Work Life Boundaries and Wellbeing - No BS

I have long been an advocate for good work life balance.? Even though some people say that doesn’t exist anymore.? If you believe it does and work hard at getting it right for yourself - it does.? Traditionally work life balance is a concept around the circuit break between being at work or doing work and being able to be present in other areas of your life to a sufficient quality for you, your family and your other interests. ?Nobody would argue that the pace of change and uncertainty in the last few years has dialed up significantly and that is what is causing me to use the term work life boundaries (in place of balance). ?And boundaries tactically applied require planning, strategy, commitment and discipline to achieve the desired results.

Establishing boundaries both between, and across, work and personal life activities is needed. That is if we are going to be anyone other than just robots existing in reaction to everything on autopilot and dealing with an accumulation of unhealthy mental load.? It is obvious that more and more people are unable to disconnect from their devices regularly and have no boundaries in place for themselves to disconnect. ??All while many of us are being asked to do more and more with disregard to the fact that human capacity is not infinite.? Cognitive load builds up meaning the mind is continually processing without a break, we start taking less care of ourselves and our energy reservoirs diminish until they crash.? The cracks show up well before the crash does, but often the cracks are disregarded.? Burnout is real.? Just ask anyone whose suffered burnout and then spent a long time recovering from it.

We still need balance, but now more than ever we need stronger boundaries around ourselves, our priorities and our own wellbeing and need to learn, practice and master boundary setting.

Especially those in leadership positions who’re needing to place their attention in multiple directions across the modern world of work.? Dancing chaotically across all the elements of caring about the wellbeing and workloads of their teams, delivering on their promises (KPIs) as well as all their other usual business activities and deliverables.? Responding to urgent requests from up high from sideways and from external sources.? Many not even reasonably urgent or the short notice of them is the result of some else’s poor planning.? Focused on being good leaders, on getting good engagement survey results, having good relationships and conversations while navigating all the tricky people issues that also come with being a people leader to lean into, with courage (constantly).?

The list gets longer the more people you have at a table discussing and the more you dive into this.? Personal capacity and personal wellbeing concerns become highlighted in the workplace in a way that might not have been before.? Repeatedly being told to “Put your own oxygen masks on first” but perhaps feeling it is without real permission for what is actually required to do that.? Often it is saying no to many things without worrying how that is perceived.

We all have to hold ourselves accountable to (or appoint someone else to) our own personal wellbeing and also all experience increased expectations of our time, energy, mental and emotional capacity.? So, the message often feels like “Look after yourself but also get all of the extra work done that’s requested of you”.

Some Food for Thought:

At the beginning of 2020 I was diagnosed with a chronic and (supposedly) incurable type of Leukemia. Initially, after a few nervous months of surveillance to work out what its appetite to progress looked like I could then relax a bit (it appeared as if it would behave for quite a while, and I have regular blood draws and appointments to check on it).

As I was getting my head around this Covid entered the world stage and we were all thrown in and out of lockdowns and workplace disruption.? Although I’d always been active, healthy, and really good with the lifestyle stuff - genetics played its hand with this diagnosis.? And I made a commitment to myself that year that I would manage many of the symptoms through lifestyle medicine.? Just bloody good attention to diet, exercise and prioritising doing the things I really loved as well as protecting my immune system (now compromised).?

This type of blood cancer is kept under regular surveillance and is not treated usually for quite some time (unless quite advanced when found).? There is a good reason for that approach.? While it is not creating life threatening harm in the body it is counter-productive to treat it early.? Because once you start, you’ve generally entered the cycle of: “treatment, some type of remission and then resistance and/or re-occurrence” and a new approach to management is then tried. ?Delaying this as long as possible is preferable as it means you’ve more options before you run out of them. ?And there are fortunately some very clever new treatments being clinically trialed year on year in research clinics in the world which are positively improving those treatment options available, when needed (BTK inhibitor drugs are replacing chemo and are much more tolerable and targeted at the actual problem).

Then, in 2023 I was diagnosed with breast cancer quite unexpectedly.? Too many women are getting this diagnosis, and I figure I just got unlucky there.? That was only picked up through routine mammogram and did get urgent attention.? Surgery and radiation treatment was required and then I got back into my life with a hope (but not a guarantee) it doesn’t return.

Through these health challenges I have remained in my senior leadership position.? Without a doubt because I enjoy what I do.? But I am only able to protect my livelihood and enjoyment of work through careful management of my health and energy levels (having to manage fatigue cycles) and becoming competent at boundary setting with people.? And, although people know about this it can feel like the assumption is “She looks fine on the outside so nothing can be wrong right now”. You can apply that to many situations really.

