Episode 13: How To Set Boundaries Without Feeling Selfish
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Setting boundaries can be really hard. We want to get it all done. We want to be seen as team players and help everyone. And as leaders, we might put extra pressure on ourselves to always be available. But by not setting boundaries, we can take on too much, become resentful of our team, and be at risk of burning ourselves out.
In this episode you'll learn:
The benefits of setting boundaries
What boundaries are and are not
Why it’s so hard to set boundaries
7 steps to setting boundaries
Full Transcript:
[00:01:05] Welcome back to another episode of the Upgraded Career podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are diving even further into setting boundaries. Last week, we heard from Melanie Adair and her personal experience with a boss who consistently violated her boundaries so much that she just chose to leave her role and find one that.
[00:01:26] Aligned with with her boundaries. And this week we're talking about specifically the benefit pits of setting boundaries. Why it's hard to set boundaries, what boundaries are not, and the seven steps to setting boundaries. Because cuz let's be real, we can't always, nor do we always just want to up and leave jobs because a boss is violating our boundaries.
[00:01:52] So let's first ground ourselves today. , what are boundaries? What are these things? Anyway, we, we hear, we hear the word boundary being floated around a lot these days. So how do we even define this? And how I like to define this is just that boundaries are guidelines, rules of engagement or expectations for how you will interact with the world.
[00:02:17] That's it. It's just, this is how I'm gonna act with the interact with the world. It's basically like a bunch of. than statements, right? So, . If this happens, then I'm gonna do this thing. If this doesn't happen, then this is how I'm going to react. We often talk about how boundaries can feel selfish and things like that, but honestly, boundaries are just for you.
[00:02:43] Boundaries are not about controlling other people. Boundaries are about what it is that you are going to do in the situation. So, You know, if you're gonna continue talking to me this way, then I'm gonna end the call. If you continue to force me to work on the weekends, then I'm going to have to find a different job again, if then statements.
[00:03:08] It's not about controlling others, it's just about how you are going to interact and show up with the world. So this isn't selfish at all cuz actually. Setting really great strong boundaries has a ton of benefits. So one, it just helps you with better decision making, right? Because then you have a really clear kind of, you know, direction that you're going, or really clear again, if then statements that if this thing happens, this is the decision that I'm going to make.
[00:03:43] It just makes those. , those decision making challenges a little bit easier because you're just super clear about your boundaries and you're just clear about what it is you will, you will or won't do. Again, it's not about controlling other people, it's about what it is that you are going to do and the decisions you're gonna to make, you're going to make, and as a result of that, that can create really, really strong relationships.
[00:04:09] And again, it's about wanting to. People in your lives or keep experiences or jobs if you're able to. Behave in a certain way. So again, if maybe you have a tough relationship with a colleague or with your boss and you're just really clear about what you are going to put up with or what you're not going to put up with, that just again, creates a stronger bond and a stronger relationship in an effort to keep that relationship together.
[00:04:40] Right? It's not about necessarily that you're gonna walk away from this relationship, which could be a boundary. But I truly believe that whenever you're really clear about what you're going to accept or not accept, and you communicate that clearly to others, it actually creates a lot of really strong mutual respect between each other.
[00:05:00] So setting boundaries can actually create stronger relationships. They're not actually meant to break them down, even though that might. a result of someone not, um, not following or not, um, up helping you uphold your boundaries. Setting really strong boundaries also just leads to more fulfillment in your life and in your work because, you know, I think most of us in our careers, whenever things.
[00:05:29] aren't really going well, or you're just kind of upset about how things are going. A lot of times what I hear from my clients, and even just when I worked in hr, a lot of people were just like, I would stay in this job, or I would enjoy this job more if this didn't happen. If I didn't have to be on call, if I didn't have to work weekends, if I didn't have this really challenging client, if I just had more one-on-one time with my boss, if I.
[00:05:57] a really interesting project that I worked on. Sometimes just people just, they just wished things were just a little bit different in their roles. And some of those, some of those things tie back again to our boundaries around, you know, what it is that we want out of our careers and out of our lives.
[00:06:15] And if we are able to achieve that, then we are likely going to be more fulfill. and more satisfied in our roles, which again leads us to staying in our roles. I never, my number one, um, goal is not. To encourage people to leave their jobs, even though that might sound funny. Coming from a career and leadership coach, I, I want people to stay and be really happy in the roles that they're in and a lot of times setting really clear boundaries and communicate the communicating those enables you to be able to actually do that and what happens when you are more fulfilled and satisfied in your work.
