Prioritizing Your Time Without the Guilt

Have you ever felt torn between wanting to help someone and needing to set boundaries? I recently found myself in this exact predicament when a woman flooded my Instagram with questions about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. Although she wasn’t part of our Hike Like a Woman adventure, my instinct to be helpful took over, and I ended up sacrificing time meant for my committed clients. This situation forced me to confront the difficult balance between generosity and responsibility, and the guilt that comes with being a people pleaser.

Join me as I explore the challenges and lessons learned from this experience. We dive into the importance of prioritizing those who have invested in our journey and the need to protect our time for those commitments. In this candid discussion, I share insights on managing the delicate act of setting boundaries while maintaining a spirit of helpfulness. Discover how acknowledging one's limits can lead to healthier personal and professional relationships, and learn strategies for achieving that elusive balance.

Learn more by visiting our website at https://www.hikelikeawoman.com

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:13

I always want to be helpful here at Hike Like a Woman, and sometimes that gets me in trouble, because sometimes I am helpful and it ends up taking up a lot of time away from other things that are going on in my life. A couple months ago I got a DM in my Instagram messages from a woman who was getting ready to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. She wasn't climbing Kilimanjaro with us, so she's not a trip participant for Hike Like a Woman, she's not a client of mine, but she had a ton of questions and naturally I wanted to help her with her climb. So I asked, I answered some of her questions and then she just kept DMing me and then I felt this obligation to keep answering her questions that she had about climbing Kilimanjaro. And it went on for quite some time before I realized that she was actually taking advantage of me by taking advantage of my time and my willingness to help, and I went through this thing where I started to feel really guilty, because I want to always be helpful, I always want to answer questions, but I also have people who are paying me to lead them to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and by answering all of her questions, it was actually taking me away from the questions that my paid clients were asking me in our group Slack channel and over email and over phone calls, and I realized that there's only so much of Rebecca to go around.

Speaker 0: 1:44

And while I want to be helpful and help everybody climb Mount Kilimanjaro, I'm also not an expert. I've only climbed Kilimanjaro once, so I'm kind of struck between this. I feel like I need to give my time to people who are either legitimately interested in climbing Kilimanjaro with me and with the Hike Like a Woman group, or women who've already booked a trip with Hike Like a Woman. But I've always struggled. Being a people pleaser it's probably one of my worst weaknesses is not wanting to let people down and not wanting people to be disappointed in me. It goes like way back. I'm sure there's some childhood trauma there, but anyway, I decided that what I need to do is, since I feel this tug right, this tug of wanting to help people climb Mount Kilimanjaro but at the same time, not wanting to give away my time so freely and want