Do you get the Sunday Scaries…on a Saturday?

“I get the Sunday ‘scaries’ but I get them on a Saturday and sometimes even on a Friday”.

 I hear versions of this often from coaching clients who had gone from loving or at least enjoying their jobs to reaching the point of exhaustion and experiencing feelings of anxiety and dread about going back to work on Monday due to some or all of the following:

·      Working longer hours trying to keep all the balls in the air at work whilst feeling guilt at all the things they are not doing at home

·      A seemingly bottomless workload with increased expectations of availability

·      Extreme tiredness leaving people thinking they are doing nothing well

·      Trying to decipher unclear and/or unrealistic expectations of what is required of them

Sunday scaries, also known as the Sunday syndrome, Sunday blues, or Sunday evening feeling, refer to the anticipatory anxiety and dread that commonly occur on Sundays for employees as the weekend ends, and the work week resume on Monday. 

I’ve experienced a regular run of Sunday scaries a couple of times in my career; times when I was glad to see Friday come only to find that relief was short-lived as thoughts of the next week and everything I had to do would creep in by Saturday evening. Sometimes they would irritatingly creep in when I went to my Saturday morning yoga class!

What I was experiencing was ‘boundary collapse’ as defined in recent research by Nick Petrie, a leadership researcher. I allowed work to constantly intrude on my personal boundaries, if indeed I had any, meaning I couldn’t switch off at home and felt increasingly exhausted. This relentless cycle would see me getting more and more tired with no rest, more prone to catching infections (and still I would not rest), cancelling things that were important to me...just to get ahead of the workload.

What I learned over the years (too slowly!) and what research about burnout now shows us was that I needed and now have a boundary strategy.

A boundary strategy is a set of self defined mindset conditions and behaviours that allow me to protect my time when not working and also protect my head space and my physical/mental health.

As the pandemic arrived and we worked through the chaos, it was impossible to ignore the importance of boundaries. At the time, I was the Head of Education for a health care organisation. Pandemic guidelines required me to be in the building only when delivering education that could not be delivered online. There were many times I was working in the background at home and found it difficult to stop working or even close down the laptop.

When I acknowledged how unhealthy that was and how it would impact on the quality of what I was delivering to those who really needed it, I started putting quite firm boundaries in place. I needed a clear split between work and home to be effective.

That was a good start but as time went on and things started to get back to some semblance of ‘normality’ whatever that is, I became more of a ‘blended boundary’ person. I kept up some of the healthy habits I had I introduced of having a clear switch off time from work with a ritual that helped me transition to that.

For me, that transition from home to work was making a ‘to do’ list for the next day, shutting down the computer system, walking the dog and then washing my face when I returned to symbolically wash the work day off my face.

But...I also would not feel guilty if I decided to work on a particular evening or an occasional weekend morning, to prepare for an important training delivery the following week. The difference was that now this was an active choice for a defined reason rather than an anxiety based response to keep working on a hamster wheel, feeling tired with no clear reason why.

The research by Nick Petrie identified that there is likely an optimal level of boundary separation between work and home but that optimal level is different for each person and comes down to three factors.

1)  Personality
Perhaps you have a strong need to compartmentalise. When work thoughts or requests from our colleagues or managers encroach into our personal lives, it can feel like a violation and it’s easy to become resentful. However, others like the opportunity to mix and match. I started off very rigid in my boundaries but now I find myself comfortably settled in the mix and match camp.

For example, I have clients now who like to take time out in the middle of a day to do something that helps them perform better and stay healthy (e.g. a run, a walk, go to see a child in a concert) and then catch up on work later on.

Knowing yourself and how you work best will help you put appropriate boundaries in for yourself – not comparing them to others.

What does your personality prefer? A clear split? Blended boundaries?

2) The type of role you have

You may be reading this thinking, “this is all fine but I cannot have firm boundaries in my role”. That may well be true. For example, I work with people who have had to develop blended boundaries as they have to be on call, or are team leads for international teams. However, be honest about whether that applies to you. Most people’s roles do not require them to check email throughout the night. It can wait until 8am.

What I witness in coaching conversations is that many people could have far clearer boundaries and often it is our mindset that gets in our way, just as it was for me. This is where coaches like me come in as an objective thinking partner to work out what is realistic in your role and in your life.

3) Stage of Life
You may need certain boundaries if you have young children and are juggling responsibilities with a partner or alone. Or perhaps you have upward caring responsibilities. This will change as your life and circumstances change.

Consider: How does your stage of life influence your boundaries?

Now I’m self employed, it’s never been more important to have a boundary strategy – loving what I do and having responsibility for making my own money, it would be so easy to just keep working, working, working. But to be the best coach I can be to the people who trust me with their concerns, hopes and dreams, I need to have healthy working practices which means personal boundaries around work and non work. My boundary strategies work for me but I reassess regularly.

I’ve come to understand that boundary strategies are like seat belts. You need to adjust them to fit you. But you take a big risk if you choose to use nothing at all.

If you want a thinking partner to help you adjust your own boundary strategy, as just one step towards avoiding burnout, please do get in touch.