Struggling to set boundaries with clients is a common issue many professionals face, including career coaches. Setting boundaries as a coach is essential for a smooth and professional coaching process. However, it’s often easier said than done. Over the past five years, I have improved at setting boundaries, but it has not been an easy journey.

Setting boundaries with clients is crucial for maintaining professionalism, ensuring quality service, and fostering a structured coaching environment. They help maintain your well-being by preventing burnout and preserving a healthy work-life balance. Importantly, boundaries enable you to maintain unconditional positive regard for your clients, ensuring a supportive and non-judgmental coaching relationship.

When I reflect on why I found this challenging, two main reasons come to mind. First, I was afraid of being perceived as unhelpful and dismissive. Second, I feared that asserting my boundaries could lead to conflict, which I greatly dreaded. Ironically, not setting boundaries can also result in conflict. While pursuing my ILM Level 3 Coaching qualification, I read in the ILM manual that “90% of conflicts arise from misaligned expectations.”

Additionally, as a new coach, you often don’t know what you don’t know, making it difficult to define all the necessary boundaries. For example, just because you are punctual does not mean your client will be. Understanding and addressing these issues has been crucial in my journey to becoming a more effective and professional coach.

Set Your Expectations in the Beginning

You can set your expectations in the coaching contract, but it is important to verbally explain them too. This is where you can both agree on where, when, and how you will meet. You can also let the client know when you are available for out-of-session contact. As a coach, you need to decide what works for you. I have personally known coaches who offer 24-hour-a-day WhatsApp contact, and that works for them. I know this is something that I would not want, so I like to communicate to the client specific contact hours and that I am reachable via email.

Be Clear on Your Values

Something that really helped me set better boundaries was reframing how I thought about them. I highly value equality and fairness and strive to provide all clients with the same level of service and not have ‘favourite’ clients. Allowing some clients extra time in a session, when I did not offer that to my previous client, does not sit well with me and does not align with my values. Identifying my values made it much easier for me to say no or confidently remind clients that we are out of time and that I look forward to discussing this more at our next session.

Practice Assertiveness

Practicing assertiveness is something I particularly found tough, as I associated it with conflict. For example, if I am meeting with a client online and they are not in a quiet, settled space with a good internet connection, it is very difficult as a coach to do my job properly if the client is outside walking with road noise and poor internet connection. As a coach, I do not feel like I can perform at my best, and this also makes me question if the client is committed to the session on this day. In this type of example, I would intervene and ask if they are ready for the coaching session today and if not, would they like to reschedule. I would also explain that it is not easy for me to concentrate and that I would prefer that in future we stick to the contract and meet in a quiet space.

Learn from Your Experiences

As a new coach, there will be times when boundaries are crossed, and it is easy to get frustrated by this experience. However, you can take time to reflect on what has worked well and what has not. This will give you a clearer idea of things that you need to address in the beginning stages with your future clients. In the early days, I liked to speak these things through with trusted colleagues, which helped me develop confidence in asserting boundaries. As time has gone on, my confidence has grown, and I can now assert boundaries without having to consult with colleagues.

Setting boundaries is essential for maintaining professionalism, ensuring high-quality service, preventing conflicts, empowering clients, preserving your well-being, and adhering to ethical standards. By clearly defining and enforcing these boundaries, you create a structured, respectful, and effective coaching environment that benefits both you and your clients.