Two Tips for When Your Boundaries ARE NOT WORKING

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For many of us, we know about boundaries!
We’ve read enough books, articles, etc. to know not only that we need to set boundaries, but how important they are for managing overwhelm!

But, what happens when our boundaries don’t work out the way we want?

I think that this is a really important to think about when it comes to boundaries because, despite our best intentions, sometimes they don’t land the way we want them to…

• Sometimes people don’t respect them

• Sometimes they piss people off

• Sometimes people are negatively impact by our boundaries, making us feel guilty

• And sometimes, we just don’t have the perspective, as managers or leaders, to know what our people need from us

So, in this blog, I have two tips really important tips for what to do when your boundaries AREN’T working the way that you want them to…

#1
HARD VS. SOFT BOUNDARIES

Now, you might already be looking at this going what the F$@% does that mean, but don't worry I’m going to break it down for you.

When it comes to boundary setting, the reason why people struggle with boundaries is because they are struggling with the Goldilocks Principle that is boundary setting.

Most of the time, though, we struggle with boundaries because our boundaries are too porous. When I say porous, I WANT you to think of this like a sponge. When you have porous boundaries, they’re too flexible, negotiable, and have way too many holes in them. When our boundaries are too porous, we get taken advantage of because our boundaries are too soft and that’s not a good thing. So, we tend to swing the pendulum in the other direction…

As a result, we start setting boundaries that are rigid. Rigid boundaries are very absolute, uncompromising, and inflexible. We have hard boundaries.

Now, before I get into my examples, what’s the difference between the two? Hard boundaries are ones that we don’t compromise on. These are the boundaries that we have a zero-tolerance policy for when they’re violated. So, hard boundaries aren’t bad things to have. In some situations, you absolutely want hard boundaries that you don’t compromise on. For example, when it comes to how you’re treated in a relationship, perhaps you will not tolerate name-calling or yelling. Period. Full stop. Another example is bullying or perhaps you’re recovering from an eating disorder and someone has a tendency to post triggering content on social media, so you block them. Those are hard boundaries as well. Those are examples things that should be a hard boundary. However, what about soft boundaries?

Soft boundaries, on the other hand, are things that aren’t so rigid. Now, they can still have varying degress of strictness. For example…

• A tech detox on vacation - This might be one that’s very situational. It might be a hard boundary for those menial “can you read through this” kind of request from the office, but it might be a boundary you’re willing to bend for a true fire OR personal emergency.

• Channels of Communication - This is a great example of a soft boundary for me personally. I prefer email communication for work and in my business. I like having a written record to refer back to and for that reason, I don’t like phone communication personally. But, if someone were to reach out to me via phone or text, I don’t have a particular issue with it. I make it known that email is my preference, but my world doesn’t fall apart if I have to use other channels of communication.

This is the idea. Different things in our life require a difficult level of strictness when it comes to our boundaries. However, what often happens when it comes to boundary setting is this: someone who has porous boundaries might pivot and start setting too many hard boundaries when it fact a boundary might need to be soft.

That’s what I mean in this tip. If your boundaries aren’t working, consider whether or not you’re trying to set a soft boundary in a situation where it’s a hard boundary.

For example, back when I was a manager, I had a boundary that I do not check my work email for my day job on the weekends. Now, most of my team members respected that boundary, but some would just text me instead of email me as soon as I got an out-of-office response from me. At first, I treated this as a relatively soft boundary and would willingly respond to my team members texts as soon as I saw them. That is until I started realizing that they were texting me things that a) they had procrastinated on, b) were already found in our company Confluence space, or c) they could have easily asked their peers on Slack. So, this is a soft boundary that became a very hard boundary. My entire team knew when my weekend was and, frankly, it wasn’t my fault if they didn’t plan ahead.

Similarly, you might be trying to set a hard boundary when it should be a soft boundary.

