Speaker 1: Welcome to this video on boundary setting for graduate students. In this video, I'm going to talk about what boundaries are, why you need them, and give you different examples of the types of boundaries you should set for success as a grad student. Right after this intro, I'll get into it. Welcome to Grad Life Grind. If you're new to this channel, thank you for checking it out. And if you're already a subscriber, thanks for being back again. My name is Arielle, and I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology. And in this channel, I bring you information about the mental health field and talk about my journey as a PhD student. So not too long ago, someone told me that a PhD is gaseous. And basically what that means is that if you allow it, your PhD, your master's, or whatever degree you may be getting will bleed into every area of your life if you let it. And like I said, I'm a PhD student, and I spend about 50 hours a week working towards my degree. So I can definitely attest to the fact that if I don't have certain boundaries or policies in place in my life, then my PhD or my role as a student is going to take over my whole universe. And I want you to be able to get your degree successfully without compromising your quality of life. And that's why I'm creating this video. That's why we're going to talk about boundaries. I'm going to give you examples, the ones that I set and the ones that you can try to set. You and I both need to set boundaries so that we can get our degrees and not let it take over everything. So now we know why boundaries are important, but what does a boundary even mean? Now, to break that down, I feel like boundaries, in my opinion, are just clear statements that you may say to other people or to yourself that indicate what your limit is, what you can do, what you can't do. And it's really important to be clear on why you have that in place so that the other people in your life understand. And it's important to have these boundaries. It's important to communicate these things to prevent the unwanted result. And that, for me, is overwhelm, overwork, overexhaustion. I'm putting boundaries in place so that I can have an optimal balance in my life. I'm putting it in because if I don't put the boundaries in, then everything is going to be all over the place. And that's not going to work out for me. I've been there where I don't set boundaries, and it ends up in me feeling like I'm not doing enough or I'm doing way too much and there's just no restrictions on what I'm doing. So boundaries are just clearly saying, what's your limit and why do you have that limit, and then communicating that in a clear way. Since I don't want to feel overwhelmed to the point of wanting to drop out, I make sure that I communicate boundaries to myself, even if it's in my inner voice, or to other people in my life because I want to make sure that I can do what I love, which is getting this degree working in the field of psychology, and also pour into the relationships with people that I love, pour into my relationship with myself. It's almost like boundaries are a preventative measure, and I think it's important to keep that in mind as I go through the examples. So firstly, I set boundaries with myself, and I encourage you to do this before you set boundaries with anyone else. Start with you. So I set boundaries with regard to my workload, and boundaries are hard to set and they're hard to keep in place, but it's important that you just have them, and if you're not perfect, it's okay. But one of the boundaries that I have, at least this quarter, is related to the course load that I have. So most of my colleagues right now are taking five classes this quarter, and I knew that wasn't going to work for me. So for myself, I said, I will only be registering for four classes this quarter so that I can perform to the best of my ability. And I didn't really have to tell anybody that. It was more for me, so that I can prevent myself from comparing to other people, noticing that people are doing more things, feeling like I'm not doing enough. I noticed that I want to prevent overwhelm and overextension, so I set a boundary with myself. And I feel overwhelmed anyway, but I think it was helpful for me that I did that, because I cannot imagine taking five classes right now with everything that I have going on. Another example of a boundary that I set with myself is related to screen time. So right now, because of the pandemic, all my classes and my clinical work are online. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, then I spend time in front of my camera, and of course we all spend time on our phones. So I have limits that I put on my phone that don't allow me to access certain apps between before 6 a.m. and after 9 p.m., unless I override it. And yes, I override it pretty often, because I want to be checking certain things. And that's on me, but I at least have the boundary in place, or the restriction in place, where it reduces the likelihood that I'll be clicking on different apps and start opening things, or chatting with people, or doing stuff. So sometimes it's okay that boundaries are a little bit flexible, but I have a structure in place that I'm taking care of myself and making sure that I'm not on my phone 24-7, or just in front of a different screen 24-7. So these are examples of boundaries you can set with your workload, knowing your personal limits, and then telling yourself, this is our limit, and this is why this is our limit. And also with your media consumption. Like, I'm only going to spend an hour a day on Instagram. And you can go into your settings and make these limits on your phone so that it's not just you, it's also your phone blocking you from doing this stuff. There are tons more, and boundaries are really personal and specific. So think about the boundaries you may want to set for yourself. And one important thing I'll say is it's important to know why you're setting a boundary. Because, like I said, I wanted to prevent overwhelm and overextension, and that's why I set the boundary of how many classes I'm going to register for. If you are not clear on the purpose of your boundaries, it's going to be a lot harder than it already is to keep them and stick to them and enforce them, especially if they involve other people. So being clear on why am I doing this, what am I trying to prevent, or what am I trying to promote in my own life is going to help you with your boundary setting. So just keep that in mind as I go through the other examples. Another area that I set boundaries in is with my friends and family because school is one of my main priorities right now. It's important that I communicate clearly to my loved ones when I cannot or can do certain things. So one example is right before midterms I will usually tell my parents this is the week before midterms so I won't be able to answer calls as often as usual but we can text. And that is saying this is what I can do, this is what I can't do, and this is why. And you don't always have to tell people why because you don't have to explain yourself to anyone, but I like to share it's midterms and that's why I'm not able to answer your calls. And this is important for two reasons. For me, it helps me to feel less irritated, less annoyed when I get a call from them because they probably won't be calling