13 How to Set Boundaries without Feeling Guilty

Setting Boundaries at Work: How to Lead with Clarity, Confidence, and Self-Respect | Joyfully Unstoppable Podcast

If you’ve ever found yourself saying yes when you wanted to say no—or overexplaining just to keep the peace—this episode is for you.

In today’s episode of Joyfully Unstoppable, we’re talking all about setting boundaries at work. You’ll learn how to set clear, confident boundaries without guilt, burnout, or the need to justify your every decision. We’ll explore the No JADE framework (don’t Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain), plus practical work boundaries examples you can start using right away.

Whether you’re navigating nonstop emails, last-minute meetings, or the pressure to always be available, this episode will help you reclaim your time, energy, and leadership voice.

✨ Topics covered:
 — Why boundaries matter for sustainable leadership
 — How to set boundaries at work without overexplaining
 — Work boundaries examples that are kind and clear
 — What really happens when you start honoring your limits

💡 You deserve to lead with joy, clarity, and confidence. Let’s make space for the leadership—and life—you actually want.

🎧 Listen now and don’t forget to subscribe for more tools to help you lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim your joy.

Joyfully Unstoppable—helping women reconnect with what matters most.

Subscribe so you never miss an episode!

✨ Let’s stay connected
Want more support as you lead with clarity, confidence, and joy? Here’s how we can keep growing together:

📝 Download the Burnout Recovery Checklist!
👩🏽‍🤝‍👩🏾 Join the Women Lead Well Community on Facebook!
📋 Join the Waitlist for Frantic to Flourishing!
🌿 Meet Becky – Get to know the heart behind the mic
💼 Coaching for Women Leaders – Ready for personalized support? Explore 1:1 coaching
📚 Free Leadership Resources – Practical tools to help you lead (and live) well
🏡 Explore Women Lead Well – Learn more about Women Lead Well and everything we offer

