Boundaries are made up of the things you say yes to and the things you say no to.
What is a boundary?
Boundaries are among the most hotly debated topics that we encounter in the world of workplace wellbeing and leadership and management courses.
Where should they be drawn? How do I say no? How do we ensure the job still gets done? How do you uphold boundaries without people thinking I’m just being lazy or selfish?
We provide our clients with knowledge and toolkits to answer these questions when delivering our resilience training and leadership training programs. Read on to discover our top 5 tips to creating and upholding healthy boundaries to protect our wellbeing and resilience and unlock our highest performance.
The concept of boundaries has been widely adopted by the counselling profession but is now commonplace in our personal and professional lives. Personal boundaries or the act of setting boundaries has been defined as the practice of openly communicating and asserting our values, time constraints and commitments as a way to preserve and protect against having them compromised or violated.
Boundaries are made up of the things you say yes to and the things you say no to.
We draw on the work of psychotherapist and author Sarri Gilman (check out her book ‘Transform Your Boundaries’ and her Ted Talk ‘Good boundaries free you’). She talks about the most essential boundary tool that everyone has. She uses the metaphor of a compass. The compass has a yes on one side and a no on the other. You will know, whenever you are faced with a request or a demand if it’s a yes or a no.
Consider that for every yes you give, you give a no to something else. If you give yeses without boundaries, you will be saying no to other things because our time is finite. It could mean compromising that important project, that parents evening, that dinner with your partner.
BUT if you allow them to, your compass and your boundaries will take care of you, improve your workplace wellbeing and mitigate stress in your life.
Why do we need boundaries?
Let’s imagine a world where none exist. Where the compass is broken and the needle only ever points to yes.
What does that world look like? That’s right, it’s the world of yes people, obligers, people pleasers, dare we say martyrs.
These people get stuff done. They’re likeable. And businesses LOVE those people. It’s what capitalism pivots upon. The ones that will pull out all the stops, any day of the week, no questions asked.
And yet, these are the people we should be most worried about.
The people who are seemingly juggling it all. Leaning in. Our future leaders. These are the people who are most prone to breaking. These are the ones who are vulnerable to chronic stress. These are the people in need of workplace wellbeing interventions and resilience training.
These are the ones with no compass. NO BOUNDARIES. It’s not sustainable. It’s not healthy. We know this because we were these people. We know this because we coach C-Suite folk who have been here and crashed and burned.
Take a look at the boundaries spectrum below and the tendencies of a martyr vs a rigid upholder and reflect on which end of the spectrum you fall on?
If you’re more ‘martyr’, on the left, never upholding boundaries you’re likely feeling resentful, exhausted, taken advantage of and living in low level chronic stress.
If you’re more ‘rigid upholder’, on the right, always upholding every breach of a boundary with little emotional intelligence, you may be disliked, seen as a problem, ineffective.
No boundaries is bad for business too
From a workplace wellbeing and resilience training perspective, upholding boundaries is critical for our health and wellbeing. But we have a clue as to why businesses may appear to actually encourage us, or reward us for not upholding boundaries.
Does it have to be either or? Or can you have both? Well people who protect boundaries AND optimum performance?
There is a middle ground….You can take control of your time and your wellbeing and as a result, your performance and career. You can see on the spectrum some of the tendencies of those who have healthy boundaries.
And remember this is not only good for individuals but also makes sense for the business because overwork really doesn’t pay.
At Welfy we like to explode the three most commonly held myths regarding overwork.
Myth number 1: The more hours you work, the more productive you are.
False! After 55 hours, productivity declines so much so that putting in any more hours would be pointless.
Myth number 2: We have an endless capacity for decision making.
False! The world of information overload results in decision fatigue. Each decision depletes our energy and resources and inevitably the quality of those decisions starts to decline the more hours we work. We have a finite capacity for decision making each day.
Myth number 3: Pressure makes you more creative.
Whilst being in the ‘stretch zone’ is a healthy place for fresh thinking, it is a falsehood that chronic pressure forces us into the most creative version of ourselves. In fact, some of the habits of overwork that pressure and business culture can create, actually inhibit our creativity.
The more these myths are believed, the more likely it is that boundaries are being crossed.
If people are either not creating healthy boundaries or working in a culture where boundaries are repeatedly crossed, the result is that people feel disrespected, resentful and eventually they will leave or worse, blow the whistle, damning the company on Glassdoor or social media. We all know the Brewdog story…
Top 5 tips for creating and upholding healthy boundaries
1. Identify your limits
The first step in creating healthy boundaries is to tune in to your compass and reflect on what you say yes and no to. It is trying to protect you. Learn to tap into and trust your intuition on which decisions will compromise your workplace wellbeing.
