Working Space | Life in the Classroom
Hitting stress for six
How clear boundaries protect your hauora
Rob Clarke
CEO of Learning Architects
Do the constantly shifting priorities and demands of leading a school ever make you feel like you keep taking two steps forward and then three steps back? If so, then you are not alone. Leading a school is a psychologically and emotionally challenging job at the best of times, and there’s no doubt that in the past two years, without any notice, it got a whole lot harder. In the last issue I wrote about how important it is to ‘put your own oxygen mask on first’ and to actively take steps to protect your hauora. Now, I want to highlight another of the factors in protecting your hauora - ensuring you maintain healthy boundaries that support you to thrive. Why boundaries are important Commonly thought of as physical, especially in terms of protecting ‘personal space’, boundaries help us to manage our relationships in different situations. However, they are much more than just the limits to our personal space. They are also mental and emotional, and they straddle our personal and professional lives. Rarely are your boundaries physical barriers that are clear for others to see. And also, it is quite possible - even if you know where they lie, that they are not always ‘front of mind’ for you either - especially in times of high pressure. For example, when was the last time you were intentional about leaving your laptop at school and having a night off from email? Has it been a while? If so, it’s probably a sign that a boundary is being stretched! The degree to which you create healthy boundaries that encourage a balance between the professional demands of your role and your personal life has a dramatic impact on your effectiveness. Essentially, they enable you to live a healthy, sustainable and fulfilled life.
This is why it’s important to consciously work to protect the boundaries we have in place, and critically, if we don’t really have any, create some that support us. Even something as simple as making sure that you avoid checking your social media feeds multiple times a day can make a big difference. Unfortunately (and this might even be you), too many of us know of colleagues whose wellbeing has been under threat at some point. This could be due to challenging circumstances in their school, or how they are managing the pressures of the job, but whatever the cause, it is likely a good indicator that their boundaries are out of kilter. How to tell when your boundaries are out of sync A lack of boundaries can lead to emotional and physical fatigue which over time creates a lessened sense of resilience and wellbeing. However, boundaries are different for different people, which means so too are the signs that your boundaries are out of sync. One of the easiest ways to tell if you need to improve your boundaries is that you’ll feel unbalanced and stressed. You might feel tired all the time, or find it hard to think clearly. For example: • Do you find others interrupting you throughout the day and that pile of ‘to dos’ starts to feel like it’s snowballing? • Does having to manage unexpected updates or changes to MoE guidelines leave you feeling
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stressed about the tasks you thought you could do and have now bumped further down the list? • Do you ever find yourself checking your phone or email when meeting with others, or at home? • Do you find yourself checking your emails multiple times every hour? • Are you working at home every night after dinner?
Know your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses Different types of boundaries are important for different people. Do you know what you need in order to get the very best out of yourself on a daily basis? The answers to this question are a clue to the sorts of tasks in which you excel; they also provide insight into any potential blind spots which you might need to manage, if you are to avoid overdoing it. In order to get the best results on a daily basis, it’s useful to know: 1. What you are naturally really good at. 2. The area(s) in which you need help or support.
If you can take action on each, then you will likely find it easier to thrive. For example, if you are: • A highly strategic thinker, you might be amazing at coming up with solutions to problems, thinking ahead, or creating innovative strategies and visions. If this sounds like you, how do you ensure that each day you have time for doing your best thinking, as well as clearing your busy head?
• Someone who connects with and senses feelings of others, how do you ensure that the feelings and needs of others don’t overrun and impinge on your feelings, draining your emotional reserves? In short, how do you protect yourself emotionally from others’ feelings? And further to this, how might you decompress at the end of a day? • The type of person who loves to get things done and work extremely hard to finish things, how do you know if you are doing the right tasks? And if in your school, your staff do the right types of jobs based on what they are naturally good at? How do you identify what to say ‘no’ to, or when to stop and recharge? Or learn to accept that we all do things differently (ie know when to relax).
Take time to reflect and reset While we all have different boundaries, no one wants to crash and burn, and/or leave others to pick up the role if we get sick and need time out to recover. By limiting your exposure to stress, you are able to give yourself a sense of autonomy, which is really important to promoting wellbeing. So, what can you do about it and what is important for you? Sally Baker, a UK-based therapist, says that setting boundaries is beneficial because it enables you to place “limits on your exposure to stress and the [body’s] production of adrenaline and cortisol [the stress hormone],” Baker says. “It protects your mental well-being.”
