Baby Boundaries: Saying Yes to Yourself by Saying No
Recently, I was asked what advice I would give my younger self. While I would like to give my younger self a full three-day workshop, one thing stood out as most important: setting boundaries to protect my time, energy, and mental health.
I started my legal career in Big Law—think Suits with less criminal drama but ever-present competing demands, work from sun-up to sundown, and office politics. I am, as many of us are, a Type-A, driven-to-achieve, people-pleasing personality. And Big Law loved that. I was trained to say “yes” to every demand—no matter how ridiculous—regardless of the toll it may have taken on my personal life or health. You’ve worked 14 days in a row? Doesn’t matter. It’s your wedding anniversary? You can celebrate another day. You haven’t slept in two days? You can sleep when you’re dead. This led to a severe case of burnout. Things came to a head for me when I was driving to work one day, and I thought, “It would be nice if I got into a car accident and got hurt bad enough that I could legitimately take a break from work.” Not a healthy thought. I shared this thought, laughingly, with a friend who thankfully didn’t laugh and encouraged me to get some help. So I did. I found a great therapist who taught me all about boundaries.
Boundaries boil down to this: you have the power to say no. You can say no to that request to work until 2 am for the tenth day in a row. You can say no to that demand to work through your kid’s birthday party. But more than just saying no to unreasonable requests, you can say no to how people treat you. If someone is berating you, you can set a boundary by calmly stating, “I will not be spoken to that way; we can reconvene this call when you are prepared to proceed more professionally,” and then ending the call. The key is it is all about what you can control—you cannot control how they treat you, but you can control whether the call continues.
Now, there are consequences to establishing boundaries. Some of them are good: a renewed sense of self-respect, sleep, time with your family, and self-confidence. Some of them can be not so good: pushback at work, questions about your “commitment.” But if you remain professional at setting boundaries and consistently produce quality work, ultimately, you will be respected.
So I started setting baby boundaries. Slowly at first. I experimented with boundaries by saying, “No, but…”: “No, I cannot do that assignment by your stated deadline, but I can do it by this deadline.” Nine times out of ten, there was zero pushback, and that tenth time led to a negotiation in which we both gave a little. During my performance evaluation, one of the partners positively noted that I was well-organized and managed my caseload well by using this technique. Little did she know I was just trying to survive by exercising boundaries!
These baby boundaries allowed me to set more significant boundaries when I had a major life change a year later. By then, I had built my confidence in setting limits, established that I could do so professionally, and earned respect from my peers and superiors. And you can do so too. Just start by setting a baby boundary. Start by saying no and saying yes to yourself. You can do it. I believe in you.
Tiffanie Limbrick is in-house counsel to RightNow Media, a nonprofit that offers over 25,000 Biblically-based videos for small groups, families, students, and leaders to study the Bible. She has the pleasure of screening licensed content for RightNow Media, managing contracts, and maintaining relationships with speakers, pastors, and industry leaders. She describes her job as a fun-180 from her prior career as a complex commercial litigator.
When she is not lawyering, Tiffanie is a proud mom to a six-year old and a passionate advocate for the anti-human trafficking movement. Tiffanie is a volunteer Community Trainer with Unbound Now where she educates the community about the basics of human trafficking in an effort to equip and empower the community to make a difference in the lives of those impacted by human trafficking. She also loves her role as Chapter Director for Polished North Dallas where she has the opportunity to gather women to support their faith and work journey.