Employee Wellbeing

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Employee Wellbeing: How to Set Healthy Boundaries and Thrive at Work

 

Setting healthy boundaries is essential for employee wellbeing. Without them, work can become too stressful, responsibilities can become overwhelming, and performance can suffer. Even burnout, resentment, and lack of work-life balance are mostly consequences of poor boundaries. 

So, how can you take care of your well-being while working? Learn about all factors that can make you feel more confident and satisfied with your professional life. 

 

What Is Employee Wellbeing?

As an employee, you likely want to feel positive about your work and coworkers. If you work at a job you dislike, can’t stand your boss, or don’t get along well with your coworkers, your employee wellbeing will suffer. In other words, you will notice that your overall state is negative. This implies that your professional life has affected your mental, physical, or emotional health. Symptoms can vary from employee to employee, yet it’s inevitable to start feeling unmotivated or unsatisfied with your professional situation. 

For some, that could mean that they start avoiding talking to their coworkers and superiors, while for others it can mean that they start looking for a new job. However, setting clear, healthy boundaries at work helps you prevent such scenarios. You will want to set clear boundaries for yourself when it comes to your work-life balance, and you will also need to set boundaries with everyone else.

This is how you can set boundaries for yourself to ensure your well-being:

  • Define clear work hours and communicate your availability to others. 
  • Politely decline tasks that overload you or fall outside your role.
  • Use your breaks to stretch, walk, go outside, or have a conversation with people you care about. 
  • Prioritize tasks and order them by their urgency status, concentration level, and duration.
  • Schedule hobbies, exercise, and social time after work hours, and treat them like your meetings.
  • Pay attention to how you feel at work and take extra care of yourself when you feel tired or stressed.

This is how you can set boundaries with others to ensure your wellbeing:

  • Be clear and direct about your needs and expectations. 
  • When you say “no,” don’t overexplain or try to compensate.
  • Consider declining unnecessary meetings or proposing shorter agendas.
  • Let others know how and when you prefer to be contacted.
  • Be respectful to others, yet be assertive and firm. 
  • Lead by example and make sure you practice what you require from others. 

 

How Boundaries Help Your Well-being

As you can see, boundaries are crucial if you want to be fulfilled at work. You can think of them as rules of the game that allow you to win every time. When your well-being is affected, you will have less bandwidth to perform well, communicate clearly, and have the motivation to make the most of your personal life. 

As you contemplate setting boundaries at work, you may come across several challenges. For instance, maybe you’ve been available to everyone, even outside work hours, so you’d respond to emails really late at night. Or, you’ve been taking on extra tasks without pushback. 

Saying “no” for the first few times can seem terrifying. However, if you want to feel well and be satisfied with your life choices, including your work, you will have to practice saying it. Working from home may make it harder to set boundaries, as your office and personal time are not clearly separated. 

Give yourself some time to adjust to the new plan of prioritizing your well-being. You can even notify your colleagues and tell them that you want to continue as an excellent professional, so you want to do all it takes to maintain your well-being. 

Here is how boundaries at work directly support your well-being:

  • Encourages emotional healt,h reduces resentment and frustration
  • Reduce stress by limiting overwork and availability to preserve energy
  • Boundaries around meetings, emails, and interruptions help you focus
  • Encouraging self-respect reinforces your self-worth and builds confidence
  • Maintaining work-life balance allows you to fully recharge
  • Clear boundaries reduce workplace conflict and misunderstandings
  • Respecting time allows for rest, exercise, and proper nutrition
  • Limiting yourself helps you prioritize and avoid exhaustion-related mistakes.
  • Healthy boundaries motivate and engage, not drain

 

Conclusion 

Employee well-being helps you have a successful career and be a person living a fulfilled life. When you take care of yourself in a professional environment, it’s much easier to achieve success, be happy at your work, and reduce stress. Whatever your current work situation is, keep in mind that a lot of it is in your hands. You can improve how you feel significantly by deciding to prioritize your well-being from now on. At first, it may feel awkward, but as you practice the above-mentioned techniques, you’ll adjust to the new routine. Not to mention that your coworkers will also love this new, improved version of you. 

To inquire about how we can provide mental health and well-being coaching services for your employees, please email us at info@lcatllc.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does employee well-being actually mean?

Employee well-being goes beyond physical health and includes mental, emotional, and social well-being, as well as work-life balance. It’s about how supported, respected, and fulfilled employees feel in their work environment.

Why is employee wellbeing important?

Strong well-being reduces stress, prevents burnout, and improves overall job satisfaction by boosting productivity, creativity, and retention.

How can I improve my well-being at work as an employee?

There are many ways to set healthy boundaries at work as an employee. Start by taking regular breaks to recharge and communicating openly about your needs. Make sure you know what matters to you and respect it yourself first, so others can do the same.

 

About Life Coaching and Therapy

Life Coaching and Therapy (LCAT) is a therapy and coaching practice that transforms our clients lives through our flexibility multi-technique approach and pleasure-skills training provided by systematically trained and licensed therapists!

Get to know our founder and owner, Amanda Pasciucco, (a.k.a. The Sex Healer) PhD, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST) who has developed innovative therapy programs and therapy videos that get results.

Our team of compassionate, licensed therapists and certified sex therapists helps all clients who visit us for a variety of personal, relationship, intimacy and sex problems.

LCAT provides on-site appointments, as well as video chat and text therapy programs.

Learn more about how LCAT can help improve your life at What We Do.

Impulsive Decision Making

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How to Break Free from Impulsive Decision Making

 

We’re all guilty of impulsive decision-making occasionally, yet this behavior can have serious consequences if not managed properly. If you’re unable to pause and think about whether a decision you are making is right for you or not, this article is the right place to start making positive changes. 

