Set Your Boundaries!
When you start a new job, it is critical that you take the time to set boundaries between your personal life and your work life. In the age of constant connection, availability, and early career burnout, it's more important than ever to understand the difference between putting in extra hours to get something done and letting your job impede too much on your personal time. Today, we are going to talk about the importance of setting boundaries early when starting a new job.
What Does It Mean to Set Boundaries in My Professional Career?
Setting boundaries in your professional career is the ongoing communication and balancing of your personal and professional obligations with your employer. Everyone's boundaries are different. For some, boundaries might revolve primarily around working too many hours. For others, boundaries might focus more on never missing a family dinner, or not working too much on specific areas they don’t care about in their career. Regardless of what your priorities are, it's important that you know yourself well enough to clearly define them and set reasonable expectations. Once you have to find what's important to you, you should start figuring out what steps need to be taken to ensure that your career aspirations and obligations do not negatively impact the rest of your life.
Why Is It Important to Set Boundaries?
You’ve probably heard the phrase “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.” While the underlying point makes sense in theory, this is not practical for 99% of people. The vast majority of people will live their best lives through a deliberate combination of work and life, where their work satisfies certain needs and activities outside of work satisfy others. If not enough of one's needs are being met, burnout is soon to follow. I would argue that for many, setting boundaries on the time spent at work (working less hours in most cases) to make time for the deliberate pursuit of fulfillment outside of work (things like hobbies, relationships, and communities), would result in improved performance in the workplace. Many young people, myself included, have experienced burnout at some point in their career, and I can confidently say that my burnout would have been less severe if I had made a conscious effort to prioritize activities outside of work, especially during the pandemic. Whatever your case might be, setting boundaries at work in order to consciously pursue activities outside of work will likely be essential to your future successes.
How Can I Set Clear Boundaries Effectively?
Boundary setting starts with a baseline understanding of what your employer expects of you in your current and future positions, as well as knowing what is important to you outside of work. On both sides, this is likely a combination of time and results. There are some employers out there that do not care how many hours you work, or when you work, so long as you get the job done. Other employers may enforce minimum billable hours, time tracking, core office hours, or location requirements. For those early in their career in public accounting or investment banking, there isn’t too much room to negotiate some of these requirements depending on the company. For those in these higher-hour roles, it’s important to understand what you signed up for, and define what you think is reasonable accommodations to support a healthy work-life balance. Remember, while working less than 55 hours per week during busy season may not be a reasonable request for some of these companies, blocking time off on the calendar for family dinners and exercising is probably more agreeable. It’s important to define your boundaries and be firm on them. I know plenty of people who slowly let their managers walk all over them until there was no turning back from being the doormat associate who didn’t say no easily. Lastly, be sure to remember that someone else’s lack of boundaries is not a reason for you to sacrifice yours!
There you have it! If you didn’t know about the importance of setting boundaries already, I hope you do now. Best of luck in finding what’s important to you and making it all work with your employer!