Make 2023 the Year of Protecting Your Boundaries

Happy New Year! Today, I’m re-sharing one of my favorite episodes of the show from the archive. Listeners tell me they love to hear examples of really accomplished people who make their anxiety work for them- and so here’s a leader who calls his anxiety a superpower. 

Today you’ll hear from Harley Finkelstein, who is President of Shopify, the ecommerce platform that has processed billions of orders and has a market cap of almost $46 billion dollars. For years, Harley’s anxiety troubled him-- and affected his relationships-- but also led him to have tremendous drive and energy. That was when it first clicked for him that anxiety could be an advantage. “This thing that I have,” he told me, “could be incredibly effective in terms of achieving some sort of entrepreneurial goal or some sort of business objective.” 

Harley spent time trying to get rid of his anxiety but finally realized it’s part of who he is. Now he manages his anxiety through therapy, daily meditation, exercise, breathwork, and scheduling that protects his personal time. His deep self-awareness has enabled him to identify the tools he needs to be an effective leader and to keep his anxiety in check when it begins to escalate. 

A big piece of this work is understanding when your boundaries are crossed. If you manage chronic anxiety, it’s really crucial to understand your boundaries.

Often, a spike in anxiety or other difficult emotional state is the tell-tale sign that a boundary has been crossed. “Little flare-ups of anxiety are signals,” says psychologist Rebecca Harley, that “we can actually decide to tune into.” How does one do this? By playing detective.

“You don't necessarily have to go searching,” Dr. Harley says. “It’s just about trying to turn your attention inward…tuning in to whatever’s there in the present.” In other words, mindfulness. “That’s really what we’re talking about here, is just paying attention, ideally in a curious and not judgmental way, to just observe and describe whatever your internal experience is in that moment,” she said. When you take on that role of detective—Hmm, let’s just see what we find here—you approach yourself with less fear and less judgment. And that is key. “Rarely have I ever seen judgment do anything other than shut us down,” said Dr. Harley.\

This is why it’s so important for leaders to understand their own boundaries and those of their team, especially in times of anxiety. When we know our boundaries, we can set limits. “The notion of a limit is like the line that you want to try and observe, being careful not to cross,” said Dr. Harley. “It’s what you are or aren’t willing to do, or what you are or aren’t willing to tolerate.” Here’s an exercise that will help you identify your boundaries and limits: 

Tune in and consider: What needs safeguarding? A good way to begin is to complete these two sentences: 

I don’t feel safe when… and My work performance is compromised when…

Use the information this exercise yields to identify a boundary, and then a limit you can set to make sure your boundary isn’t crossed. Here are some examples:

My work performance is compromised when…I’m constantly interrupted.

What needs safeguarding: sufficient undisturbed work time. 

Boundary: I will safeguard 90 minutes of deep work 2-3 times a week. 

Limit(s): I’ll block out 2-3 90-minute Do Not Disturb segments on my calendar. I’ll turn off all notifications during these work sessions, and I’ll set up an autoresponder that tells people I’ll get back to them at the first opportunity.  

I don’t feel safe when…my coworker asks for my advice on personal matters.

What needs safeguarding: my emotional energy, the separation between my professional and personal lives.

Boundary: I will not engage in discussions of my coworker’s personal life while at work. 

Limit(s): I’ll tell my coworker that I don’t feel comfortable dispensing advice, and that I need to stay focused on work while I’m at the office.  

My work performance is compromised when…I say yes to too many things.

What needs safeguarding: my time, my physical and mental energy. 

Boundary: I will say no more often. Or: I will say yes to myself more often. 

Limit(s): I will not say yes to a new work request until I’ve vetted it with a trusted advisor and we both agree it’s a good idea. Or: I will dedicate evenings after 7 p.m. to my personal enrichment and turn off all work-related notifications.

Granted, it’s not always possible to get exactly what you need—you may not have the luxury of finding three 90-minute uninterrupted blocks in your calendar, or you may not have the option of saying no to incoming requests. In cases like these, talk to your manager and see if you can find a creative compromise. You never know until you ask.

We will be back next week with a new season of The Anxious Achiever! Happy New Year!

Morra