Say No to Stress and Yes to You

For some of us the relationships we develop at work play an influential role in our lives and for others it's our relationship with work that gets in the way of those relationships which we deem important or influential. When the stink of a bad day comes home with you, steals your happiness and negatively impacts your personal life, it may be time to reconsider your work/life boundaries. Creating appropriate boundaries and sticking to them is an important practice to include in your career growth objectives. Ensuring that you have proper work/life boundaries is a necessity that can easily be overlooked. Not using your vacation time or always working late can manifest in your life in many ways and before you know it your relationships at home start to take a toll.

Of course, depending upon the nature of your work your boundaries will look different. If you own your own company, you have to remind yourself that taking a break from your business could provide you with an opportunity to not only relax, but to also reflect and refresh. When you're employed by someone else many times deadlines and due dates are out of your hands, but what you do have control over is how you respond to those dates and deadlines. The same approach can be applied for those of us still in school. Stay away from procrastination and get your work done early so you can have more time for yourself. If you're in a job where it feels like the work never stops, speak up for yourself, take days off, or plan a getaway (even if it's to stay home in your pj's, eat waffles all day and watch movies).

As a society we don't seem to equally value self-care as we do hard work, we like to read about being happy, but struggle to find the time to take care of ourselves. Identifying and implementing boundaries at the workplace or in school is a nice way to start taking care of yourself and protecting your important relationships.