Anyone for Cricket? And what can we learn about boundaries?

I love Cricket, and have had the pleasure of working with the ECB and various County Cricket Clubs over the years. As this year’s season gets under way, I’ve been reflecting on the concept of ‘boundaries’. Not just cricket boundaries, but personal and work boundaries, and how ‘boundaries’ might be holding you back in your business or impacting on your wellbeing.

So, how are your boundaries?

Let’s break it down.

Firstly, the definition of a boundary is simply: ‘A limit or edge that defines you as separate to others’. Healthy boundaries define what is appropriate behaviour in our relationships, to keep both parties safe. Setting healthy boundaries is crucial for self-care and positive relationships personally, at work, and in business.

Applying this to your personal well-being – it can help to ask yourself questions like: How well do I protect my personal wellbeing? How in control am I? Is my balance between work and life how I want it to be? Be honest with yourself, do you have a clear sense of non-working time, or are you up all night checking emails?

Without healthy personal boundaries, you could be heading for trouble, not just in terms of losing your way, but also potentially in terms of becoming overloaded and burning out. Burnout can be serious and can easily creep up on you, especially when you are busy, working flexibly, have a strong work ethic, sense of achievement, and take pride in what you do. These are all great things, however, be sure to check in with yourself about how you are feeling and make sure that you have healthy boundaries in place, to protect your well-being.

At Blue Tree Consulting, we place a high priority on creating the right environment for people and organisations to thrive, and this starts with its vision and values. Values are a very important part of creating the right workplace culture and if values are not aligned in an organisation - however big or small, this can cause tensions and issues.

We can help both employees and employers here, starting with a diagnostic and using a values based tool that can help to voice some of these challenges and concerns. We work with senior and middle management teams to help align the culture of the business with its values, helping them navigate these often choppy waters.

On a more personal level, we also use the world renowned psychometric tool, Insights Discovery, which helps individuals to increase their self-awareness, reaffirm preferences and show them how to problem solve, as well as effectively engage and communicate with others. You can find our more about Insights Discovery here.

We find it very effective, and as a background for executive coaching, which can be used to support individuals and help them to become more aware of their own values, their boundaries and learning how to say ‘no’.

This kind of work helps people to become aware of their boundaries, between work and life, their priorities for family, down-time and fun, and helps them to manage them. The knock on effect is better relationships at work, happier, more productive teams and the opportunity for people to better align with who they really are and find new strengths and talents to bring to the business.

So, if you love cricket like me, next time you watch the game (or even if you don’t), ask yourself - how are boundaries? And more importantly, what are you going to do about them?