Acting quickly without weighing long-term consequences can have an impact on your finances, relationships, health, and career. However, noticing its consequences is one thing, and understanding why you are impulsive when making a decision and how to take back control is another. 

 

Understanding Impulsive Decision Making

Whenever you make a choice quickly and are driven by emotions or external triggers instead of rationally deciding whether or not you need something, you are making an impulsive decision. The idea is not to get rid of impulsive decision-making completely, as occasionally it is a wonderful way to motivate us to step outside of our comfort zone. However, if you’re making decisions without carefully considering the consequences, it can have a major impact on your life. 

Why are some people more impulsive than others? Several factors can contribute to your level of impulsivity, yet the most relevant is dopamine. Among other functions, this hormone is responsible for seeking external pleasures to feel satisfied (the reward and pleasure system). Dopamine makes us more likely to repeat behaviors that make our brains feel good. 

It is important to be aware that instant gratification can have negative consequences as well. Assume you enjoy eating chocolate and find that it makes you feel better every time. We are aware that eating a lot of chocolate on a daily basis will have negative health consequences. This principle can be applied to every other area of your life.

We make impulsive decisions because we’re bored and seek excitement, or maybe we feel pressured by our environment. Others tend to be impulsive because the idea of analyzing all the factors before making a decision is exhausting. Regardless of your trigger, it’s important to distinguish between healthy spontaneity and harmful impulsivity. 

 

The Cost of Impulsive Decisions

Unfortunately, impulsive decision-making can cause a lot of harm in a person’s life. If you’re guided by short-term relief, you could find yourself facing long-term consequences. For instance, making an impulsive decision to move to a country you’ve never visited before or quitting your job without organizing your financial situation first can all backfire. 

Impulsive decisions are expensive, whether you’re buying things you don’t need or joining activities just because others expect you to join. Not being able to reject suggestions or your own need to have something could lead to overspending and debt. 

Another thing to consider is the emotional cost of impulsive decision-making. If you buy things expecting they’ll change your life, you probably end up disappointed most of the time. People who make impulsive decisions often feel regret, self-guilt, or disappointment in themselves. Impulsive behavior can also include engaging in a discussion with a friend or a partner because you feel tired or stressed from work. Hurting the feelings of the person you care about can be a high cost of acting impulsively. 

Understanding the consequences of such behavior is crucial to changing it. The clearer you see the impact impulsive decision-making has on your life, the easier it will be to start implementing positive changes. 

 

Recognizing Your Impulse Triggers

Once your impulsive decisions start to have a toll on your life, you’ll probably start feeling motivated to do something about it. The first step in breaking free from impulsive decision-making is to recognize your triggers. 

Think about the last time you made an impulsive decision. What had led you to it? What is a common pattern when you’re impulsively deciding about something? You can spend some time contemplating it or write it down. Identifying patterns in your impulsive behavior is crucial to changing this behavior for good. 

When it comes to common triggers, think about these below: 

  • Emotional triggers include feelings of anger, anxiety, sadness, and loneliness, among others. 
  • Situational triggers include things like sales, deadlines, and social pressure, among others.
  • Biological triggers include hunger, fatigue, and hormonal shifts, among others. 

If none of these triggers resonate with you, use them as guidelines the next time you make an impulsive decision. Just by knowing the list of common triggers, you can recognize them more easily in your behavior the next time you’re impulsive. 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What causes impulsive decision-making?

Strong emotions, brain chemistry, or external factors, such as pressure, deadlines, or tempting offers, often trigger impulsive decisions. Fatigue, hunger, or alcohol can also lower self-control and increase impulsivity.

Is impulsive decision-making always bad?

Impulsive decision-making is not always “bad.” It can help you react accordingly in an emergency or seize an unexpected opportunity. However, if you make all your life decisions impulsively, you may also encounter various negative consequences.

How is impulsive decision-making different from being spontaneous?

When you are spontaneous, you are open to new experiences and flexible, yet still aligned with values in your life. Impulsivity, on the other hand, is reactive and driven by urges; it often disregards consequences. 

 

From Weakness to Wisdom

After a while, making one impulsive decision after another can begin draining your energy and stressing you out. That is why recognizing your impulse triggers can help you turn your weakness into wisdom. Don’t waste your time on blaming yourself for your past decisions or the impact your impulsivity had on your life. Focus all your energy on changing your impulsive behavior every day. 

Many techniques can be quite useful once you decide to work on your impulsive decision-making, such as:

  • 5-minute rule of silence and passivity before making a decision
  • Deep breathing and grounding to calm the nervous system
  • Placing sticky notes or setting reminders on your phone to think well before making a decision
  • Observe your urges to make a decision and write down or describe how it feels
  • Think of decision rules that have to be followed in order to make a decision
  • Visualization of long-term consequences before acting
  • Therapy focused on taking accountability for your impulsivity and healing from it

 

Conclusion

Impulsive decision-making can turn your life upside down, no matter how much you try to apologize or make amends after the decision has been made. To stop this behavior, you must examine what causes you to make these decisions and how they affect you and others. You may need someone else to help you spot them! Gaining control over your decision-making process will enable you to make choices that align with your well-being. 

 

About Life Coaching and Therapy

Life Coaching and Therapy (LCAT) is a therapy and coaching practice that transforms our clients lives through our flexibility multi-technique approach and pleasure-skills training provided by systematically trained and licensed therapists!

Get to know our founder and owner, Amanda Pasciucco, (a.k.a. The Sex Healer) PhD, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST) who has developed innovative therapy programs and therapy videos that get results.

Our team of compassionate, licensed therapists and certified sex therapists helps all clients who visit us for a variety of personal, relationship, intimacy and sex problems.

LCAT provides on-site appointments, as well as video chat and text therapy programs.

Learn more about how LCAT can help improve your life at What We Do.