Paella discusses setting clear workplace boundaries, prioritizing self-care and using PTO, and shares personal reflections on stepping back from therapy and recovering while emphasizing limits at work.
Mile High srna: My weekend has been about recovering from whatever it is that I have. She says it's important to have boundaries in the workplace. Today is actually the best that she has felt since last week because she got a humidifier.
Having boundaries in the workplace, and regardless if you're an employee or boss, it's important to have boundaries. Avoid over committing to responsibilities and tasks that just drain your energy. Another thing is prioritize self care.
I am talking about boundaries in the workplace. And I talked about like self care. How many of us forget to take our PTO or don't take our pto? Self care comes in many, many ways and shapes and forms.
Hi, everybody. This is paella from your own pathway in the workplace. I hope you all are doing well and I hope you all had a great weekend. So we are here in February already. So happy February, everybody. How's your February going? I'm not gonna lie. Thus far, mine has been about recovering from whatever it is that I have here. So. Hi. Mile high. Mile High srna. I know what that stands for, and I cannot think right now, so I apologize. I was just saying that my weekend in February has been recovering from whatever it is that I have.
I think I had some, like, respiratory stuff going on. And last week, last Monday I was not on and last Wednesday I was on for my regular live for your own pathway, and I was feeling a little okay. And then afterwards I was doing some recordings for my YouTube episode. And later that night I, like, lost my voice. And then on Thursday morning, I woke up, I could not speak. I was losing my voice. And it was like, whoa, what is going on here? So I've just been recovering. I've just been resting. I just have my lemon water here.
Really, really taking care of myself and hoping for the best. And I'm glad to be back today. So thank you for all your patience and bear with me today as I speak today. And hopefully I won't lose my voice. But today is actually the best that I have felt since last week because I think it's all because I got a humidifier. So yay. Yay to humidifiers and being able to breathe when you can swim, sleep. So. So, yeah. So for those who are not aware, I also do a live Stream Wednesdays at 3pm Called your own pathway.
And so last week I mentioned that I was going through some major life transformations professionally, and that including. That included stepping away from therapy and no longer seeing one on one therapy clients. So that was a huge transformation for me. And I decided that, you know what? I'm going to take the week off of the first week of February, which is this week. And I said I will only commit to Cadre and things that I scheduled in January to work on this suite because I needed to have my boundaries.
And if anybody who knows me, they know that I love talking about boundaries. Like, boundaries is my thing. I'm. I. I'm like the boundary queen. I love talking about boundaries. I love talking about the importance of boundaries. I love talking about having boundaries in your personal life. And when I talk about boundaries, I talk about the expectations and standards that you set for yourself for what, how you expect to be treated. And I talk A lot about that in my. And how people can implement that in their personal lives.
And so I think it's so important and it's so essential to also have boundaries in the workplace because it is 20, 25 and we are all over exhausted, we're all overworked, we are burnt out from the workplace. And because, you know, we spend more than 40 hours in the workplace. Excuse me. Most of us spend more time at. Excuse me, I'm going to take a water here. Excuse me. Most of us spend more time at work than with our own families. It's important to have boundaries. And so having boundaries is essential.
And I'm going to talk about how if you don't have boundaries, that can turn into resentment, that can turn into, again, burnout, that can turn to a lot of things. And I want to talk about that. So having boundaries in the workplace, and regardless if you're an employee or boss, especially if you're a boss, it's important to have boundaries and to demonstrate how you expect how you do it and how you can role model for your employees to follow. So again, I apologize for coughing and for having this respiratory stuff.
So again, bear with me as I cough here. And I might have to cut this short today too. So I apologize. So why are boundaries necessary? And so I wrote some things down and how to set healthy boundaries at work. One of the things we always talk about at work and even our personal life is about communication. Communicate clearly about what you're willing to accept and not willing to accept. And this includes your boss, your colleagues, letting them know when you're available and not. As someone who started my career like back in 2008, I have to admit I was a very much yes, yes, yes person because I wanted to be a team player.
I wanted to be recognized. I was hoping that by being a yes person I would, you know, get more opportunities. Unfortunately, that did not happen and I burnt myself out. And guess what? I became really, really resentful when I saw other people who I felt didn't do as much as I did get opportunities. It's because I became too accessible and too convenient so that my boss couldn't replace me. So it was easier to replace somebody else because I knew how to be well rounded, which in return was a disadvantage for me.
So another thing is say no when necessary. So again, avoid over committing to responsibilities and tasks that just drain your energy. I say this, your energy and your time is your new currency. Yes, we're working for currency. And sometimes there are things that even money can't buy that includes your time and your energy. Another thing is prioritize self care. We talk about self care all the time and as a mental health therapist when I worked at community care they always said, oh yeah, take care of yourself, take care of yourself.
And, and it's like, okay, you want us to take care of our, us like self care, but what are you doing to help us take care of ourselves? You keep giving us more and more and more work. And so sometimes we had a pushback and said no, I'm not going to do this anymore. I have enough like new assessments and I'm not going to do this until I finish more. So pushing back and saying this is my boundary and this is what I can handle. It's uncomfortable at first but advocating for yourself is always uncomfortable at the beginning and once you start doing it gets a lot more comfortable.
Trust me, it was really hard for me because I've always been a yes person. I didn't know how to stand up for myself and then situations that forces you to stand up for yourself. So another reason to have boundaries in the workplace is avoid toxic expectations. And you know, if it's after 5pm and you only work to 5, don't answer emails, don't answer calls, don't do anything that is out, out of your roles and responsibilities at a certain time. You don't need to answer emails at 10pm I remember when I worked for a startup.
Hi T. Brown, thank you for joining. I am talking about boundaries in the workplace and I was just explaining that I'm recovering from a respiratory whatever it is is going through. So I've been coughing and I apologize at my Nate, I might need to take like a water, water break here too. So I'm keeping it a little short today because I can tell my voice is already, my throat is already like ah, no more, no more. So bear with me here. And I was just talking about boundaries in the workplace and why boundaries are so needed.
And so I talked about communication, I talked about when to say no. I talked about like self care. And self care comes in many, many ways and shapes and forms and I think a lot of us forget that self care could be getting up, walking, taking your pto. How many of us forget to take our PTO or don't take our pto? I remember it was some of the workplaces that I worked at, some people had 12 weeks of PTO. 12 weeks, 12 weeks. That's three months right there. I didn't mean to shout. I would just sometimes I'm just like how do you have 12 weeks of like PTO and use it and they'll just be like well I just want to save it for emergencies or in case I need to do something.
Yeah go on vacation. How about take a take off time to like care for yourself. Having 12 weeks of PTO sounds amazing and yet it's like that's three months that you can go somewhere. You could be gone for the whole summer if you wanted to so take your pto, take your breaks, step away from your desk, eat lunch somewhere else. That's the one thing that I did a lot when I worked at the hospital in places I was just eat lunch at my desk and it became habit it became such a habit and I would just work through my lunch break and I think why would I do that now so step away.
Even though I work at home I try to step away sometimes too and go outside for like 5 minutes so self care is so essential It.
