Setting Better Boundaries To Enjoy The 9-5

How are you with setting boundaries? If you’re like me, patiently working a 9-5 while saving up in investments to one day downshift or retire early, are you content in your day job? If you’ve been reading the blog, you know I’m on a slow journey to financial independence (FI). I’m taking steps to design my life in a way I can enjoy it now, before reaching FI. When it comes to work, the only way I have found to not go crazy at my 9-5 waiting for my retirement day is to figure out a way to enjoy the ride. For me, the biggest factor in enjoying the ride has been setting better boundaries at work.

One of my favorite fellow scientists, Brene Brown, talks about boundaries a lot on and within her many different platforms. She defines boundaries, in their most simplest form, as “what’s ok and what is not ok.” This definition, for me, is simple and easy to digest. I also like to add in “for us.” Boundaries are what’s ok and not ok for us. Each person is going to have different boundaries, different things that are not ok for them, even if they are in fact “ok” for someone else.

And this is where my favorite Brene Brown quote around boundaries comes in:

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

This has been the most important aspect for me to work through when it comes to boundaries, in both my personal life and my work life. I hate disappointing others. Which is why setting boundaries never came easy for me.

My history with boundaries

Until recently, I was not AT ALL good about setting boundaries. With anyone. I’m not even sure I could have told you what setting boundaries looked like for me. I may go so far as to say I don’t think I had a single boundary.

Like many of us, I was raised to believe that being “busy” was being successful. There was no rest, no play, no time to sit and relax and take care of yourself. “Self care” was not a term anyone used when I was growing up.

It was also modeled to me that when someone asks for help, when someone asks you to do something, you say yes. That is just what you do to be a “good” human/student/daughter/sister/athlete (the list goes on).

So, naturally, I carried this “work ethic” of being constantly busy and also pleasing everyone into adulthood, as I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

In graduate school, the same pressures reared their ugly heads. I felt like I was constantly in competition with all of my classmates based on the things they would say to me. How late did YOU stay up studying? How soon are you going to finish graduate school? How many papers did you publish?

I stayed on that hamster wheel through a postdoctoral fellowship, and then I finally thought I had made it. I had a big fancy professor job in a location I loved. I was living the dream. Or so I thought.

Even in the dream job, I wasn’t anywhere near happy. I would sit in my therapist’s office, riddled with guilt and with no boundaries to be had. Here I was, a professor, and I still couldn’t get past the guilt and make time to rest. “I want to take a walk around campus in the middle of the day, but what if a colleague sees me?” I would say to my therapist. “They’ll see that I’m not working!” She didn’t look at me like I was crazy, which I’ll always be grateful for. But what she did do was always put my worries back on me, “Do you really think you can’t go for a walk in the middle of the day?” “What’s the worst that could happen?” “Even if someone really says that to you, so what?” Slowly, over time, her voice became my voice in my own head. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was planting the seed for me to be able to set healthy boundaries.

My “a-ha” moment with boundaries

But at first, even getting off the hamster wheel wasn’t enough.

When I took a massive pay-cut to go down a different career path, I still found that my old ways would creep up. Instead of wanting to climb the academia ladder, now I was climbing the corporate ladder. I couldn’t say no to the success high that came with the idea of promotion and being seen as the go-getter. Because I didn’t know what I really wanted, I found myself right back on the hamster wheel that I had so desperately wanted to get off.

Because I didn’t really love my core role at that company, and my manager was encouraging me to be a manager myself, naturally I took the success bait and started taking on all the things, all the extra responsibilities, so I could prove myself and get promoted.

Now, at this company, we used Slack to communicate, a messaging program designed specifically for the workplace. I was obsessed with Slack. It was like the AOL Instant Messenger of the workplace, but with way more features than the basics I had experienced in childhood.

I had become good friends with many of my colleagues, and so for me, the use of Slack was 2-fold. I used it for work discussions as well as for personal conversations with my co-worker friends. I had Slack downloaded on my phone, and so I used it in the same way I would text my friends. I told myself that it was ok because I didn’t have notifications turned on, so it wouldn’t interfere too much with my work-life balance.

I didn’t see anything wrong with this until one night, as I was lying in bed about to go to sleep, I thought of something I wanted to tell my work colleague/friend. I opened up Slack on my phone, only to see another work-related message about something that needed fixing. And I needed to be the one to fix it.

Now, did I need to fix the problem that evening? No. The problem was relatively urgent, but not catastrophic. It would have been perfectly acceptable to address the matter in the morning, whenever I happened to sign-on to work.