[00:06:56] You often are able to avoid burnout. So again, boundaries are for you. Boundaries are how you are showing up and interacting with the world. So for instance, After many years of not doing this well, I finally realized that I was making myself miserable by feeling like I had to respond immediately to any and every request that would come my way, and I w finally decided to put some boundaries in place.
[00:07:29] And was really clear about when I was going to be responding to things, when I was gonna be checking my email, when I was gonna be checking my slack. And I remember very clearly, I, I, I shared with all my leaders and, and my clients that I do not respond to messages or I do not work past a certain time on Fridays cuz my husband and I.
[00:07:54] We have dinner together nearly every night. We have dinner together, but particularly on Friday nights, we are having dinner on Friday nights together. And I remember that a leader sent me a Slack message or a text message or something like that and said, Nicole, I need to talk to you right now. Now he was on the west coast.
[00:08:11] I'm on the East coast, so it was like six o'clock my time Friday, but it was three o'clock his time Friday. So, you know, I get it. But he also knew that, uh, he knew what time it. my time, but he sent me a note. He said, Nicole, I know it's late your time, but I, um, I need to talk to you about something really quick.
[00:08:30] And I said, I wrote back and I said, listen, I'm having dinner with my husband right now. Is this something that we need to discuss right now? Or is this something that we can talk about first thing Monday? You know? So that was me like being really crystal clear about what my boundaries were so that I didn't feel like I had to constantly just.
[00:08:52] Be on call, be available to everyone because frankly, when I was doing that, I was burning myself out and I could not sustain that level and just anymore or else again, I was gonna have to leave my job. I was gonna have to, I was gonna have to just do something different because I couldn't sustain that anymore.
[00:09:12] And by setting those boundaries, I was able to kind of pull back from that. I was able to feel, again, more satisfied in my role and I was, and I was able to just make sure that I wasn't pulling my hair out and, and burning myself out because I was just feeling like I had to be available all the time. Now, once again, this wasn't me telling my.
[00:09:34] Don't call me at certain hours or don't reach out to me at certain hours. It wasn't me telling them what to do. It was me saying, if I am contacted after hours, this is how I'm going to handle that. And so how I chose to handle that was just to, again, communicate again. Hey, I am having dinner with my husband right now.
[00:09:55] Is this something. can wait until Monday or do we need to talk right now? Now, in that particular situation, that leader was like, N no, I really need to talk to you right now. It'll take less than five minutes. And I said, okay, fine. So I. I chose to flex my boundary in that moment, and the leader called me.
[00:10:16] We had a quick five minute conversation, and, and he was right to call me. That was, it was the right thing to do to kind of push on me to say, no, I need to talk to you right now. It was the right thing. and so we had our quick fit minute, five minute conversation hung up, and then I was back to having dinner with my husband.
[00:10:33] But yet that still sent a message to that leader that, okay, Nicole has some really strong boundaries, but she flexed for me in this situation, knowing that it was. Really, really high priority and really important that we did speak in that current moment so that he could go have a conversation with the ceo.
[00:10:53] He needed to talk to me first, and then he needed, and then he went and talked to the CEO O, which was the right thing. So, Again, there's lots of benefits in setting boundaries, like better decision making, especially in the moment. You don't have to worry and wonder, like you just, you know what, what decisions you need to make because you know what your boundaries are.
[00:11:11] You're able to develop much stronger and more respectful relationships with people. Because you have strong boundaries for yourself, the rules of engagement for how you're gonna act with each other, which again, can really preserve maybe a strained relationship or a struggling relationship because you're not sitting and stewing and being upset about how they're treating you because you've decided how you're going to react in that situation.
[00:11:38] and again, it's just going to make your career and your life way more fulfilling because you feel like, yeah, I'm being respected. I'm respecting myself. I am pacing myself in a way that feels really good. I'm working on the things and communicating in the way in a way that feels really good for me, which in turn helps avoid burnout, which I know so many of us listening to this show needs to hear.
[00:12:05] Setting boundaries is really hard. Like I'm, I, I am, I can't underestimate the, the difficulty it is for, especially those of us who are really driven, want to succeed, but we also wanna help other people and we just, we frankly, want to be. liked, and there's nothing wrong with want, wanting to be liked, but until it gets in our way of doing the right thing or doing the things that, that, that make sense, um, for us, so, , what are some of the things that kind of get in our way?
