Looking at peers who have achieved successful careers, you may not see their underlying struggle to strike a balance between work and personal life.

Sometimes it can feel as if work is taking over your life to an unhealthy degree, so, here are 10 tips to help establish working life boundaries.

1. Know the limits

It is not possible to set boundaries if you are unsure where you stand. To determine your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual limits, think of what is tolerable and acceptable and what creates discomfort or stress. These feelings can help identify your limits.

2. Tune into feelings

There are two key feelings that should be watched out for — resentment and discomfort. Think of these feelings as a continuum from one to 10 with six to 10 as the top-tier zone.

If you’re at the top-tier zone of this continuum, especially while at work, ask yourself what the cause is. What is it about this work, discussions or colleagues’ expectations are bothering you?

Resentment tends to come from feeling you are being taken advantage of or are not being appreciated at work.

It’s a bad sign if you’re pushing yourself over your limit because of peer pressure or feelings of guilt, or it could just be someone else imposing their expectations, views or values on you.

3. Learn to be direct

While engaging with people at work, maintaining healthy boundaries does not always require a direct and clear-cut dialogue. This is the case if people have similar communication styles, points of view, personalities and general approaches to work and life.

With people who have opposing personalities or views, you must be more direct about boundaries.

For example, a colleague may think that challenging someone’s personal opinion is a good way of communicating, but someone else may think this is disrespectful.

4. Give yourself permission to say no

Self-doubt, guilt and fear are potential pitfalls. You might fear the other’s response if you set and enforce boundaries. You might feel guilty about speaking up or saying no to a person.

You might believe that you can overcome a situation or just say yes because you think of yourself as a good employee, even though you feel drained or taken advantage of.

You might even wonder if you deserve to have boundaries. Boundaries are not just a sign of a positive relationship, they are a sign of self-respect.

So learn to give yourself permission to set boundaries and work to preserve them.

5. Practise self-awareness

Boundaries are all about homing in on feelings and respecting them. If you feel you are slipping and not able to sustain your boundaries, you should ask what has changed.

Consider, “What am I doing or what is the other person doing?” In other words, what is it about the current situation that is causing resentment or stress? Then, consider the options.

What can be done about the situation? What do you have control over?

6. Consider the past and the present

How you built your career and your role in the company can be additional challenges in setting and preserving boundaries.

If you’re a senior or manager, you would have learnt to focus on others, letting yourself be drained emotionally or physically. Putting aside your own needs might have become the norm.

You may even have started to wonder if the relationship is going to be reciprocal. Is there going to be a healthy give and take? Beyond work relationships, the work environment might not be good.

For example, if you have to put in a lot of overtime while co-workers get to leave on time, which is good for their work-life balance.

Perhaps there are pointers to be found from your own experience or through observing others. For some, building boundaries is a relatively new concept and a challenging one to adopt.

7. Make self-care the main priority

Making self-care a priority also means giving yourself the permission to put you first. When this is done, the need and motivation to set boundaries will become greater.

Self-care also means recognising the significance of your feelings and respecting them. These feelings will serve as major cues about your well-being and what makes you happy and sad.

8. Seek help

If there is difficulty with building boundaries, seek support, whether through a support group, counselling, coaching or good friends.

Seek advice from friends and family as well, while making it a priority with each other to practise setting boundaries together and holding each other accountable.

9. Be assertive

If boundaries have been set up, you must follow through. This is where assertive communication with other people is necessary when a person has crossed a boundary.

Respectfully inform the person what the problem is and that it can be addressed together.

10. Start with small steps

Just like learning any new skill, assertively communicating your boundaries will take time and practice.

It is best to start with a small boundary and then gradually increase it to face more challenging boundaries. Build upon success and try not to take on something that you cannot handle.

This article first appeared in jobstore.com

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