But at the time, that didn’t matter. All that mattered is that I had seen it, and so I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I told myself I could take care of it in the morning. But my brain wasn’t having it. I tossed and turned for nearly an hour thinking about whether I should get up and take care of it. After an hour of realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep while this matter loomed, I got up, turned on my computer, took care of the problem, went back to sleep, and slept like a baby.

I woke up the next morning and immediately knew what I needed to do. I needed to set a boundary. I took Slack off of my phone, and any of my colleagues who I wanted to text as friends, I asked for their phone numbers.

This was the first step in figuring out what boundaries looked like for me in the workplace.

How I set better boundaries

Soon after that first “a-ha” moment, I participated in an internal leadership certificate I discussed in a previous post, one that anyone who wanted to be a manager at that company needed to take, and discovered that I did NOT, in fact, want to be a manager after all. This was so freeing.

With this knowledge in hand, I was able to set boundaries that aligned with my career goals. I started to say no more often, since I no longer needed to take on all the extra responsibilities to be considered for promotion. I had honest discussions with my manager about the work that made me come alive and the work that drained me, and we worked together to take some of my current responsibilities that no longer aligned with my career goals off my plate.

Once that company started to pressure me to take on more even though I didn’t want to become a manager, and especially because that company didn’t pay well, I knew it was time to move on and find a different role.

Find the right role

If you’re like me and aren’t interested in climbing the corporate ladder,* I can’t stress enough the importance of finding the right role for being able to set better boundaries. And, just like I wrote above about boundaries being personal, the right role is also personal. What’s right and important for me in a role might be different from you. And that’s ok! But taking the time, and experimenting if need be, to find a role that is sustainable for you will help immensely with the ability to set boundaries and enjoy the 9-5.

I learned this because the first move I made after the pay-cut editor job did not turn out to be a good fit at all. Not only was the role itself not a good fit, but also it was a toxic work culture where everyone worked around the clock and signed on during their vacations. It was nearly impossible to set boundaries in this environment, even though I tried. If this is you, do not be afraid to leave and find something new! I gave it my best shot, and even talked with my manager about my feelings before looking elsewhere, but ultimately decided to leave.

I got lucky in that my next role was a much better fit, and I’m still there over a year later, with no plans to leave. Of course, things can always change (due to a new manager, a company restructuring, a new client, etc), and if they do, I will consider another move.

No job, by any means, is perfect. There are plenty of things I don’t love about my current job. But I’m also well aware that no job will be perfect, and so there are qualities that weigh heavier than others. While my current company does not have a strong HR department, not much of a work culture/atmosphere, and hardly any personal or career development incentives, I have a great boss who gives me tons of autonomy, I’m happy with my responsibilities, I have relatively low stress, and I (so far) haven’t received any pressure to work more hours than the 40 I’m currently working. This is what’s important to me right now on my slow FI journey.

*For what it’s worth, I believe you can still set good boundaries even if you do want to climb the ladder. I believe that we can all do less at work than we think we need to do. For example, I have found that even when I’ve said no to things and worried I would be seen as a slacker, I have still been beloved by my colleagues, and superiors have still praised my work. Also keep in mind that as you climb the ladder, you can set the example of better boundaries to everyone “below” you in the work hierarchy.

Set boundaries from the get-go

Once you’ve found the right role, I highly recommend taking small steps to set boundaries right from the start.

Even though my last job was toxic and not the right fit, it introduced me to the world of Microsoft Teams, another messaging platform (like Slack) for the workplace. My current company also uses Microsoft Teams. So, as soon as I joined, since I was familiar with the platform and there was no policy around the use of Teams at this company, I set my own precedent.

If you work remotely, setting your Teams status (or the equivalent on any other work messaging platform) is one of the simplest and easiest things you can do to set boundaries that everyone else can see. When I sign off for the day, I set my status to offline. Sounds simple right? You’d be surprised by how many folks at my company don’t do this. When I go to lunch, I set my status to “away.” And when I have to run a quick errand, like hop across the street to pick up my veggies from our local CSA (community supported agriculture, also fondly known as a “farm share”), I set my status to “be right back.”

At first, I didn’t know if anyone noticed or cared, but what mattered is that I knew I was doing it. I was setting boundaries for myself. I knew that if someone was trying to get ahold of me while I was away, I could point them to my status when I got back and set that boundary so they would know going forward.

Now I know that colleagues have noticed because they tell me they do. One of my more senior colleagues once asked me if I intentionally change my Teams status, because he’s noticed. When I told him yes, I am intentional with my status, he told me how much he loves that I do that and how helpful it is to know whether I’m available or not.

Simple, people. Keep it simple.