[00:12:42] One, like I said, we tend to want to put other people's needs first. Especially when we've, when we've been in p positions in our career where we feel like we're a little bit lower on the totem pole, but we feel like we're not able to really speak up and push back. Um, we've just put. others needs first.
[00:13:01] And this is also really particularly true for women because we've just been kind of conditioned and socialized that we are the nurturers, that we are the motherly, motherly people, and that we're just trying to help and support everyone else but ourselves and. . Another reason why setting boundaries as hard is that we believe that it would put relationships in jeopardy that if I push back on this, that somehow people aren't going to like us, or again, somehow, um, people are gonna get mad at us.
[00:13:32] And that's frankly uncomfortable. Nobody wants that. But like my example earlier where. , I could have been nervous that that senior executive would've been upset or pissed off that I did not wanna take his call later in the day. So I, I might've just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever you need. Whatever you need, let's get on the phone right now.
[00:13:52] Because I wouldn't wanna put that relationship in jeopardy. I actually believe that by me, stating very clearly what my boundary was and giving him a choice to be like, You know, was this really, really critical, you know, timely? Or is this something that can wait till Monday? And he came back and was like, no, I need to talk to you right now.
[00:14:14] It's an emergency, which again, it was, that was the right thing, but by me very clearly stating what my boundaries were. And also like he didn't like let the conversation go on for 45 minutes. Like again, I told him I'm having dinner with my husband. So he is like, I'm gonna make it quick. It'll be less than five minutes.
[00:14:32] And we stuck to that. I believe that actually made him respect me more because I was super clear about what I was going to accept and what I was not going to accept, frankly. Maybe you've had a really bad experience with trying to set boundaries in the past. Maybe things have blown up in your face, or maybe again, maybe you have upset other people with your boundaries.
[00:14:56] And again, nobody wants to feel that. That's really uncomfortable. But maybe that's just really, um, kept you from wanting to set strong boundaries in the future because of some really poor past experiences. , maybe you don't believe you have the right to set boundaries. Again, maybe you've been, um, in a position in your career or in the business that you just feel like you don't, you haven't earned the right.
[00:15:23] Maybe you're new to organization or new to the role. You just don't believe that you have the right to actually set boundaries, which frankly is not true. Everyone has. has the right to set boundaries, cuz once again, boundaries are for you. Boundaries are not about controlling other people. Another reason why it might be really hard to set boundaries is you just, you don't know yourself.
[00:15:50] You haven't taken the chan, the, the opportunity to sit down and like, figure out what it, what boundaries are important to you or how can you operate really well. with having some strong boundaries cuz you just haven't taken the time to sit down and really get to know yourself. And so that could be really, um, keeping you from, from setting those strong boundaries.
[00:16:12] Another reason why this might be really hard for you is because you just never learned how to set healthy boundaries. Once again, maybe you've observed, you know, a parent or a caregiver or maybe a boss who didn't have healthy boundaries, and you just thought that was normal. You just thought, oh, that's just how you operate in this world, and you just never really learned how to do that.
[00:16:37] It's also hard setting boundaries because, well, frankly, it requires a lot of emotional labor sometimes. Sometimes we have to like, again, sit down, really think about what's not working anymore, what's not serving us? Where are we lacking some boundaries? And then we have to go out and communicate it to others, and that can, again, create a lot of emotional labor that frankly, we might just not feel like doing.
[00:17:04] So I know that boundaries can be really difficult to set, but if we don't set them again, we are at risk for, for um, burnout, we're at risk for taking on just too much and we're at risk of just not having the life in the career. That can be super fulfilling for us because we are so focused on. again, protecting others or taking on, taking on too much and, and trying to he and trying to help everyone else instead of, or, or by not thinking about what it is that we need.
[00:17:44] So even though setting boundaries can be really hard, I wanna share with you the seven steps to setting boundaries to make this process a little bit, a little bit easier for you so that you can truly start putting these things in place. Really being able to thrive in your life and in your work because you have some really strong boundaries in place.
[00:18:12] So one, the first step in in setting really strong boundaries is knowing your values. You have to know what's important to you in order to put the right boundaries in place. So, you know, lots of people could say, oh, you should have a boundary around. Um, around again, when, when you take phone calls, you know, maybe you don't care about that.