Transcript

0:06

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to lead boldly, live lightly, and reclaim their joy. Whether you're leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I am so glad you've found us. I'm your host, Becky Ham leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well after years of high level leadership. I discovered that success does not have to come at the cost of your peace, your values, or your wellbeing. Each week, we'll explore what it means to lead with clarity, confidence, and authenticity. Even in a world that tells you to hustle harder, improve your worth, you carry a lot. Let's help it feel lighter. Okay, my friend. I know you smart. I know you're capable. I know you care deeply, but if you are like a lot of women leaders, you have also felt the quiet resentment of constantly being on. You've stayed late again, you've said yes when you wanted to say no, or you've absorbed someone else's emergency as your own. Does any of that sound familiar? Yeah, yeah, I know. So last week we talked about what it meant to be overwhelmed and what you can do to overcome overwhelm, and I talked about the value of boundaries and yeah, I was not shocked when I heard from people that that boundary part is scary. And so that is what we're gonna talk about today, setting boundaries at work, because my friends, please hear me when I say this is not about being inflexible. It's not about being cold. It is certainly not about breaking relationships. It's about leading from a place of clarity, of confidence and self respect, because this is the truth. Boundaries are not barriers to connection. They are the foundation of healthy relationships. So today we're gonna explore why boundaries matter for sustainable leadership, how to set boundaries without over explaining. We're gonna talk about a jade. We're boundary, we're gonna look at some real life work boundaries. To give you an example of the sorts of things that, that you could do and how these practices can help you lead with more joy. And more ease. I wanna start though, by taking a step back and looking at the cost of our blind spots to boundaries or our cost of this resistance that many of us have to boundaries. And so let's be frank. Women, especially women in leadership roles, are often conditioned to be accommodating, available. Agreeable. We are praised for being team players and problem solvers, and we are criticized when we are too independent or when people see us not sacrificing for someone else. The reality is when that goes unchecked, you know what I'm gonna say? It can become chronic over-functioning. Right, and that is unhealthy. When you don't have healthy boundaries at work, you can find yourself saying yes. When your whole body is screaming, no. You can find yourself doing everybody else's job, along with your own, staying late to prove your value. Stretching yourself thin just to maintain the peace, right? The lack of boundaries contributes to that overwhelm we talked about last week. You can start to feel resentful, invisible, completely burned out. A lack of boundaries. It leads to disconnection, and not just disconnection from other people, but disconnection from yourself. When you are not clear with your limits to yourself and to others, your leadership becomes reactive. It becomes strained, it becomes unsustainable, but when your boundaries are clear. Everything shifts. You create space where you can think deeply, you can lead wisely, right? We talked about you're putting too much of yourself out. This brings good boundaries, brings you back to yourself, to your grounded, safe place. This allows you to make better decisions. You become a better leader. You show up with your true, authentic presence. You begin to model the kind of leadership that is both strong and self-honoring, and your team and the people around you will notice it and they'll respond to it well, so, yay. That sounds great. Becky. How in the world do I possibly do that? Well, let's talk about it. I want us to talk about how to set boundaries at work. Without explaining yourself to death, I mentioned a jade boundary, so we'll get here in a second. One of the most common mistakes that women can make when setting boundaries is they feel the need to explain, to justify, to defend the boundary, right? This leads to what is called jade behavior. Jade is an acronym for justifying, arguing, defending, or explaining. And we kind of do it by default, right? And it feels polite in the moment, but it actually undermines our clarity and our authority. So know Jade, here's how you set boundaries at work with the No Jade approach. Step one. Well, step one is always regulate your nervous system. So do that first. Do your breathing. Maybe step outside, do what you need to do so you feel safe in your body. Okay, now you've done that Next step. Know your limit. Start by identifying what's not working. Pay attention to where you feel drained. Those energy vampires. Right? Where do you feel scattered or frustrated that. It feels yucky, but it is often a signal that a boundary is needed, that you haven't put something in place to protect your energy and your peace. So once you've named the issue and friend, like, look, you can laundry list out all the things that leave you frustrated and burned out and scattered and drained. Great. If you did the exercise from last week, you've already done a bit of this, but you could also just pick one. Just pick one place where you have noticed in yourself. Some resentment you've noticed in yourself, some frustration or some, um, flurry in the brain. You can't get present. Okay? Just pick, just pick the one, right? We're just practicing. We're starting out. It's not perfection, it's just progress. Pick the one thing, name it, and decide what your limit is. If you're feeling frustrated, if you're feeling resentful, if you're feeling overextended. Okay, well, what