Quiet the voices

Now, if you’re like me and you hate disappointing people, you will have to find a way to quiet the voices. And when I say voices, I’m talking about the voices in your head that tell you everyone thinks your crazy, a slacker, not a team player. The voices that tell you you should want that promotion because you’ll make more money and be more successful and be able to buy more things that you don’t need or want…

I still deal with these voices every day. (Even my colleague telling me he loves that I set my Teams status can set off a string of thoughts about how he probably is only noticing because he thinks I’m a slacker.) But I’ve found ways to combat these thoughts.

One is through meditation, which I’ve discussed in a previous post. And the other is by having goals. Knowing my why, why I’m working and saving money, why I don’t want the promotion, is how I get through. Whenever these voices start to creep up, I just remind myself of my goals and why I’m working toward financial independence.

Practice, practice, practice

As I got close to my 1-year mark at my current company, I could feel that a conversation around promotion was coming. I wanted to be prepared, I wanted to be able to clearly articulate my boundaries and what I wanted, so I practiced ahead of time. I went over a bunch of possible scenarios in my head. Even though none of the scenarios were the one that actually played out, having practiced and thought through what I wanted to say gave me the clarity and confidence to speak to the conversation organically.

When you’re flipping the script at work, going against the grain, you could get any number of responses. If you’re lucky, people will meet you with acceptance. But most won’t understand or will be baffled by anyone who isn’t on the hamster wheel, who doesn’t want to climb the ladder, who dares to set boundaries and put themselves first.

For me, having a mantra, or a one-liner, has been helpful in navigating these conversations. Something you can say to people in response to questions about your lack of desire for the typical promotion (in my case) that feels easy to articulate and rolls off the tongue. I came up with my one-liner from practicing what I would say to my boss when the conversation about promotion arose: “You know, I’d be a freelancer if I didn’t enjoy the team dynamic so much.” It’s something quick and easy that gets my point across directly and is also honest and slightly vulnerable. It feels pleasing to say because it’s the truth, so it’s also genuine and thus comes across that way.

Stand your ground

Another thing I’ve learned is that you can’t expect to set a boundary with someone and have that be the end of it. Especially in the workplace, with superiors and bosses who are incredibly busy and overworked, you have to stand your ground. I’ve now had to remind/gently nudge my boss several times that I don’t want the “typical” promotion, and that’s ok. It’s just how it is. To me, it’s worth it to have to stand my ground to better enjoy the 9-5.

Another superior on my team also recently asked me about my career goals, and so I had the opportunity to practice setting boundaries with him. He was supportive, but he cautioned me that I will have to stand my ground. He shared that once you’ve proven that you can do your core role, and do it well, the company will do whatever it takes to get more out of you. I inherently knew this was true, but it was another thing entirely to have a superior say it to me as well. I’m glad that I’ve been practicing.

You will also need to stand your ground when people try to test your boundaries, because they inevitably will. When it came time for my annual review, my boss dragged her feet. She was busy, and every week she’d tell me we’d do it soon. One Friday afternoon, promptly at 5 pm, she messaged me asking me if we could meet to go over the annual review. Right then, at that moment. I literally laughed at my screen. I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to ask me that at 5 pm on a Friday. But because I had been practicing my boundaries for quite awhile at that point, and because I had gained so much more confidence than I had in those early days in my therapist’s office, and maybe because I was so clear on my financial independence goals, I told her no. I simply said I had plans, and we would have to do the review another time. Nothing catastrophic happened. Did she ridicule me behind my back? Who knows, and who cares. I stood my ground.

Also, if I had said yes, I would have been setting the precedent that she could ask me for anything at 5 pm on any day and I would oblige. I’ve learned that in the workplace, no one is going to look out for you but you. If you don’t stand your ground, no one else will do it for you.

Boundaries: always a work in progress

I’ve come a long way with boundary setting, in work and in life. It hasn’t always been easy, but what has helped has been 1) knowing what I want and getting really clear on my values and 2) practicing and gaining confidence. But no matter how far I’ve come, I know that setting boundaries will always be a work in progress for me, mainly because of my dislike for disappointing others (as well as those gosh-darn voices in my head).

If you’re ever feeling discouraged on your journey to setting better boundaries, consider what impact you might be having on others. In my toxic job, I had a colleague who also served as my mentor. She was about my age, and we had a similar path that brought us to this job. She shared with me how burned out and anxious she was, and how she lacked boundaries. She was one of those people who NEVER showed that she was offline on Microsoft Teams. When I started practicing setting my Teams status as a way to demonstrate boundaries, I noticed that she started to do it was well. Then, I noticed other teammates following suit. I’ve also noticed people on my team following suit at my current company. You’ll truly never know the impact you can have on someone else. If you could help just one other person (in addition to yourself) by setting better boundaries, wouldn’t that be worth it?

How do you set boundaries in work or in life? What’s something simple you could start doing today to set better boundaries?