How to build personal boundaries at work: advice from a psychologist

It's great when you can discuss something with colleagues, laugh together at a funny situation or ask for advice. But not always in the team there are warm and friendly relationships. It happens that colleagues climb with questions, involve you in a discussion of topics that are unpleasant for you, or give unsolicited advice. This can be avoided by building personal boundaries. How to find them, says Viktor Stepanov, a corporate psychologist at Kontur:

“The old rule works here - treat others the way you would like to be treated. To respect your personal boundaries and generally notice them, communicate carefully with others and do not cross their boundaries. Otherwise, how will people understand that personal space and calmness is something meaningful to you?” he says.

The psychologist advises to avoid conflicts as much as possible - to firmly indicate to colleagues the topics that you do not want to discuss. And try to ignore attempts to connect you to the conversation. Sooner or later, your colleagues will get tired of your indifference and you will no longer be invited to discuss unpleasant topics.

“During conflicts, people often splash out negative emotions. And when a person is guided by emotions in a conflict, he is in the grip of cognitive distortions and interprets all thoughts not in favor of the opponent. And it may seem that there are reasons behind this. But most often this is not so — the person wants to get rid of the emotional burden, so he allows himself to say too much.If you feel that the statements violate your boundaries and offend you - say directly that you do not want to continue the conversation. You can return to the discussion when your colleague can cope with emotions and give out constructive answers," recalls Viktor Stepanov.

Another life hack is to ask colleagues not to disturb you during non-working hours on non-working issues. Perhaps the situation is critical and the truth needs help to solve the problem. But if the task is waiting until the next business day, warn a colleague that you will respond on a weekday. To prevent the situation from repeating itself in the future, teach colleagues to send messages with a delayed date.

Situations within the team are different. And if you can’t get away from a too annoying colleague on your own, it will not be superfluous to ask the manager to intervene. Perhaps it will help you find a way to solve the problem.