Find comfort at both home and work by creating and managing your personal boundaries

Creating and managing personal boundaries while navigating the conflicting demands of work and family life is a common challenge faced by many of us. Balancing these two crucial aspects of life can be stressful, but with the right strategies and mindset, it is possible to find harmony.

The challenge is real and messy

We have to face the reality that balancing the many demands that are put on us is complex, messy and filled with emotion. The first step is to accept this and understand and appreciate why this is the case. Success at work and at home are hugely important to you. Your values are telling you this so spending more time paying attention on one at the expense of the other induces feelings of guilt and shame. This is normal fighting these emotions just creates more feelings of the same and greater tension as we end up making promises we cannot keep as we try to appease both parties. Once we accept that both are important and we understand why they evoke such strong emotions in us, we can stop creating a competition in our minds where one has to win out over the other. We can start to create a space where both can co-exist as essential interdependent parts of your life.

Set clear priorities

To set clear priorities it is important to be very clear what your core values are. If you are a regular reader of my blogs you will know the importance I place on understanding our values. To help identify your values first download Brene Brown’s values list, this will help you identify your values without trying to come up with a list by yourself. What you need to do now is to reduce this list to values that you relate to. Read through the list and pick 10 values that you relate to. Try to avoid aspirational values, just values that you think are personally important. Once you have your ten you now need to reduce this down to 3 core values. Three values that really resonate with you. Values that move you in to action, motivate you, describe who you are and are just non-negotiable. Take your time if you have two words that are similar say them both out loud. How do they make you feel, if you get an emotional response to one more than the other pick that value.

Once you are clear what your core values are you can use them as a barometer to start to prioritise aspects of your work and home life. So you can make decisions when one has to take precedence over the other to meet your values. Once you are able to make a value based decision on what you are going to do, you are then able to articulate your reasons for making that decision to those around you, reducing your feelings of shame.

Create clear boundaries

There is a comfort in having clear well signposted boundaries that are steeped in your values. The easiest way to do this is to create routines that separates work from home, clearly this is especially essential when working from home and even more so if you like me do a mixture of both. It is all too easy to start to allow work to leak in to your home time and the demands of home time to encroach on work. Working flexibly can be a double edged sword without clear boundaries being set that everybody agrees and understands. Things to consider are designated work spaces, allocated time as a routine to allow for exceptions to be negotiated rather than leaving it to chance. It is also worth considering transition routines. How do you transit from work mode to home mode and vice versa. This might be a physical commute, it might be closing the door of the home office, putting away the laptop or the tools of your work, opening the door, the getting out of the tools of the trade. Consider the clothes you wear. Is there are change of clothes between the two roles? Even when working from home I will wear my work clothes to get me into work mode. Changing out of your work clothes when work is done can also help you transit back into being back home.

How are you communicating what you require

If you keep all of these thought processes about creating this balance in your life to yourself, you will create confusion and resentment. Talk about what is important to you about both home and work with the people that are important to you at home and work. Once we have set our routines and boundaries, how are you going to articulate these to those that need to know? This is vital to manage everyone’s expectations. We all know that routines and boundaries will be tested and there will always be times where there will be exceptions. If you need to enter into negotiations about exceptions with family or work, they need to be clear what your boundaries are and what the reasons are for the exceptions. It might be that a particular emergency requires you to stay at work longer or make contact with work after your normal work day has finished, or attending your child’s school play means you will need to take some time off during the day. If communication is unclear or limited these events can cause frustration and tension. There will always be tensions between the two demands on your life, clear, honest and regular communication that is value based is essential to reduce tension and allow both demands to co-exist.

Don’t be a martyr

You don’t have to everything. The people around you are just as capable and can share the burden with you. You may have a tendency to sit on our own personal drama triangle equally spending time as a rescuer doing everything yourself and making sure everyone else at home and work are attended to. Then being the victim and feeling exploited and put upon by all around you. To then becoming a persecutor and blaming those around you for your difficult life. Take a breath take a step back and ask yourself who can help. Do I have to stay at work and do this or can I share the workload with my team or colleagues? Do I need to acknowledge that I need help to complete this task. At home do I have to take on all the domestic duties, can we share the workload so we can spend more valuable time together. Can extended family or friends help with childcare in the short term so I do not have to take more time off work. Remember you are not an island.

Don’t forget yourself

In the hustle and bustle of life it is easy to lose sight of ourselves and not spend time caring for ourselves. I have a very simple rule that works well. I allocate myself an hour of happiness everyday. I don’t have to do it all in one go, sometimes this hour might be made up of a couple of minutes here and 10 minutes there. I categorise happiness as any activity that gives me a sense of satisfaction, joy, pride, or just makes me smile. At the end of everyday I do an inventory of all the moments of happiness I have had during the day. This approach creates an intentionality of self-care that you might otherwise take for granted. When we take our happiness for granted it is easy not to notice when we start to sacrifice our own happiness. By making sure we have an hour of happiness we start to prioritise activities that contribute to this.

It is not about winning the game it is about staying in it

To quote Simon Sinek, we don’t win at life, we live it. Creating a balance between work and home is part of living our life. Achieving a balance between the 2 is not a final destination it is a process that requires maintenance. There is no first prize in winning at life and there is no prize for finishing first in the work-life balance race. We have to work at making sure we don’t sacrifice one for the other. Once we have a formula that helps us create a meaningful balance it requires tweaking to make sure that balance remains as our life changes and demands shift. The approach you used 10 years ago to maintain balance may not have the same effect a decade later. Agility and flexibility are essential, having a growth mindset and always looking to improve how you work and relax is the to key maintaining that balance.

Get help and support if when you need it

If you have a demanding job and a loving family creating a space where home and work can co-exist and draw strength from each other can be daunting. You don’t have to do this alone working with a coach like myself can help you create the foundations that will increase your chances of success.

If you are interested in starting a coaching relationship get in touch via email matt@mattycoach71.com or by direct messaging me through my social media pages.

Don’t forget you are enough.