would solve that? Where could you be back in your power, in your energy, feeling good about yourself? Next, once you've identified it, just state it. Just say it clearly. Use direct, respectful language. Let me give you an example. A clear boundary, a no Jade boundary. No justifying, no arguing. No defending. No explaining is not, oh, I'm so sorry. You know I've got a lot going on right now, and I know this is super important to you. I really hate to say, no, friend. No, you don't need any of that. All you gotta say is, I'm not available after 5:00 PM I need to leave work at four 30 to get my kids every day. Whatever it is, you just state the fact. Boom. And that is the boundary. That's the container. No apologies, no over-explaining just a clear, calm statement of truth. And in fact, the fewer words you use, the more powerful the message becomes. Now, next up, I want you to resist the urge to Jade. When it comes in, and it will, particularly in the beginning if you're not used to, to setting boundaries and feeling confident about it. When you feel the urge to justify, argue, defend, explain. Just pause. Just take that deep breath in, hold it, release it. Remind yourself that your value does not depend on how well you justify your boundaries. Your boundaries are what they are, right? You don't need to justify them for to exist, right? I don't need to explain. I need to breathe in order to put oxygen in my lungs and live. I just, I breathe right. You are allowed to need rest, focus, time, clear. Whatever it is that you need, that you're setting the boundary for. You do not need to justify the decision. You do not need to argue your perspective. You do not need to defend your schedule or defend your need for the boundary. You do not need to explain yourself. You just say what's true and hold there. I don't want you to think that you set this boundary and you're just abrupt and terse and curtain. No, I'm not available. you can hold a boundary with warmth, right? You can say, I'm not available after five. Thanks for understanding. You're not explaining, you're thinking, you're showing gratitude. Yay. Builds relationship. Lovely. That goes a long way. What I'm saying is don't confuse being kind with being unclear. Your clarity is not cruelty, it's leadership. Right. Right. We talked about boundaries or the instruction manuals for healthy relationships. You are leading in your relationship with the individual. You're setting the boundary with. that clarity is a gift. The more you practice, the more natural it becomes. And I know it might feel uncomfortable at first, but it does get more natural over time. And here's the thing, this is the joy of it. Every time you honor your limit, every time you set a boundary and then you hold that boundary, right, you don't set a boundary. And then. Lets people run all over it. You set the boundary and the boundary is the boundary. Every time you do that, you build trust with yourself. Awesome, right? Every time you do that, you are signaling to yourself, to your mind, to your body, to that inner critic, right? Who always likes to show up. You are signaling to yourself. I, I take care of myself. I show up for myself. I can rely on myself'cause I'm gonna do what I say I do. I set the boundary, I hold the boundary. Beautiful. So here are some common examples of boundaries and I'm giving'em in a work context, but, but you can translate this to personal life as well. Whatever you need, right? Wherever you need boundaries in your life. And I'm giving you these as with the no Jade principle in mind. So they are short, they're clear, they're still compassionate, and we're gonna start with time boundaries. Instead of leaving your availability open-ended. So people just request your time and you haven't told them when you're actually available. You could say, I don't take meetings after 3:00 PM I'm unavailable to stay late today. I've already said the, like, I can't have any meetings after five o'clock. Um, I have told my team in the past. It doesn't work for me to, to show up and start having meetings at eight 30 in the morning. Don't schedule any meetings before 10:00 AM unless it's urgent. Why is that? Because my brain does its most creative work first thing in the morning. If I'm stuck in meetings, my brain isn't, isn't doing what it's best oriented to do. During that time, I can sit and talk and we can have that back and forth after about 10:00 AM but before 10:00 AM my brain needs to dive deep. And I did explain that to my team because that was part of my mentoring them. Right? So Jade has no explanations, but I will just caveat that to say that as a leader, it's not terrible to explain your logic to your team for things because you're helping to mentor and develop them. Okay? We've talked about time boundaries. Let's spend a minute on energy boundaries. And so let's say you need to protect your focus, avoid unnecessary overload. I had already mentioned like my deep brain work is first thing in the morning, and so I would protect my calendar for that. So you could say, I'm not available for a pop-in meeting. My time is blocked on my calendar, and so if it says I'm blocked, then I'm not available for you to just stop by. Or you could say, that's not something I can take on right now. Doesn't get any simpler than that, right? If someone tries to shift work onto you, that doesn't align with your role, you can say, I'm not the right person for this. Have you asked so and so? Right? Next up, let's talk about communication boundaries. They are also critical. These help set the expectations around how and when people interact with you. For example, you might say, and this I think is always a great one. Let's put that into writing for clarity, or let's pull this out of an email into an SOP or into the staff routing so that it doesn't get lost over time. You can say, I'm logging off now. I'll respond in the morning. These types of