The world of startups is fuelled by anxious high-achievers. The types of folk willing to take on monumental challenges, with the odds stacked against them, whilst often earning significantly less than they could elsewhere. They carry the weight of the world and their company on their shoulders, and put themselves under huge amounts of pressure to surmount any obstacle that gets in their way. Although admirable to some, this self-imposed pressure to succeed often leads to a lack of boundaries - an inability to say no that creates the calendar of doom; the lack of time spent outside of work that takes its toll on relationships and other interests; the struggle to switch off that has you navigating the world in a hazy fog. So a lack of boundaries sucks. It’s not just detrimental to health and happiness either; it has massive implications for performance, so for those about to dismiss it as wellness stuff they don’t have time for, I’d say that learning to set healthy boundaries could be the single biggest thing you do to improve your professional success.

What do you mean by boundaries?

Boundaries are the terms of engagement that you set for yourself and others, that allow you to perform, to recover, to maintain your physical and mental health, to foster great relationships etc.

There are many different types of boundaries, including:

• Identity boundaries - what do you internalise as part of your identity? How much do you define yourself by what you do for work, for example?
• Work-life boundaries - what separation do you need between work and life? How much time do you want to devote to each?
• Personal behavioural boundaries - what are the things that you simply won’t do because they don’t serve you or align with your values/beliefs?
• External behavioural boundaries - what are the behaviours you expect from others, and what won’t you tolerate?

One important characteristic of boundaries though, is that you get to set them in accordance with your own beliefs and values so everyone’s boundaries will look different. If you don’t set them however, nobody else will do it for you.

Why is there such a lack of healthy boundary setting in startups?

It’s a complex web, but in my opinion there are three primary factors at play here:

1. Selection bias - the types of people drawn to startups and high-growth tech companies are also those prone to compromising on, or not setting their own boundaries.
2. The glamourised narrative of ‘hustle’ - we’ve fetishised the ‘hustle’ of startup life and made the idea of ‘hustle’ and ‘having healthy boundaries’ seem mutually exclusive. In short, the prevailing narrative is that a lack of boundaries is par for the course and in fact a competitive advantage.
3. Startups are harder - although I don’t agree that just hustling is the answer, there’s no doubt in my mind that startups are simply harder - they are more uncertain, more stressful, more demanding, more fast-paced - you name it, they’re more of it! The work in a startup feels like it will never be done, and guess what? It never is. So when you put a certain personality type in this high intensity environment, it’s no wonder that boundaries get redrawn, disappear, or fail to materialise altogether.

Now you might argue that I have it wrong, that what I’m observing is simply those who’ve drawn their boundaries differently to me, but it’s important to note that we’re not simply talking about work-life balance here. I know plenty of folks who work hard, and for long hours, but who I’d consider to have healthy boundaries - they’ve taken time to consider how they want to spend their time and they prioritise their time effectively in accordance with the things that are important to them. You can generally spot these people easily - they seem energised and intentional vs. the folk without boundaries who often look overwhelmed and worn out. In my experience, these people are the highest performers, but they’re also in the minority.

What are the consequences of not setting boundaries?