choice. Setting boundaries over where and when you open your inbox is a decision you get to make.

- Scheduling - Who runs your schedule? Are you just booking back to back meetings? Or are you mindfully creating white space for deep thinking and development time? As an entrepreneur, you get to decide what you accept into your schedule and what you don’t. Setting non-negotiables around your schedule can help you better manage your days in a way that supports the energy you want to operate under.

- Social Media Usage - Opening up social media can trick you into thinking you’re working on growing your business when all you’re really doing is getting sucked into the endless scroll. Before engaging with your social media, ask yourself what your intention is for your time in that space. Create boundaries around how you want social media to serve you and your business, not the other way around.

Better boundaries lead to boundless results

I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who feel burnt out, in large part because they do not have clear boundaries in place in their businesses. No boundaries in business leads to burnout.

The opposite is also true: solid boundaries lead to boundless results. If you intentionally create a list of non-negotiables for your business, you open the doors to unlimited impact, sales, profit, happiness, and freedom. How freaking cool is that?

What are your boundaries?

Make that list!

If you've not yet made your list of non-negotiables, please DO get on that! You should not be running a business without knowing your non-negotiables.

Think about all the external factors that could get in your way and determine what you're going to do to protect your time and energy. When you protect your energy, you can show up in your most high vibe, energetic way, and that attracts your ideal clients. When you are at your highest vibe, you attract the people that you want to serve. So create that list of your non-negotiables, and you'll be winning way more often.