What are the demands that test your limits but that you mindfully choose to accept – your ‘yeses’? And what are the things you instinctively know that you need to reject. Your ‘noes’. The things that will compromise your wellbeing, your relationships, your focus or the quality of your outputs.
To help identify those, think of a time you have been asked to do something that made you feel triggered or reactive? What has made you feel overwhelmed at work? What can cause conflict for you at work or at home? What are you having to sacrifice for work?
2. Translate your ‘Noes into boundaries
Once you have identified where your personal limits need to be, you can translate the things you would like to say ‘NO’ to into a boundary that is clear to communicate and uphold. Consider whether the boundary you would like to create is specific to you, or is relevant to your whole team and therefore a collective boundary could be created. We categorise boundaries in three ways:
a) Time – these are boundaries that more readily come to mind when we think about working life. The ones we need to protect our time. Boundaries around our availability to receive and respond to emails at appropriate times, and the same for meetings and travel.
Example boundary: I will not schedule or accept back-to-back meetings without breaks.
b) Work/life balance – these boundaries help protect us from stress and overwhelm, allowing us the space to prioritise our health and wellbeing and respect our relationships and responsibilities outside of work.
Example boundary: I won’t be contactable on my annual leave in order to properly disconnect.
c) Psychological boundaries – these are more subtle and more personal. They represent our expectations of how we will be treated, how we interact with each other at work. They might be preferences for the style of communication or leadership we prefer. It may include our need to feel valued and respected at work.
Example boundary: I expect to be valued and respected for my authentic self at work.
3. Recognise a crossed boundary
Think about what triggers you to feel like a boundary is about to be crossed. What might those requests or demands sound like?
Below are some examples that may sound familiar.
“It’s going to be an intense day, back to back meetings with no time for lunch I’m afraid.”
“I’m assuming you’re ok to pick up Will and Deepa’s workload while they’re out.”
“I’d like to see updates at every stage before you share this further.”
Requests or demands that cross boundaries are often preceded by a, “Could you just…”’ or a, “I know you leave at x but…”
4. Use the BACs model to uphold your boundaries
Once you have created healthy boundaries it’s useful to have some strategies to consistently challenge when a boundary is crossed in order to protect and uphold that boundary.
This is a simple model we use in our resilience training and leadership training for upholding boundaries. Let’s take a scenario so we can see how it works.
B (BOUNDARY): we agreed this BOUNDARY e.g. I won’t attend meetings while on annual leave.
A (ASK): now you’re ASKing me for… e.g. You are now asking me to dial into a call while I’m off next week.
C (CHALLENGE): this is CHALLENGing because… reminder of why the boundary was set. e.g. I have committed to spending work free time with family on my annual leave or I need my annual leave to fully recharge.
S (SOLVE): How else can we SOLVE this together? e.g. Could someone cover me? Could I give someone a handover before I leave? Could the meeting be rescheduled?
5. Keep it ‘adult to adult’
The BACS model gives you a framework to challenge a crossed boundary but we often use the ever valuable transactional analysis to help us with the nuance of HOW to deploy the framework so that it lands well, protects your relationships and doesn’t invite unnecessary conflict.
Based on the transactional analysis model, the person crossing a boundary is assuming the role of ‘controlling parent’ and telling you what they expect you to comply with e.g. “I’m going to need a response to this by close of play.”
We could react as an ‘adapted child’ (remember the people with no boundaries, the yes man, the people pleaser, the martyr) they are experts in suppressing their own needs. The outcome of this exchange will likely be that the request is met but that the individual feels resentful and their wellbeing is compromised. Repeated exchanges like this don’t lead to a sustainable culture.
Or, we could react like a rebel child. This response might sound like, “Absolutely not going to happen!” It is quite emotive and triggering. The likely outcome is that the boundary is upheld, the request is unmet but there is resulting conflict or animosity which impacts your relationship.
Neither of those responses are likely to result in a good outcome for all parties.
A healthier transaction would look like the boundary being crossed, potentially still by a controlling parent, BUT received by an ADULT. The receiver chooses to adopt a fact based, calm and rational mode, using the BACS model to challenge and uphold the boundary in a productive and healthy way.
In a world where individuals and teams are encouraged and supported to create and uphold boundaries, ways of working become sustainable and contribute to workplace wellbeing and healthy cultures. This is where true competitive advantage lies.
“Whatever you are willing to put up with, is exactly what you will get.”
-Unknown
