I started my self employed life as a self-taught web designer.

I spent at least 30% of my time writing emails, asking for phone calls, and trying to clear up client miscommunications.

Client didn’t reply to an email by the deadline?
Miscommunication.

Client didn’t respond to my invoice, or when I followed up and asked them to pay on time?
Miscommunication!

Client responded with revisions and feedback in 13 different ways, none of which are the way we previously agreed on?
Such a miscommunication!!!

…the only problem with this approach was that:
a) it worked about 0% of the time
b) I didn’t have a miscommunication problem at all

Here’s what I didn’t understand at the time:
Clients who don’t pay on time are choosing not to pay.
Clients who skim your policies instead of taking time to understand them are choosing that.
Clients who ignore your boundaries? They’re choosing that too.

There’s nothing to clarify.
There hasn’t been a misunderstanding.
Even during a recession, or during a pandemic.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should then react by becoming furious when you see their content scroll past you on Instagram.
This is not some kind of angry email hall pass!
(…Wouldn’t that be an amazing service to offer? lol)
It doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person.
It’s not a moral issue.
It doesn’t mean that they see you as someone who isn’t worthy of respect.
It certainly doesn’t mean you have to people walk all over you.
It doesn’t even mean that they’re taking advantage of you, or that they’re a nightmare client.
It genuinely has nothing to do with you at all.

What you’re seeing is their lived priorities in action, and priorities are all about their choices.

Knowing how your client’s lived priorities differ from what they say their priorities are is amazing information for you to have.

Understanding this gave me so much freedom.

When I thought that my clients didn’t understand my process, business, expectations, or boundaries, I felt totally out of control.

When I finally understood that it was all a choice?
Something about that made everything simple for me.

If it wasn’t a mistake, then I hadn’t done something wrong that I needed to fix.

It might sound like a small thing, but it was a huge shift in how I’d been thinking.

Suddenly my work was… lighter.
I stopped trying to perfect my (already thorough) systems.
I stopped trying to crush out any chance of misunderstanding under a wall of perfect words.
I stopped trying to beg and nag clients into better behaviour.
I started meeting people exactly where they were, without resentment.
I stopped feeling dragged behind other people’s choices.
I gave myself permission to say what I needed clients to agree to in order to work with me.
I even started to feel less like I would spontaneously combust when I named and followed through on consequences around not honouring our agreements.

I’ll say it again:
If you have clients who don’t pay on time?
They’re choosing not to pay.

If you have customers who are asking for special treatment instead of reading your shop policies?
That was their choice.

Clients who ignore your boundaries?
They’re choosing that too.

There’s nothing to clarify.
There hasn’t been a misunderstanding.
(And it doesn’t mean they’re bad people.)

What if there has been no mistake?
What would that make possible for you, if you believed it?

I wonder…