This is what I ran into with that channels of communication example above, again, when I was a manager. My preference is to communicate via email and, when I first started, I was finding myself getting really stressed and frustrated by how many people on my team were sending me messages on Slack. Then, it dawned on me that even though I have a preference for what channel of communication I wanted to use, my team members also had preferences that I needed to respect. I still made it known to my team that the best way to get ahold of me was via email as I’m not reliable about checking Slack, but I also had to change my ways and build checking Slack into my day-to-day life as a manager. So, you see, what I thought was a hard boundary needed to be softened because it didn’t meet my team members where they were at.

So, that’s the tip. Consider what the issue with the boundary might be and if you need to soften the boundary or harden it.

#2
NEGOTIATE YOUR BOUNDARIES

Now, when I first thought about this one, my initial instinct was “Absolutely NOT! We should not have to negotiate our boundaries!” but I’ve since changed my tune. The fact of the matter is, most of our boundaries impact other people. Whether you’re a manager and a leader or not, any boundary you set is going to impact someone else. In situations where those boundaries are soft or we don’t feel like we have the perspective know if our boundary is reasonable, that’s where negotiation comes into play.

Back in May, I had one of my favorite speaking experiences ever when I had the opportunity to speak to a team of managers at LinkedIn in San Francisco. After the talk, they invited me over the LinkedIn Corporate Offices for lunch. Almost immediately upon putting my bag down, people started coming over to me asking me about some of the situations they were experiencing. One in particular really jumped out at me. A relatively young manager was having an issue with her team members constantly violating her boundaries, so she asked “what can I do to make sure that I’m getting the space I need, but I’m also giving them what they need?” And immediately, I thought negotiate.

We might set a boundary that we don’t check out email after 6pm, but what if you’re on the East Coast and half of your team is on the West Coast. They’re still working and they might have questions.

We might set a boundary that we don’t answer our work phone (since I know some of us have a personal and work phone) over the weekend, and yet the factory workers that report to us are working 24/7.

There are all sorts of situations like that in the work force where our ideal situation and boundary don’t actually work for the people who that boundary impacts. So, sometimes the only way we can find something that does is to negotiate and find some common ground.

How this might look is coming to your team and saying, “Hey! I’ll be available from 10 - 6 pm each day via Slack and email, but I won’t be checking my email after hours. You can text me, but my expectation is that you check Slack and Confluence before you do to see if you can find the answer to your question. Does that work for you?” Once you lay out that expectation, it’s up to your team members to communicate with you what they need in return. When it comes to boundary setting, I’ve started to operate from a place of “you’re an adult and I expect you will ask for what you need.” So, if I made this ask and everyone said that my boundary was fine, then that is going to be my boundary.

Another part of this, though, is being flexible to the fact that circumstances might change. So, it may be important if your company goes through changes or you’re just noticing things on your team to follow-up and see if that boundary is still working. Again, it’s up to your team to tell you whether or not it isn’t, and it’s always in your hands to determine whether or not their ask is reasonable and can be accommodated.

Let’s also look at a personal example. In 2018, I spent the entire year traveling abroad and literally didn’t set foot in the United States all year. While I was gone, my brother apparently borrowed some of my stuff. When I got back, I spent a good hour or two looking for that stuff only to have my mom tell me my brother had it. I was a little irritated because no one ever told me or asked whether it was okay for him to take my stuff. Yes, I was out of the country, but it was still my stuff and it would’ve saved me a lot of time looking for it. So, I told my brother, “Hey! I’m fine if you borrow my stuff. In the future, could you give me a heads up so that I know you have it?” It felt, to me, like it was a very reasonable ask. However, my brother got a little aggravated and promptly returned all the things he borrowed in a huff even though I only needed one of the things back.

I share this because he didn’t tell me my boundary was a problem, but he did get aggravated that a boundary was put in place. That’s not unexpected. Our lack of boundaries is really convenient to people because they can do whatever they like, so it is possible your boundaries might upset someone else. However, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.

All we can do is open the door and ask whether that boundary works for them. They may get huffy and frustrated, begrudgingly agreeing to play along, OR they might come back and say “that seems a little unreasonable. What about this?”

All we can do is negotiate. But ultimately, it’s up to us to determine if their request is something we can accommodate.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Can you see yourself using these tips?

Drop a comment below!