7 Ways to Create Work-Life Boundaries as a New Mom
Takeaway: Implementing work-life boundaries is crucial for reducing stress and finding balance as a new mom.
As a new mom, you probably already know how challenging it is to balance your new life. Everyone wants something from you all the time, and the exhaustion of keeping it all together is starting to wear on you.
As a therapist who specializes in people stuck in cycles of anxiety, people-pleasing, and perfectionism, I see you. I’m also a working mom myself – and a recovering people-pleaser. If you’re like most of my clients, you’re likely trying to keep everyone around you happy by putting your own needs dead last. (Sound familiar? Check out my latest article on how to overcome the trifecta of new mom guilt, anxiety, and people-pleasing.)
So what can you actually do about creating healthy boundaries and finding more peace and balance in your life? Unfortunately, it’s much easier said than done. That’s why I’m giving you seven tips that you can implement right away.
New Mom Work-Life Balance
Starting small makes a huge difference. The last thing you need is another huge and daunting thing on your plate. Making bite-sized changes helps you avoid overwhelm and keeps your goals manageable.
I know it can be difficult to give yourself permission to do anything for yourself. Therefore, hear it from me: I give you full permission to create work-life boundaries for yourself.
Choose just one or two of the following work-life boundary tips and implement them over a few weeks. See how it feels, and let the habit integrate and settle before moving onto the next thing. If you take on too much at once, it can be easy to set yourself up for failure and feel even worse. Remind yourself that regaining control of your work-life balance and your mental health is a slow-moving process, not a race to the finish line.
7 Tips To Reduce Your Working Mom Struggles
Here are seven tips to get you started on your path to reduced anxiety, stress, resentment, and overwhelm.
1. Give yourself permission to take care of your needs.
Again: this is easier said than done. To integrate this permission, try this:
Open your phone.
Create an alarm - make it for first thing after your wake up alarm.
Name the alarm, “My needs are important too” or “My needs matter as much as everyone else’s.”
Set the alarm to repeat every day. Have it repeat throughout the day if you’d like.
When the alarm goes off, say those words out loud slowly 3-5 times, with a breath in between each repetition.
If you do this every day, you will begin to rewire your brain for paying attention to your needs and self-care before defaulting to everyone else’s first.
2. Repeat affirmations to take care of yourself
Repeating affirmations aloud to yourself can help rewire your nervous system and reduce your people-pleasing and perfectionist tendencies.
“I can release control of ___”
“I am safe”
“I don’t have to do it all”
“I am enough”
“My needs matter”
Add some of these into your daily routine with phone alarms, sticky notes, phone lock-screen/computer desktop backgrounds, and anywhere else you’ll see them regularly.
Doing just this little thing to begin prioritizing yourself will help you take baby steps toward managing your anxiety and stress.
3. Instate an away message on your email
You don’t always need to be available at the drop of a hat. Setting up an away message on your email after work hours and during vacation time can help dial down your stress around response times.
An away message should contain basic information on how long you’ll be unavailable for or when the sender can expect to hear back from you. That way, they’ll know what to expect and won’t be waiting around wondering where you are. Voilà – less stress for you and for them.
4. Turn off notifications
As a working mother, it can feel like everyone needs something from you All. The. Time. It can also feel like everyone else’s needs are urgent and must be met right this minute. Not only is this stressful, but it can make you feel overloaded and resentful – and give you no time to yourself.
Getting constant dings from your phone can leave you feeling completely frazzled. Phone notifications can increase anxiety and physiological markers of stress, such as the stress hormone cortisol. And using your phone less leads to improved mood and well-being.
To help reduce some of your stress around meeting other people’s needs, try turning off your phone notifications whenever you can. When you aren’t at work, set your phone to silent and turn off notifications for work chats and emails. And when you are at work, ask yourself if you actually need to receive notifications for everything. For instance, do you really need email notifications on your phone if you’re checking email regularly on your computer? Reducing your overall level of pings, buzzes, and dings can make a big difference in how you feel.
4. Schedule phone-free time
It’s no secret that too much cell phone use reduces both physical and mental well-being. You likely already know this – but I’m willing to bet you don’t have much phone-free time in your day.
To remedy this, try putting your phone away for short amounts of time each day or in longer chunks throughout the week. For instance, put your phone away at dinnertime or an hour before bed. Or declare each Sunday morning, for instance, a phone-free time.
When you put your phone away, I’m talking completely out of sight (e.g. in a drawer) and ideally in another room if possible, so you can’t grab it without thinking. Set that email away message and focus on being present with your family or friends.
It’s also important to give yourself phone-free alone time. Instead of scrolling or hastily replying to emails, try giving yourself a distraction-free environment and see how that feels.
5. Block out your calendar
Set aside time for yourself during the day to take needed breaks. Block out your full lunch hour, for example, to make sure nothing else is scheduled during that time. Block out short breaks for yourself throughout the day as well. You can also block off the end of your workday to avoid getting caught up in something as you’re trying to head home at the end of the day.
Additionally, try and keep your schedule as pared down as you can. For instance, decline superfluous or unnecessary meetings when possible. This will free up your time to focus on more important home or work tasks.
6. Be assertive with your boss
Learn to set boundaries and ask for what you need from your boss. I know it can feel impossible to say no or ask for anything, especially help, but ask yourself this: would you rather continue being burned out, stressed out, and exhausted, or is it worth your time, energy, and sanity to learn to be more assertive?
Being more assertive can feel scary, but you can take baby steps. You don’t have to jump into saying no to everything. You can simply readjust some parameters. For instance, if you have a big project coming up, ask for more time than you’d normally take to complete it.
Or if you have a high workload and get assigned something new, ask your boss what they expect you to prioritize. This sends them the message that everything can’t be a priority – something’s got to give. You’re a human, not a machine.
7. Change your language
As a recovering people pleaser, it can be helpful to shift your language around agreeing to take on extra work. The hardest thing for many of my people-pleasing and overachieving working mom clients is the idea of disappointing someone. So they often say ‘yes’ to everything immediately and then get overloaded and stressed.
The next time someone asks you to do something, instead of saying “yes” right away, try saying, “I’m not sure; let me get back to you on that.” That gives you a pause to check in with yourself about your true capacity. Do you actually have the bandwidth to do what you’ve been asked? If not, tell them it will have to wait.
Work With Me to Create More Balance in Your Life
Creating work-life boundaries is no easy feat. But with time, patience, and the right support, you can do it. And I’ve created a program to help get you there.
Path to Peace, my live 7-week online program, helps give you tools to cope with and work through anxiety, people-pleasing, and burnout. I developed this program using all the same strategies and tools that helped me recover from people-pleasing and gain more control over my life.
You’ll learn how to:
Create sustainable work-life balance
Challenge unhelpful patterns and beliefs
Learn how to implement healthy boundaries
Dial down self-criticism
Ease that constant anxiety
Gain control over your stresses
Say no with more ease and less guilt
Align your actions with your values
You’ll even get a step-by-step curated guide to implement everyday self-care rituals. This program is for you if you’re tired of feeling burned out, resentful, and overwhelmed all the time and are ready to learn how to say goodbye to your anxiety and people-pleasing habits.
You don’t have to deal with the trials and stresses of being a working mom alone. Join me in overcoming your anxieties and finding peace in your life. Check out all the details for the course right here.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Justine Carino
Justine is a licensed mental health counselor with a private practice in White Plains, NY. She helps teenagers, young adults and families struggling with anxiety, depression, family conflict and relationship issues. Justine is also the host of the podcast Thoughts From the Couch.
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