Learning The Hard Way - A Lesson About Limits

I lost a client a while back. Well, not entirely- but they reduced my scope significantly. And if I'm being honest, I saw it coming.

Not because I did bad work. But because I couldn't be what they needed me to be: available, responsive, present on an hourly basis.

Here's the thing: I thought I could be. I wanted to be. I said yes because I wanted the work, wanted them to be happy, wanted to prove I could handle it.

I couldn't.

What Overextension Actually Looked Like

At the time, I was trying to launch a new offering while running my bookkeeping practice with multiple clients. On paper, I had help. I had a team. But in practice, the notifications, the Slack messages, the emails, they only came to me. My assistants couldn't see them. They couldn't respond. They couldn't help me triage.

I had become the bottleneck in my own business.

And instead of doing my best work, I was doing damage control. Cleaning up my own shortcomings. Turning things in later than I wanted to. Feeling perpetually behind.

Just the email alone had become overwhelming. Not because I didn't know how to manage email, but because there was simply more coming in than I could thoughtfully respond to while also doing the actual work.

The Boundary I Should Have Set

This particular client communicated on Slack. I didn't use Slack anywhere else in my business. It wasn't integrated into my systems. My team didn't see it. I couldn't delegate it.

I should have said no to that from the start.

But I didn't, because I wanted to accommodate them. I wanted to be easy to work with. I wanted to say yes.

That's the pattern, isn't it? We say yes to the communication platform. Yes to the extra tasks that weren't in the original scope. Yes to the flat-rate arrangement that somehow keeps expanding. Yes to the expectation that we'll respond within hours, every day.

Until we can't anymore.

The Real Cost

Here's what overextension actually cost me:

My standards. I wasn't producing the quality of work I wanted. That bothered me more than anything else.

My focus. I wanted to pour energy into building something new, into creating resources that would help other bookkeepers. But I couldn't expand in that direction when I was drowning in the day-to-day.

My self-respect. I disappointed myself more than I disappointed anyone else. I knew what I was capable of when I had the appropriate capacity. That wasn't it.

My client relationship. The client who reduced my hours deserved better responsiveness. They weren't wrong to need that. I was wrong to promise something I didn't have time to deliver.

What That Experience Taught Me

Looking back, here's what became clear:

Limits aren't failures. They're just facts. I have a finite amount of hours and attention. Pretending otherwise doesn't make it less true, it just means I break my own commitments.

Systems boundaries matter as much as personal boundaries. It's not just about saying "I won't work weekends." It's about saying, "I won't communicate on platforms my team can't access."

Wanting to please people is expensive. I'm not saying we shouldn't care about our clients. But there's a difference between serving clients well and contorting yourself to avoid ever saying no.

You can't build something new while you're drowning in the current thing. Growth requires protected time and mental space. Neither exists when you're perpetually behind.

The Conversation I Had to Have With Myself

After that experience, I had to define my limits more clearly, not as restrictions, but as the conditions that allow me to do good work.

That meant getting honest about:

• What communication channels would I actually use reliably
• What turnaround times could I genuinely commit to
• What scope of work fits within a flat rate (and what doesn't)
• How many clients I serve at the level they deserve

It meant accepting that I couldn't be all things to all people. That some clients wouldn't be the right fit. That saying no earlier is kinder than saying yes and then failing to deliver.

I learned this the hard way. I hope you don't have to.

If you're reading this and recognizing yourself: the overcommitment, the yes that should have been a no, the standards you're not meeting because you're spread too thin, you're not alone. This is one of the hardest lessons in running a practice. The good news is, once you see the pattern, you can change it.