What Helps Me?

On recently providing the opening for our Leaders Wellbeing Sessions I offered colleagues my high level “Three P’s” on creating and managing a wellbeing strategy for yourself.? “Plan it.? Prioritise it.? Protect it.”

1.?????? Plan It:? People who make intentional choices aligned with what they say they value highly are the people who’re successful in executing their strategy.? Therefore, you need to value your wellbeing enough to have your own strategy in place to support you, and then schedule and plan it into your calendar (week after week ad infinitum).

2.?????? Prioritise It: ?Making your planned activities a priority is essential for you.? Which is why scheduling the associated activities into your calendar, with a regular rhythm to them, makes them happen - so long as you do them, and you;

3.?????? Protect It:? These are your boundaries and you are boldly saying: “This is really important to me so I need to protect it”.? Everything in life needs some flexibility as genuinely urgent things do come up.? The problem is non-genuinely urgent things will try and get the same attention from you.

*The priority activities for your wellbeing will look similar to some other peoples and vastly different to others.? It is about the things that refresh and nourish you and fill your cup while providing you with a mental break from all the usual life stressors.

Setting Boundaries:???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

“The Squeeze” comes at us from all directions.? Work, home, family, partners, other communities we belong to or activities we’re involved with.? But basically, it comes from people wherever it comes from. People who are wanting and demanding our resources, attention and time.

To define and protect boundaries for yourself you’ll need to ruthlessly apply courage and discipline.? If you want to achieve what you say you highly value then you need to be clear that your wellbeing is a high value to you.? Then, only follow-through action proves it is.? I have quite a No-BS attitude when I feel others are compromising my wellbeing which I’m not afraid to put on the table.? This can take some people by surprise, especially if they wouldn’t think of doing that for themselves.

What is important is that you don’t let other people’s limitations define what you can do.? People might say it can’t be done as there is just too much going on at the moment.? Just do it and prove it can.? Good leadership wellbeing practices in the workplace are not just to be talked about, but role modelled and observable.? Importantly, we need to normalise wellbeing boundary setting 'more' than we normalise the cycle of chaos, overwhelm and just hanging in there vibes.? It is helpful when other leaders are openly vulnerable and share their “I’m not in a good place myself” narratives.? Then, relief is experienced by others who are secretly feeling they are very close to being in that story themselves.? But we need to do more than give people permission to tell their stories, we need to give them permission to take concrete steps to get out of that story in the way that best supports them.

Device/Media Boundaries:

Do you feel incredibly uncomfortable putting a device away and out of reach?? Not face down in front of you (as a half-cocked gesture to others of not being distracted by it) but then only picking it back up within 5 minutes or when a notification goes off?

·?????? Do you scroll, check emails constantly on any device?

·?????? Do you react to every ‘ping’ that your device/s notify you of?

·?????? Do you have notifications turned on for everything possible on your device/s?

If so, what is the message this sends to people around you?? What do you think this does to your ability to deeply focus or really be present for others?? If there is any semblance of recognition in this for you; what would you be prepared to do to make changes?

The dopamine hits are real, and this makes it hard not to.? But they’re also superficial.? Change can be hard but starts with small things repeated that become habits.? Habits are formed from focused intentions. ??Even just an intention and commitment to do less of this and more of something else more productive for you in its place, will start a shift in behaviour in a positive direction.

In Conclusion

Life isn’t a practice run and it’s also often hard.? Nobody can control what unexpected things could happen next in anybody’s life.? Yours, or those close to you. ?Even those who’ve taken really good care of themselves have shitty things happen to them.

Living intentionally is the only way to manage quality of life. ?Whether you have health conditions to manage or health conditions you’d prefer to prevent.? Whether you have family and other people important to you who you wish to give your best to, as well as work, or other things that are really important to you. ?There are no medals given out for putting up with shitty situations that are impacting your wellbeing.? Speak up.? Change what you’re doing, or who you’re doing it with if needed.? Not everybody cares about you.

Your wellbeing matters and looking after it keeps you in the game of life longer, contributing in meaningful ways.?? Be in the driver’s seat and not the passengers when it comes to making decisions that help you to be at your best, for yourself and for those who need you the most.?

And don’t listen to the backseat drivers who havn’t walked the path you have…? Turn up the radio instead and sing:

“It's my life. It's now or never. I ain't gonna live forever. I just want to live while I'm alive” (Bon Jovi)

?