Melvin Feller Business Group Discusses Work Life Limitations from a Texas Business Owner

Melvin Feller Business Group Discusses Work Life Limitations from a Texas Business Owner

Melvin Feller Business Group in Burkburnett Ministries and Dallas Texas and Lawton Oklahoma. Our mission is to call and equip a generation of Christian entrepreneurs to do business as ministry. We provide workshops and resources that help companies discover how to do business God’s way and provide a positive outreach as the director. When the heart of a business is service rather than self it can be transformed into a fruitful business ministry earning a profit and being of service to the community and their customers. Melvin Feller is currently pursuing another graduate degree in business organizations.

Work Life Limitations by Melvin Feller

Setting healthy boundaries is essential for a healthy work life balance. That sounds true, but what does it mean? What do healthy limitations look like, and how can you know where and how to set them?


I notice a tendency among small business owners and free agents to think of limitations as ways to keep something or someone out, as if they could achieve work life balance in this way. This emphasizes protection of their time, energy, and resources. This kind of limitation is a line in the sand. When a customer, colleague, or vendor crosses the line, an alarm goes off, signaling the business owner to say “No.”


Because most owners want their businesses to be accessible and to offer excellent service, they are naturally conservative in setting this sort of boundary. After all, they want to say, “Welcome” to prospective customers and partners, not “Keep Out.” As a result, they set boundaries at the last possible point to keep invaders at bay.

Work Life Limitations by Melvin Feller

I have done this, by the way, so I know of what I speak. I know how confining this sort of limitation can be. There is no room to move. There is barely room to breathe. The longer this boundary stays in place — even if no one ever tries to cross it the more confined, cramped and edgy those inside the limitation will be.

Work Life Limitations by Melvin Feller

After working inside this limitation for a while, it is natural to become unbalanced, impatient, cranky, and even resentful. It is uncomfortable inside this limitation, and it feels as though this is the fault of those pushy customers, colleagues, and vendors out there. After all, if it were not for THEM, you would be out in the fresh air.

However, a client is not an invader. A vendor is not a spy. A business is not a castle on a hill, placed there for strategic advantage against enemy forces. Let us take a big breath and look at this business of setting limitations.

What if limitations were not final protections against marauders? What if you set them so that they were lovely, sturdy fences defining a spacious and resource-rich territory in which you can do your best work and enjoy your life at the same time? What if limitations created a pasture rather than enclosing a cell?

Further, what if limitations were designed to let in light and air? What if you could see out and others could see in? Working inside of these limitations is quite a different experience. For one thing, there is plenty of room to move. When someone approaches your boundary, you have many choices about how to respond.

Work Life Limitations by Melvin Feller

Maintaining these healthy limitations feels entirely different, too. With what pride of ownership and delight in the scope of our pasture we walk the fence line. How pleasing it is to oil the latches on the gates, to replace broken posts, to trim the hedges.

Check in with your limitations this week. First, notice what constitute the fence posts and gates in your business. Are they the hours that you work? The rates you charge. The terms you offer for special services? Get familiar with the structural elements you can use to build your beautiful fence and gate.

Work Life Limitations by Melvin Feller

When you have identified those elements, look at where you have set them. Do your rates give you room to do your best work? Do your working arrangements give you breathing space? Examine your boundaries, and notice if they are giving, you room to live and to do your best work or cramping your style. Experiment with moving your limitations out a bit, not to keep your customers away, but to create a bigger space from which you can serve them wholeheartedly and well, maintaining a healthy work life balance.

Melvin Feller Business Consultant, Business Owner, Burkburnett ministries and Graduate Student Candidate in Business Organization

Melvin Feller Business Consultants Ministries Group in Texas and Oklahoma. Melvin Feller founded Melvin Feller Business Consultants Group and Burkburnett Ministries in the 1970s to help individuals and organizations achieve their specific Victory. Victory as defined by the individual or organization are achieving strategic objectives, exceeding goals, getting results or desired outcomes and a positive outreach with grace and as a ministries. He has extensive experience assisting businesses achieve top and bottom line results. He has broad practical experience creating WINNERS in many organizations and industries. He has hands-on experience in executive leadership, operations, logistics, sales, program management, organizational development, training, and customer service. He has coached teams to achieve results in strategic planning, business development, organizational design, sales, and customer response and business process improvement. He has prepared and presented many workshops nationally and internationally.