Draw The Line: Setting Boundaries For A Better Work-life Balance

Hiya CadreSphere. Welcome, welcome, welcome. It's Christy Larson here. Come on in, say hello on this lovely Wednesday. It is glorious here in Minnesota. Would love to know what your weather is like across the CadreSphere Nation. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited you're here. I'm excited to see you. Welcome. Thank you for coming. If you are enjoying lunch, I love it. I had some great strawberries and blueberries today. I also had some great produce. So for those of you that know me or have been to my sessions or my live streams before, you have seen my glorious fruits and vegetables that I get to enjoy.

This is the season for those, although it is starting to wind down, unfortunately. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you for coming I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited to be here. My word today is trust for a wide variety of different reasons, but trusting in myself, trusting in those around me, trusting in the things that are happening in my life. That is the word that I am choosing to use today and I'm choosing to think about today. So what is your word? I'd love to hear it. I'd love to hear what your word of the day is.

I always enjoy hearing the words of the day from those around me. It's a little teeny tiny peek inside your world for today. So if you have a word for today, share it. I'd love to see what that is. So a little bit of a trigger warning. My mom is in the hospital. If you have experienced things like this, this is incredibly hard. She's in a place now that she's had a few mini strokes and they're trying to figure out exactly what's going on, right? And I'm thinking about the my dad, right, and the care that he's given her and the work that he's done to make sure she is where she needs to be.

And this kind of goes hand in hand with trust for me in thinking about trusting the people that are there in the hospital working on her, right, that are trying to run the tests and figure out what is going on, trusting that they know how much she is loved and cared for. trusting that the right people are in the right place at the right time as they have been and shout out to any of you that are in the healthcare industry, the nurses, the nursing assistants, the doctors, the surgeons, all of you are just You have absolutely no idea how much you mean to those people that are supporting folks that are in not wonderful situations health-wise.

So thank you for the work that you're doing. went and visited her yesterday and every person that came in, I said, you know, I'm so grateful that you are here. I'm so thankful and really wanted to make sure that they knew that I had all my trust in them. I really believe that they were doing what they knew was right and they understood how much mom meant to all of us, right? And so it kind of goes hand in hand with the trust thing and really thinking about it from a perspective of not just work, but also, you know, your personal life and thinking about the relationships that you've built and the trust that you've developed or not, right?

And sometimes that's the case. Sometimes you can't trust someone or you're unsure if you can trust someone, right? And that relationship has to be kind of built over time. And I have been in those situations. Absolutely. I think one of the things many of you know, I've started a new job a few weeks ago. I often wonder how long I can call it a new job. And one of the things that was really hard for me as my mom was in the hospital was really trying to figure out What do I do? I'm in this new job, but I don't necessarily want to ask for time off quite yet.

Or you feel like you have work that needs to get done, you got hired for this work, but now all of a sudden you're in this situation where it's a little bit tough to figure out what I want to do. Luckily, I have been blessed with the kind of soul of a boss who has given me an opportunity to take off a little bit early and get downtown and see my mom and really made a strong point that this was more important. My mom and her health was more important than some of the work that I've been doing. And so I really have appreciated that.

I think initially, you know, starting a new job, I've already started to kind of build up that trust that work is going to get done, that the things are going to happen. And I think that that goes hand in hand with the reciprocated trust of, hey, it's important and the work is going to be the work and we're going to get it done. But obviously your mom's health is more important. And so it has really helped me get to a point in my life where I feel like I can develop that trust pretty quick, but I also know what I need and know what to ask for.

And sometimes that just comes over time. Sometimes you know that right away. I think for me it was more of a learned behavior, right? I set those expectations early. I talked about making sure that I had time for the things that I wanted to do personally in my life, but also professionally. And so having that real strong work-life balance is really important. I think setting those clear expectations. But above all, I think the first thing that everyone needs to do is just reflect. Reflect on the things that are important to you.

Reflect on the values that are not negotiable. What are the things that you are not willing to sacrifice for some of the things that they might draw you away from at work? And really thinking about those clear expectations that you set from the get-go of, hey, I have these things that are really important to me. These are values that I won't flex, and making sure that those are clearly understood by not just your boss, And I think asking your team the same, right? What are the things that are important to you?

What are the things that, hey, if I know you're going to do this thing, that I'm not going to pressure you to get that work done because you have something that you really want to accomplish or do or have on your plate, right? And so thinking about some of those things I think is really important too. positive psychology website that sometimes I visit just purely for positivity and to learn a little bit more about creating safe spaces and positivity in the workplace and in your personal lives. And they talk about seven different boundaries in there.

And I certainly can share a couple of the kind of diagrams that I have that I think are really helpful when you're looking at both setting clear expectations for a work life balance, but also boundaries around what you want to stretch on and what maybe is like I said not negotiable and so there are things like time, your mental well-being, your physical well-being, your emotional well-being, right? Conversational, internal, material. So there's these different areas and I'm not going obviously going to go into all of them, but I find that that is really helpful when you're sitting down and you're thinking about the things that you are willing to flex in your work and life balance.

And always remembering that you get vacation for a reason, right? You get to recharge, you get to reset, rebalance, reflect all the things that are really order to keep you as a productive and healthy human being. And so remembering that that's okay, that's what it's there for. And so that's definitely another thing that I've been really thinking about as I've kind of been in this situation that I'm in and that those things are more important to me. Not that I don't need to make money, right? Not that I don't want to work and challenge myself and use my brain, but there are certain times that we need to just stop and reflect and think about what's the most important in the moment that we're in.

I encourage you to do that. Hopefully you got a little takeaway. I am working from home today but heading down to the hospital this afternoon to see my mom and I talked to her this morning. She's a spitfire. She's cracking jokes and the nurses love her. So I know that she's in really good hands and she's in really good spirits. So I appreciate any prayers you can send our way and I am very excited and happy that you were able to come today. I love being here. This is a safe and comfortable space and I feel very much included in this community and so I thank you all for that and hope that you enjoy the rest of your afternoon and you have an opportunity to get out, maybe get into any sunshine that you might have.

Thank you so much for coming. Have a wonderful afternoon.