Christy Wright, #1 bestselling author of Business Boutique, Take Back Your Time, and Living True, explains how boundaries can help define your life and allow you to view seasons as temporary, not as new definitions of who you are.

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Many women in the workplace struggle with their lives feeling chaotic, draining, and just moving way too fast to even be able to enjoy the memorable moments that are happening. Can boundaries help them turn all of that around?

Yes, boundaries can help, but I think there’s a bigger picture here. If this describes how you’re feeling, you need to dig to the root and ask yourself, ‘Why do I feel like this?’ The answer to that question will be different for everyone, but there are two or three things that are likely to be causing you to feel like this.

First, if you don’t define success, then you will never feel successful. If you don’t decide in advance what success is to you personally, then you’re going to work your tail off all day and at the end of the day, you’re exhausted. You have no idea if you even did what you wanted to do.

Second, you need structure in your life, especially entrepreneurs. When I left RMC, I thought I could do whatever I want! No pants, no schedule, ultimate freedom. And then I just felt like I was floating in outer space. A lot of entrepreneurs don’t like to feel boxed in, but the reality is that structure makes you feel confident and in control. If you’re an entrepreneur, set your work hours. You get to set them and change them, but you need that structure because it will give you a sense of control and bring order to your chaos.

Even if you’re working in corporate America, you can create structure within your day or week by deciding which days are for meetings, which days are for creating, or which days are for strategic planning. Your brain has to do a lot of different functions to get you through each day, so if you can batch your structure, that is going to give you more momentum to get things done. And what is that structure, ultimately? A boundary.

When the balance in your life is thrown off, do you have anything that helps you in that moment?

I remind myself that this is a season. I talk about this in my devotional, Living True: 40 Days to Get Back to You. There are four sections of this devotional because my premise of the book is that if you want to get back to yourself, you need to know who God is, who you are, where you are, and where you’re going. The ‘where you are’ section is really focused on your season. The reason I spend 10 days on this section is because we often lose ourselves in our season because we find our identity from our season.

For example, I have little kids. My house is often a mess because they’re constantly going behind me and tearing things up. I could easily look at my house and say, ‘My house is a mess, so I’m a mess.’ Another example is if someone loses their job, they might think, ‘I’m unemployable. I’m a failure. I’m rejected.’ No, you’re in a season between jobs. You’re not jobless and you’re not a failure.

When you separate yourself from your season, it gives you a sense of confidence, but it also gives you hope that you’re going to get through this because it’s just a season. It’s not forever. This season is not a reflection of you. It’s a reflection of your season.

Christy Wright is the #1 bestselling author of Business Boutique, Take Back Your Time, and Living True. She is a certified business coach, dynamic speaker and personal development expert. Christy hosts two top-rated podcasts. On her show Get Your Hopes Up, she encourages people to get to know God, get closer to Him and get their hopes up again. Her Business Bootcamp show gives business owners the practical steps they want and the tough love truth they need to succeed. Christy has been featured on The Today Show and Fox News, and in Success, Entrepreneur, and Woman’s Day magazines.

Whether she’s running on stage in heels or running after her kids, coaching leaders or cleaning up goldfish crumbs, Christy makes the most out of life and loves to encourage others to do the same. Christy lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband, Matt, their three children Carter, Conley and Mary Grace, and their dog Cooper.