[00:18:35] Maybe you're just like, yeah, sure. I'm happy to work on a weekend, because it's more important to you to have flexibility. So maybe flexibility is a value for you because maybe you're like, yeah, I'm cool with taking a call on a Saturday, or answering an email on a Saturday, but I also went and ran errands on a Wednesday and it, the flexibility is more important.
[00:18:57] So, again, know your values. For me, it's really important to have dinner with my husband almost every night if I don't have some sort of a networking event or, you know, maybe I've got, um, something going on with my girlfriends or something like that. But I keep that to a minimum during the week, and it's really important to me, like I said, to have.
[00:19:17] Dinner with my husband most nights of the week, so that's just a really strong value for me and just something that's really, really important. The next step in setting strong boundaries is just. Clarifying your role and expectations. So if you're not quite sure what you should be responsible for or not sure what your boss's expectations are, then that's something that you, that's a step that you need to take to make sure you're clear about again, what your.
[00:19:50] um, what your role is and what the expectations are of your manager and your leadership. And once you have that understanding, then you can say, okay, so if I'm responsible for this and not responsible for that, then I'm gonna have a boundary around taking on things that are not my role. But you gotta first know what that is, what that is, and what that's not before you're able to set, put those boundaries in place.
[00:20:16] The next step in setting strong boundaries is determining how loose or how rigid you want your boundaries to be. And just like my example of not taking calls after a certain time, particularly on a Friday night when I know I'm having dinner with my husband, I decided in that example to, to make them a little bit, make that boundary a little bit more loose and take that five minute phone.
[00:20:42] Now again, I pushed back and said, I'm having dinner with my husband right now. Does this need to, do we need to talk about this now or can this wait till Monday? Again, I pushed back a little bit and then the leader came back and said, no, this an emergency. I need to talk to you now. And so then I decided, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead and loosen my boundary this time.
[00:21:03] and it's okay to do that because I got to choose. I could have still pushed back and said no, or I could have just not responded to him at all. Cause he sent me a, a, a text message or a Slack message. I could have just not responded at all. And that could have been me keeping my bo my boundary really, really firm and really rigid.
[00:21:23] But I chose to respond and I chose to go ahead and take the five minute phone call, but the point. , you get to determine how loose or rigid your boundaries gonna are going to be. And you know, that's gonna just depend on the situation. It's gonna probably depend on the person and it might just honestly depend on how you're feeling in that moment.
[00:21:44] Luckily, I was in a fairly good mood. I had some strong boundaries put into place already, so I didn't feel completely drained and. , you know, didn't have enough energy to give otherwise, I probably would've been more rigid with that boundary that day. So again, you get to determine. You get to choose. So, . The fourth step in setting, in setting really strong boundaries is communicating them clearly to others.
[00:22:13] So we can't be upset and mad at people if they push on a boundary a little bit or if they, if they violate what, what you believe is a boundary for you if you haven't told them about it. Right? If you haven't, and not to say that you need to like create the list of hereby top 10 boundaries, and I'm going to distribute them to everybody I come into contact.
[00:22:35] but you might, you, you cannot be angry and upset at somebody if they didn't know that was a boundary. So, you know, if, if you communicate those clearly, um, particularly to the people that you do interact with on a regular basis, or you, you communicate them to, um, to, you know, in the moment when it's relevant.
[00:22:58] or again, you're just communicating them like when the boundary is getting violated. Even if you hadn't told somebody to say, you know, I don't take phone calls on Fridays. Maybe I didn't tell that leader that maybe, maybe he didn't realize that was a thing or he didn't realize that I, you know, my husband and I make it a big point to have dinner together in the evenings around that time.
[00:23:19] You know, maybe he didn't know that. And again, I can't blame him for that if I didn't communicate to him. Now again, I did communicate. , Hey, I'm having dinner with my husband right now, can this wait? And, um, and that was okay, right? But you have to make sure that you're communicating these boundaries to, um, to people when, when it makes sense to do it.
[00:23:42] and then the next step in setting boundaries is then to call out violations when they happen. Once again, we can't sit here and stew and spin and get really upset at these people when they do violate. When they do violate a boundary and we don't call them out on it or we don't correct them, or we don't say, Hey, this time I'm willing to work.
[00:24:01] We're willing to work on a Sunday, but typically I don't do this. I'm willing to work today. , you know, I recognize, uh, there's a customer emergency and we, we all need to get on the outage call. We all need to kind of rally around to fix the situation, but typically I don't work on, on a Sunday. Um, that, that's just again, setting expectations for them about how, okay, this is, this is a, an ex, um, an exception that I'm making this.