boundaries reinforce your professionalism because but you're not just taking care of yourself, you're taking care of the broader organization, the mission, the project, while preserving your mental space. The last type of boundary I want us to talk about are emotional boundaries. These are critical for psychological safety, and these can be a little dicey, so. If a conversation starts to veer into an area that you don't like, and I hear, I'm talking like gossip, passive aggression, that kind of thing, you can always say very clearly, uh, I don't engage in gossip, or I'm not comfortable with that tone. Now I fully recognize that for you to open your mouth and have those actual words come out. I don't engage in gossip. I'm not comfortable with your tone. That can sound. So blunt, right? That can sound woohoo scary. And I am being blunt here because I know you can always just change the subject, right? Somebody is gossiping. You don't like gossip. You can always just deflect by asking a question that takes the conversation in a different direction, and that is very polite, very gentile, very soft way to handle a situation you don't like. But what it doesn't do is set a boundary, You're just hoping you can like squirrel that person's attention away from what you don't wanna discuss the boundary. By being blunt and clear, that communicates with clarity unmistakably, that you are not available for gossip. You are not available for unprofessional behavior. And I'm telling you that is a pretty good boundary to have in the workplace, And so just being clear, again, not being mean, not being judgmental, but just to say, yeah, I don't do that. I don't, eh, I'm not interested in gossip. What about this other thing, You set the boundary and then you change the topic. Now, a colleague brings an emotionally charged issue to you. Something where they're worked up or maybe they've triggered you and so you're worked up about it. This comes up all the time. If we're talking about staffing issues or resourcing or anything where people feel, threatened in a way, you can always say something like, let's pick this back up. When emotions aren't running quite as high, you can say, you know, I'm not available for this conversation right now. I need a minute to, to engage in this constructively, Each of these examples demonstrate, you don't have to explain yourself, you just have to state it as clearly and concisely as possible, and you have to mean it. You have to say it with that calm clarity. And so it could be that before you say some of those bigger boundaries out loud. you start with some smaller boundaries because here's what's happens when you begin setting boundaries. You get your energy back, you stop feeling resentful. You're better able to focus. You can be more creative. You are more grounded. You trust yourself more, And you actually get more respect, not less, because people begin to understand what to expect from you. Your communication becomes clearer, your leadership is more consistent, and your team starts to feel that ripple effect of your stability. And so all of that is so important. And I want you to know that setting boundaries doesn't make you less committed. It makes you more sustainable, and that's what joyful, sustainable leadership is all about, right? And so what I would say, if the thought of setting a boundary still feels uncomfortable, I get it, man. That is okay. Start small. Don't start with the, oh, I could never imagine myself saying that out loud. Start with something smaller. You don't have to overhaul your entire schedule or say no to everything starting tomorrow. Just find one clear, confident boundary that you can set this week and then set it. And then I want you to DM me and tell me how it went.'cause it's gonna be good. And this week I want you to pay attention to where you feel most drained. Ask yourself. What boundary could help me feel more focused, more peaceful or empowered? Practicing that boundary out loud, no, Jade, no. Justifying, arguing, defending, or explaining. And here's a journal prompt that I'm gonna give you to help guide that reflection. Ask yourself, write about where do I feel the most resentment at work? Just answer that in a paragraph or two, What boundary could I try this week? Again, this, we're experimenting, we're seeing what works for us and what doesn't work. What boundary could I try this week to shift that dynamic and then do it? And if you're still nervous, if it still doesn't feel like anything, you could then reach out. DM me, We can talk about it. And, and I will, help you. You deserve to lead with clarity. You deserve to feel in control of your time and energy. You absolutely deserve to create a work life that honors your values and wellbeing. Boundaries are something that you can do. You can, even if you feel like you can't, I promise you can, and you can get to the place where that feels normal, where it feels good, where you are confident setting them. I will help you if you feel like you can't. Setting Boundaries at work is a leadership strategy and, and this is the key. It is a radical act of self-trust. It's one of the best gifts you can give yourself and to the people you lead. That's why I'm so passionate about it. So if this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend who's running on empty. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. I want you to make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss a single episode, because next week I'm gonna develop this theme of what it means to trust yourself as a leader, and you do not wanna miss it. You can also grab our free resources, like the Mental Load Reset, the Values Clarification exercise@womenleadwell.net, and LinkedIn, the show notes below. Remember. Joyful, sustainable and authentic leadership is possible. You deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Ham, and this is joyfully, unstoppable.