How to Reduce Stress and Overwhelm at Work By Setting Clear Boundaries
You have the power to create the life you want.
Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
Boundaries with your time are by far the hardest to keep. You may start the work day knowing your schedule and the tasks you wanna get done. Next thing you know, it’s after 5 PM, and your to-do list is far from complete.
If our work day is not structured to meet our specific needs, others will intentionally or unintentionally steal large swaths of our time, leaving us frustrated, resentful, and feeling behind.
A lack of personal boundaries is hands down the most significant cause of stress and overwhelm.
If you take nothing else away from this article, remember that establishing boundaries around how your time is spent will tremendously impact your life.
What Does Setting Personal Boundaries at Work Look Like?
A coworker asks if you’ll help them with a project when your plate is already full.
You say, “Unfortunately, I’m not able to assist with that.”
The challenge is many of us are scared to hurt others’ feelings or appear that we aren’t good “team players.”
A reason is not required. However, if you feel you must provide additional context, limit your explanation to a simple sentence such as, “I’m currently overloaded” or “My plate is already full.”
Don’t drone on and on about how you really want to help or how you’d love to be a better teammate. Additional banter only weakens the boundary you just set.
A particular team member interrupts you multiple times a day.
You say, “I noticed you have questions, and I’d love to help. Let’s schedule 30-minutes once a week to review.”
Encourage them to keep a running list of things they wanna ask and topics to cover and to bring any supporting materials you need to make decisions in the meeting.
Your boss asks you to cover for a critical role that’s currently open.
These additional responsibilities don’t fit into your already overflowing workload.
You say, “I appreciate your trust in me, and I’m interested in growing my skillset. However, my current responsibilities exceed my capacity, and I need to evaluate the workflow of both roles. Can I get back to you early next week?”
While this may be an opportunity to shine, it’s also an opportunity to be a scapegoat. Don’t let anyone set you up to fail!
Carve out time to review your job description and workload, including current and upcoming projects, as well as the job description and responsibilities of the other role.
What excites you? What fears do you have? What reasonable expectations can you commit to and still produce high-quality work?
To get another perspective, map out your ideas and review them with a trusted friend, maybe even one that doesn’t work at your company.
It may come down to passing on the opportunity. Or, it might be a chance to shift into the other role and delegate your current workload to another. You decide.
What part of both roles do you love? Ask to move the remainder of the responsibilities you’re not absolutely stoked about to another teammate.
The three biggest mistakes are:
Saying yes right away without thinking things through.
Not taking time to map out the expectations of both roles and how they’ll impact you.
Overextending yourself and setting yourself up for failure, potentially damaging your reputation and career.
Setting Boundaries with Clients and Vendors
I worked in sales and marketing for decades and understand the deep desire to please clients of all levels. We want to appear helpful, put together, available, and friendly.
Just like your coworkers, teammates, and boss, clients must also be told about your preferences and limits. Setting expectations on the front end is typically the easiest. However, when battling burnout, now is always a good time to establish healthy boundaries.
It’s your job to communicate your boundaries. They don’t need to be harsh or rigid, but they need to be firm and shared succinctly. Challenges arise when our boundaries are unspoken, unclear, or wishy-washy.
Think of the typical scenarios where you interface with clients and vendors and communicate how you’d like those to play out. Share parameters around the times you respond to emails and texts, the cadence of sales and marketing updates, and lead times on requests for products, information, and meetings.
A positive relationship forms when there is clear communication and expectations. You don’t have to be available 24/7 to have a great rapport with anyone.
What Does Setting Boundaries With Clients and Vendors Look Like?
Scenario #1:
A client emails you at 4:15 PM asking for a detailed sales report before the end of the day. This task will take you 90 minutes, and you’re already in the midst of wrapping up another project and your work day.
You respectfully respond, “I’m happy to send this information. As I’ve previously shared, sales reports have a two-day lead time. I’ll make sure your request is added to our workflow.”
I can feel your eye roll.
I’ve worked on commission and bent over backward for clients of all levels. I gave up my personal agency, and work dictated most of my life. I was miserable.
This, however, is the opposite of healthy work-life integration. If you desire a realistic cadence of high-quality work as well as a happy, meaningful life outside the office, you have to place limits on yourself and others.
It’s not your job to worry about what others think. Nor is it your responsibility to have to rush, skip personal commitments, or stress out over someone else’s lack of planning.
Let’s look at one last scenario.
Scenario #2:
Your favorite vendor calls to ask for help. They’re up for a gigantic bid and want to use you as a reference. The challenge is the vendor’s work has been slacking. They’ve been late on recent projects, and communication has waned.
You’ve brushed it off since they previously were excellent, and you don’t have time to find a new provider. However, you’re uncomfortable using your name and credibility to endorse their work.
You say, “I appreciate you asking me, but I’ve noticed our last few projects were behind schedule, and communication of timeline shifts has declined. Can we schedule a meeting next week to review our relationship?”
Again, it’s best to call attention to discrepancies and establish or reestablish boundaries as soon as a break in the relationship occurs. However, life happens, and we’re not perfect. We tend to avoid conflict and hope that things will magically get better.
Meanwhile, resentments build, frustrations mount, and our stress levels rise. Drama is draining, and the longer you carry it around, the more it impacts your life.
It’s your job to take care of your physical, mental, and emotional health and show others how to treat you. No one can do, or will do, this for you. Not even your momma. It’s an inside job.
If you feel burned out, overwhelmed, or resentful, intentionally avoiding others or daydreaming about dropping everything and running away, you are missing boundaries.
Don’t allow your inability to say no continue to cause crippling anxiety, worry, and stress. Because while it’s not possible to create more time, you can lighten your load.
As Nedra Glover Tawwab shares in her best-selling book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace,
Boundaries will set you free.
Start with small steps of setting simple boundaries. As you practice, grow proficiency, and gain confidence, your feelings of stress and overwhelm will morph into freedom, peace, and ease.
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Rebecca Murauskas is a high-performance Life Coach. She helps people be free of stress and overwhelm, reclaim their purpose, and feel fulfilled. Rebecca and her husband, Adam, abandoned their careers and moved to Panamá in 2019 to pursue passions for helping people heal. Take the free Time Saver Quiz and find additional content at RebeccaMurauskas.com.