We all know about “setting boundaries” … with work-life, with children, with partners and with a lot of “others.”
Underlying the work boundaries there are often 3 shapers of the lines we draw:
- Sustainability: how many hours, on average, we will designate to “work”
- Predictability: how often work plans change, and with what kind of warning
- Flexibility: how much traditional “work hours” can flex to accommodate non-work needs
Most of us, either explicitly or intuitively are weighing and drawing those lines with our employers (who recently have often become a lot more receptive to accommodating requests if we have the courage to find our voice and ask for what will work for us. Setting boundaries (both hard, like a concrete wall, and soft, like a strand of yellow warning tape) with employers is often the easy part.
The tricky part is setting boundaries with ourselves. Yup, the person sitting right here with us. We define boundaries, get buy-in with our work teams … and then choose to run into or step over them ourselves. Sometimes it’s fear of repercussions (like promotion-track timing) … sometimes it’s just spontaneous excitement in the moment (like a super-engaging problem to finish analyzing at midnight) … and sometimes it’s just neglect (it creeps up, we ignore it, and somehow, some day, we lift our heads up and realize we’ve drifted from our own intent).
So, the big question is: what are YOU doing to keep YOURSELF in check?!
Curious to know what you think …
Anna Minto
Founder & CEO, Transformational Change
Executive Coach & Collaborator, You Are Possible
LinkedIn.com/in/annaminto
Anna Minto - Transformational Change 