Creating Personal Boundaries

For the longest time, I would end the week frustrated, burnt out, and unable to turn off “work mode.” I was in bad moods long after 5:00 rolled around and I felt miserable on weekends. The sadness I felt on Sundays grew and grew— then came the feelings of guilt (because I wasted my weekend), stress (because I have so much to do this week) and anger (because I shouldn’t be feeling like this).

Unfortunately, my feelings weren’t unique. More than half of working Americans feel some variation of “work fatigue,” which is often attributed to lack of sleep, diet, work-life imbalance, unclear job expectations, or a dysfunctional work environment. But those didn’t apply to me. Underneath all the stress, I liked my job.

After a cyclical journey of stress and sadness, I started to stop and think about the root of the problem. Why did I become so unraveled when my day didn’t go as planned? Why did I care about what my colleague thought of me? Why would I replay conversations in my head for a week after I had them?

The answer, turns out, was simple: I had no set boundaries with myself.

If you type “setting boundaries” into Google, you’ll receive countless articles about setting boundaries with others: “How To Set Boundaries With Your Partner,” “Setting Boundaries with Loved Ones,” and “Respecting Others Boundaries” are among the top searches. But how can we expect to create and respect boundaries with others if we don’t set, and acknowledge, boundaries with ourselves first? And how do we start?

Stop Trying to Be in Control

I found that most things that caused me stress came down to a control-issue. A certain coworker wouldn’t follow processes I’d established, and would continuously break rules our team had set. I spent months (months!) asking her to respect my process, and I would take it personally when she didn’t— so much so that I’d lose sleep over it. In return, I was hesitant to help her with projects out of spite, despite knowing that it would be a detriment to our company. That wasn’t like me, but my bitterness grew.

Things finally clicked when I acknowledged that I couldn’t control her. I couldn’t force her to follow my processes, and getting upset over it was a waste of my time. It likely wasn’t personal (and if it was, I can’t control how other people feel about me). This turned into a snowball effect of things out of my control.

I can’t control how many hours there are in a day, but I can control how to manage them.

I can’t control how people treat me, but I can control how I let it affect me.

I can’t control other people’s feelings, but I can work to manage my own.

When I feel resentful, I take a moment to really figure out what’s causing that anger. Is it really because I care what others think of me, or is it because I feel self-conscious deep down? Is it really my coworker not following my process, or is it because I take it as a sign of disrespect? When I accepted that I have no control of others, it allowed me to dig deeper within myself.

Identify (And Feel) Your Feelings

It’s easy to acknowledge and categorize our feelings as an out-of-the-box emotion (like anger, sadness, or stress) and then move on. We don’t spend much time on understanding what caused them, how we reacted to them, or how we can learn from them.

When COVID hit the US and lock-downs were initiated, I was forced to work from home and my daughter stopped going to daycare. My husband continued to work and couldn’t help with her throughout the day. My daughter had just turned one when the lockdowns started— meaning I’ve spent almost a full year of working from home with a teething, emotional toddler who can’t communicate with words.

With a full work schedule and frequent meetings, feeling overwhelmed was an understatement. When my husband got home from work, I shut down. I was disconnected and didn’t want to spend time with him or my daughter— I just wanted to decompress. It started a cycle of guilt, sadness, and embarrassment. I identified those emotions pretty easily, but I needed to understand why those were the feelings I felt. Why wasn’t I proud of myself for working through the challenges? Why wasn’t I relieved when my husband got home rather than sad?

I asked myself hard questions. I learned that one emotion often led to another. Negative self-talk was driving those emotions: I felt guilty because I felt I was failing balancing motherhood and work. I was sad that I felt guilty, then I felt embarrassed for feeling sad. It was a never ending cycle.

The important thing, though, was to allow myself to feel those feelings. I could justify them or argue them all day long, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I was feeling them. They were real in that moment.

After I identified them and felt them, I needed to understand how to learn from them. If I was feeling guilty for feeling overwhelmed by work and parenting, what could I do to restructure? Could I schedule meetings around nap time? Could I work after my daughter goes to bed? Do I simply need reassurance from friends and family that I’m doing the best I can? For me, I needed all of those things to happen.

Learn To Say “Okay”

Learning to shrug and say “okay” has been one of the most rewarding changes I’ve made in my life thus far. Part of it comes down to the control-aspect and part of it comes from accepting that things just happen. Seriously— Things. Just. Happen.

I’m active on social media. I love getting personal and sharing my life experiences— I’ve always found it rewarding. However, despite the small following I have, I’ll still get messages like “that’s a really ugly shirt.” Seriously, I’ve actually gotten those comments. So I said, “okay.”

I also love political discourse. No matter what the topic, things will likely get heated and feel personal. While I’ve worked hard to maintain an objective point-of-view, I can’t control how others think and feel (remember?). So when it’s starting to hit the point of no return, I say, “okay.”

I had a trip to the beach planned. The forecast said sunny up until one hour before we planned to leave. I said, “okay.”

I messed up and forgot to pay a bill last month. We received a letter in the mail about it. My husband came running in, frantically telling me we had to pay it. If you’re like me, other people’s stress makes you stressed. So I took a deep breath and said, “okay.”

And that’s it. This one is such an easy change to make, and despite it being so simple, it’s the most rewarding. By saying okay, you both accept and acknowledge the “thing” (whether it’s an opinion, a mistake, or the weather).

Okay? Okay.

Face Mistakes Head-On

You’re gonna screw up. Humans do human things, and humans make mistakes.

A few months ago, I sent an incorrect email to a database of 20,000 contacts. The email was for an event and had the wrong date, wrong time, and wrong location. Ain’t no way for me to bounce back from that one— I had emails from angry sales-people in my inbox within ten minutes.

I’m very type-a, so this was my nightmare. Previously, I would have had a mental breakdown and replayed this exact mistake in my head for months. I would apologize left and right. I’d probably cry a lot. I would be embarrassed and defensive. But those actions— and that level of stress— doesn’t fix the problem.

I immediately sent out a follow up email explaining my mistake, and clearly displaying the correct time, date and location. Then, I sent an email to the sales team (one email, not a response to each individual email) apologizing for the mistake, informing them of the correction, and offering any resources I had to help resolve issues. I included my boss in the email for awareness and transparency. Then, I identified why I made the mistake along with a course of action to make sure it didn’t happen again. Then I moved on.

Here’s what I did not do: explain what happened (do they really care?), apologize more than once (why do I need to?), or defend my actions (I messed up and I own that).

When your focus is on fixing the problem, you make it less personal. Your goal is to correct the problem, notify those involved, then identify a solution to prevent a repeat-offense. You do not have responsibilities outside of those three things, whether the mistake is made personally or professionally. And when it’s all said and done, you can take a break and say, “okay” (see what I did there?).

Start Small

Setting personal boundaries felt foreign for a long time. But the more I worked on them, the more I uncovered the healthier, happier parts of me that were being overshadowed by the negativity. It’s hard work to set these boundaries, and it’s even harder to maintain them. Start small— focus on one boundary at a time. The more you work on them, the easier it gets to enforce them.