[00:24:31] but please don't get used to, you know, me working every Sunday just because. So it's important to call out violations. So again, like the, an example I gave earlier, if you have someone who maybe speaks to you in a way that you don't like, um, you know, What you say is, you know, if somebody is, again, you know, maybe they're a yeller or maybe they talk down to you or something like that, and that's just a boundary for you that you're not gonna put up with that.
[00:24:58] You just say, if you continue to speak to me or my team, that way we're gonna end this call. So you have to call it out. You can't just sit here and be angry about it or, or respond in like, right. So again, if the boundary is, I'm not going to engage with someone who is speaking, um, who is either yelling at me, raising their voice or, or speaking down to me or calling a, or whatever that is.
[00:25:26] You can't turn around. And then, then, Do the same thing back to them, which is often what our reaction is, right? Because we're feeling violated. So our reaction a lot of time is to meet them with the same thing. That you're gonna also raise your, your voice, you're gonna also reduce yourself to, you know, maybe saying things that you don't mean or saying, um, saying things that are, that are really unfriendly or unkind because somebody's doing that to you.
[00:25:53] Right? So that's, that's a really human, um, reaction. But again, when we have, when we set these really strong boundaries, we know what our boundaries are. We're a little bit more capable of calling them out in a firm, but professional way. And again, if they can, if they decide, and again, they continue to.
[00:26:14] Behave in that way, then you kind of have to put your money where your mouth is. So the next step in, um, in setting really strong boundaries is being consistent with them. So again, if you tell people that your boundaries are, um, , if you continue to speak to me and my team, I'm going to end this call, and then you don't end the call.
[00:26:33] You know, then people aren't gonna believe you right now. I don't wanna confuse this with being too rigid or too loose in, you know, that, that the, the third step here that I talked about, because again, you're, you're allowed to, you're allowed to flex in the moment. But again, if you are, if you say, . If you say one thing that like, I don't work on Sundays, and you are just consistently working on Sundays, especially if no one's directly asking you to, or there's not a clear, clear exception or clear reason why, why you would, then that's not gonna be very meaningful.
[00:27:11] Clearly it's not meaningful to you and, and it's not a real boundary Then. , you have to be consistent in what you say. Again, you're, you're allowed to change your mind. That's totally fine, but once you decide, Hey, I'm gonna change my mind on this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna shift this boundary a little bit, then whatever that new boundary is, again, operating and being consistent with that is gonna be really important.
[00:27:36] And then the final, the final step to setting boundaries is just being aware of over rotation. So again, these boundaries are for us, these boundaries are not about. about controlling other people. It's about how are we gonna react or how are we gonna respond? And so sometimes these boundaries are about us.
[00:27:58] So we have to be aware of over rotation cuz a lot of times whenever we kind of get into this space of wanting to set boundaries and like we're all go gung ho about it and we're gonna do it.
[00:28:08] Sometimes we can go boundary setting crazy a little bit. We might over rotate. We might think everything needs a boundary or every situation needs a boundary. And that's not just not really true because boundaries, again, are meant to be. Guidelines for you on how you're gonna show up in the world and how you're gonna interact with the world.
[00:28:27] It's not about the super rigid, never changing, never fluctuating, you know, ways of you speaking or operating in the world. It's, they're meant to be guidelines and they're, and they're meant to ebb and flow. where it makes sense. And again, we wanna be consistent with them in order to make a real meaningful difference.
[00:28:52] But we also have to recognize when the exceptions need to be made. So be really aware of this all or nothing thinking or over rotation. So that was what I had for you today. I hope this was helpful for you in thinking about boundaries a little bit differently and really coming up with the steps that you need to actually set really meaningful boundaries in your life so that you can, again, continue to thrive and be able to show up in the best way as possible.
[00:29:31] If you like this episode, I would love it if you could go over to my website@nicolekspeaks.com and sign up for my newsletter where I talk more about topics like this. I even provide additional resources to my email list. , um, that I don't share anywhere else. So if you want in on those things and wanna hear where I'm speaking next, want to maybe be a guest on the podcast in the future, I always give my email newsletter subscribers the the first dibs on all of those things.
[00:30:07] So gone over there, sign up for the newsletter, and I can't wait to see you inside. And as always, in the meantime, your career deserves an upgrade.
