Boundaries are important, in every part of your life. When I talk about boundaries, I am referring to rules you make around your interactions with other people. In the content creation industry, I believe they are mandatory and have definitely given me more clarity on where I draw the line on a number of things. In a previous post, I said I could probably do a whole blog post on my experience with boundaries. The response from the readers was “yes please!” So here are my five must-have boundaries for content creators.
With your TIME
Time is precious; it is something that once it is gone, you can never get it back. This is my number boundary area for this very reason. I have an extremely low tolerance for time wasters and for people who do not respect the boundaries I place around my time. I think it is important to look at your time in a number of ways, and make some decisions about what you will and won’t accept. For example:
- When will you work?
- When won’t you work?
- When are you available for your customers (how much time)?
- When are you not available?
- How much interaction are you willing to give to potential customers (how much time)?
With my time, I have designated times when I am making content, online chatting with customers and fans, working on admin and answering messages. I am very busy in other areas of my life so I simply do not have time to waste. And if I want to get things done, then these boundaries must be rock solid. If people genuinely want your time, they will respect how precious it is and treat you accordingly.
With who YOU are
Here is a bombshell. I am not actually Rem Sequence. Crazy, I know, but hear me out. I actually have a life which has a little crossover with my model persona, but a lot of my life has little to no relation to my work. This is also a very important one to me, because I recently had an experience where my identity felt a little detached. For several weeks I felt extremely isolated because Rem Sequence is a part of me, not my entire identity. But when everyone you interact with knows you as this persona, all the other facets of you seem to drift away. The fact you need to remember is that you are not your model persona. Establishing boundaries around this so that you can keep some distance between the role you play for your fans and who you are when you are off the clock. Although this is important for safety (and why we adopt stage names for ourselves, protecting our real life identities from those who may want to exploit us), I think this is really important for our mental health. We are sharing extremely intimate parts of our lives, and exposing vulnerabilities at the same time. This can feel very unsafe unless we have ways to manage it.
With your CASH
Trust me. You know your business better than anyone and you know what works best for you when it comes to the almighty dollar. From how much you charge for content, to how much it costs per minute for you to provide a service, to the payment methods and timeliness of your clients paying, you are the expert. It doesn’t matter if Joe Bloggs got a 15 minute custom from someone else at a third of your rate (or twice your rate). It is completely irrelevant if Jane Smalls uses a tip or tribute function or if they think you shouldn’t use some other payment platform because the one you prefer isn’t safe. And one I think we have all heard a million times before: “I can’t pay through your method: do you accept any others?” If people really want to buy your content or services, experience tells me they will do backflips to do so and will not expect you to put the same effort into the negotiation.
With your PERSONA
As we develop in the adult content creation business, we finetune our persona and what we create based upon what we enjoy doing, what we are good at and what is successful for our unique situation. Some of us just make clips, some are stars of the photoset and merch whilst others smash it with live shows. For me, I know I have grown and stretched into other areas that I found I enjoyed. However, there will always be someone saying “why don’t you do xyz?” Or “I would love to see you do abc!” Feedback from our clients and fans is gold, but micromanagement from outside is a complete buzzkill. If there are services you are not comfortable providing, or types of content you don’t enjoy making, you are under no obligation to do so. Sometimes we may feel we have to respond to every request with enthusiasm and a can-do attitude, especially when starting out. But honestly, you do not have to. That is the beautiful thing about this industry; we have such a diverse and multiskilled community that there will be someone who would love to do what you don’t want to do. And the coolest thing about that? It leaves you open to do the things YOU enjoy and that make your work meaningful.
With your ENERGY
And now we come to my personal fatal flaw, and one that I am now making a conscious effort to work on. I have unrealistic expectations of exactly how much I can get out of myself and recently it backfired in a most spectacular way, resulting in a lengthy hospital stay. For those with ambitious, A-type personalities, this is going to be a struggle. I believe you need to be treating your content creation as if it is a vanilla job. You clock on and you clock off. You have break times and you have scheduled days off. If you are unwell, you be kind to yourself and you do not work. Working out how much you can do in the time you have is paramount. Some people are able to put more energy in, and some people less. I am here to tell you that that is totally ok, and that doesn’t make you better than or less than anyone else. The secret to success in this business is consistency. And if you do not develop boundaries around your energy, which, let’s be honest, is the fuel to this fire, then you are going to get a hell of a shock when you wake up one day to find the jerry can empty. Or like me, stuck in a hospital bed discussing the possibility of life saving surgery.
Don’t get me wrong; it is totally fine for your boundaries to change over time. After all, as people, we grow, develop and change our preferences and what we are comfortable with all the time. What suited me in 2017 may not suit me going into 2020. The thing is to be aware of it, to have these conversations with yourself and value you as the amazing and capable person you are. Because what is the saying? “You are worth it.” This post has really focussed on what areas I think you need to develop boundaries around. In a follow up post, I will talk about HOW I do this and offer some suggestions for how you could build them into your business.
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