Set better work boundaries.
Womxn are socialized to take care of everything for everyone, so it’s no surprise that during quarantine (and as some areas begin to open back up), many womxn are finding themselves working even more than they were before Covid, on both their professional work and also all the other various and sundry things that need to get done.
Whether you’re working from home or not, staying sane and getting shit done means knowing how to set and hold professional boundaries. That being said, the way I teach boundaries is a little different from the norm, so I want to break it down for you.
The most important person for you to set boundaries with is you. And the first step to setting boundaries is taking a look at your social conditioning.
Womxn are socialized to do until there’s nothing left to do. We’re also socialized to judge whether or not we’re doing a good job by how other people respond, mainly whether they approve of us or not. What this translates to is trying to do everything and also getting our validation from outside sources. If that worked, it would be one thing, but it doesn’t, and instead, it usually just leaves us feeling resentful and drained, unable to show up for ourselves OR our loved ones.
As long as we are trying to live up to all the impossible, contradictory standards that society places on womxn, we will not be able to set and hold useful boundaries. Because setting and holding useful boundaries means prioritizing our own well-being and preferences, and that is generally not something we’ve been trained to do. In fact, we’ve often been trained to do the exact opposite - sacrifice our own well-being and preferences for literally any and every other being.
When we set and hold boundaries, it goes against our social conditioning, which we register as discomfort. In addition to the outside pressure to conform to social conditioning, which I am sure you have experienced, we have inside pressure to do so.
Our brains learned our social conditioning as children, and it’s familiar, so our brain thinks it’s safe and helpful, even if it’s actually disrupting you from living your life the way you want to. Your brain will work hard to maintain the systems and processes that have kept you alive, even if that means conforming to patriarchal norms, because it sees change as inherently dangerous. This is why your brain will object when you want to log off at five and not check your email again or tell your boss that actually, no, you can’t take another project on without impacting your existing deadlines.
This is why we start by setting new boundaries with ourselves. Because we are the ones who will struggle the most with them and we have to be cool with them on our own before we can implement them with others.
Think about it. If you want to log off at 5pm, but you haven’t gotten good with yourself on that, you are not going to be willing to do it or you are going to struggle mightily when you do. It’s not because of what your boss thinks or that you’re still getting email. It’s because you yourself are questioning whether or not it’s truly ok. The reason you’re questioning it is because it does not comply with your social conditioning.
Even if we disagree with our social conditioning, it often still runs our lives in this way. The reason for this is that most of our social conditioning now exists as subconscious thoughts. When the brain learns something new, it stays in the conscious mind until it becomes habitual. Once it becomes habitual, it moves to the subconscious mind. Like when you learned to drive a car, at first you had to think really hard about it. Now, it’s habitual. You don’t have to think about it at all. Your subconscious mind knows not just how to drive, but how to get to your favorite grocery store without you having to give it any conscious thought.
Much of your social conditioning - the messaging you received about how to be good - is subconscious now. Your adult brain might think logging off at 5pm is fine, but your subconscious brain might say, nope.
So what do we do? How do we set boundaries about our work when our brain is simultaneously blocking us? Don’t worry - you’re not stuck with your social conditioning just because it’s subconscious. There are things you can do to unlearn it and ways you can handle it and still set the work boundaries you want to have.
Knowledge is power. Just the awareness of what’s going on will help immensely. When you find yourself wanting to log off at 5pm but not doing it, you will now know why. It’s not about you. It’s not about your capability to follow through on what you decided. You can feel the discomfort of pushing back against your social conditioning and still take the action you’ve chosen to take.
Unlearn your old rules. In addition to awareness, you can begin to deprogram your social conditioning. The way most of us try to do this is by simply telling ourselves that we’re badass womxn who should log off at 5pm and not worry about it. This sounds good, but often does not work. Sometimes it even makes us feel worse. Because we do worry about it. And then we wonder if this means that we’re doing feminism wrong or if we don’t truly believe we’re badasses. It’s actually just the cognitive dissonance between your desired action and your social conditioning. The less glamorous but more effective method is to take tiny baby steps.
We can go from “I want to log off at 5pm but I feel uncomfortable” to “I want to log off at 5pm and it’s ok if that feels uncomfortable.” Giving ourselves permission to feel uncomfortable actually makes it much easier to set and hold boundaries. When we expect that it may be uncomfortable and let that be ok, then we have much more freedom to try what we want to try and see what actually works for us. And that last part is key because...
Your boundaries are for YOU. Boundaries are a way we create more of what we want. They’re not a way to control anyone else’s behavior or to do what we think we should be doing. They’re a way that we take care of ourselves, no matter what others are doing. If your boss logs off at 5pm but you actually want to work until 6pm, then logging off at 5pm may not be the right boundary for you. Maybe you’d rather log in an hour later in the morning instead or take a real lunch break where you’re unavailable. What the boundary is isn’t actually the important part. Doing the internal work so that you can know what you want and work to get it is.
Need some extra help unlearning all that BS social conditioning so that you can finally, finally ask for what you want at work and at home? I’m currently accepting 1:1 clients. Learn more here.