me if they know that I'm focusing on studying. So now it prevents the situation where I'm stressed out or I'm getting irritated because people are calling me and trying to contact me when I'm trying to focus. And secondly, it eliminates the frustration on their end if they're trying to call me and reach out to me and I'm not answering them and they don't know why, they may feel ignored, they may feel like I'm not dedicating time to my family and all that can be eliminated by just communicating the boundary. So I'm not saying that I'm perfect at this and I know that there are tons and tons of different ways to set boundaries with family members and I think family can be one of the hardest areas to set boundaries in because your family members may be set in their ways, you may be set in your ways, but that's one example. I just try to let my family know when I'm not going to be available or when I am available. I do the same thing with traveling home for the holidays. I want to go home, I can go home between these dates, other than that I can't. And that's just my limit because I know my priority is school or I know my priority is getting back to my clients. And I think that what's really key what makes boundaries work is the clear communication of them. Friends are also an important area or important people to set boundaries with because especially if they're not graduate students, they need to understand that even though you really appreciate them as a friend and you acknowledge your role as a friend, you may not always be able to pour into the friendship as much as usual. So one example of this is like I would love to hang out with you but I do need to be home early enough because I have to get an early start tomorrow. That's saying I honor you as my friend, I honor our time together, and also I honor my responsibility towards school. And that's just a really simple example. You can kind of change out the words that sound more natural to you. Again, you're saying what you can do and what you can't do. I can hang out with you but I can't stay out all night. And you're just being super clear about communicating that. Another really crucial part of your life that needs boundaries especially if you're a doctoral student is with your supervisors or your faculty advisors. So in academia, it's common that graduate students are overworked. It's really unfortunate and that is kind of the culture of the field. However, you can set boundaries with the faculty members or supervisors in your life. And there are different ways to do this. You have to do what is in alignment with who you are. But some examples of this are I'm only available to answer emails between Monday through Friday. Or I'm not able to access my email after 7pm. And those are individual choices that you have to make. What am I willing to do? What am I not willing to do? And how can I make sure that the people in my life, whether they're supervisors or loved ones, how can they understand? How can I tell them this? And this is going to prevent your supervisor or your advisor from claiming your time when you don't want to be giving it. And it doesn't need to be rude just providing your limit, saying I can only respond between this and this time. Another example is if a supervisor is kind of pushing a deadline and you know that you're not able to do that. This is hard to do and it takes the vulnerability of saying I need help, which is a separate issue but one example of a boundary is saying in order to complete this by whatever date, I'm going to need help from another colleague. Who can I work with? And that's an example of a boundary of I can't do this without help. And also communicating your need. In order to get this done, this is what I need. And it opens the door for collaboration, it sets your limit, and it enables your supervisor to compromise with you. I think this is one of the most important areas to set boundaries in because as PhD students we really are working under a faculty member and it's really easy to feel like we have to do whatever they say in order to get good recommendations or in order to be in their good graces, but you are a person and you have a right to your time and to your energy. So think about the ways as you're listening to this think about the ways that you need to communicate limits. Think about what your limits are and how you can share them with your advisor or your supervisor. One limit that I had to set with my clinical supervisor was with regard to my caseload. So once I got to a certain number of clients, I had to be really clear with my supervisor and say, I'm at my limit, I'm at capacity, I won't be taking on new clients at this time, so I know that you may have other people that you want to assign to me, but I can't. And not every supervisor is going to love that, not every advisor or faculty member is going to have a nice response, but I think that I can predict that you'll feel better communicating your boundary than not. Even if you communicate the boundary and someone doesn't like it, at least you're being assertive and you're saying what you need or what you can't do. That's probably better than going along with what other people want for your life and for your time. So I recommend trying it out and I think that maybe in another video I should cover how do you handle setting boundaries or enforcing boundaries when people are not being respectful of them. So if you want to hear about that, then let me know in the comments and I'll try to cover that in the future. Boundaries with peers are also really important. So if you're in grad school, you're constantly around other people that are in academia, and hopefully you have friends that are not in academia that you can just unplug with, but it's important that you set boundaries with your classmates or your lab colleagues or other types of colleagues because you may not feel comfortable talking about certain things or doing certain things with other students and it's totally okay. So an example of this is I do not feel comfortable talking about my grades or my test scores. And nobody can force you to do that. If someone doesn't know your boundary, they might kind of hint or question or poke at something that you aren't comfortable with. So just saying that outright is one way to set a boundary. Another one is, you know, if someone invites you to study and you're not up for it, just saying like, hey, I actually prefer to study alone, but thank you so much for inviting me. And that's saying, I appreciate this, I honor your offer, and I honor your, you know, intentions to work together, but I have to honor my own need to do this alone. And that's really what's at the root of boundaries, is what are your limits, what are your capacities, and just honoring other people and what they want, but also honoring yourself first. I think that's really what boundaries are about. The last area where boundaries are super important is in romantic relationships or partnerships. So if you're a graduate student, especially if you are a doctoral level student, you may not have time to dedicate to your relationship as much as you would like, as much as your partner would like, or maybe as much as you used to before you started your grad program. And this is where boundaries and communication come in. So hopefully, if you're doing a PhD, you have a supportive partner, if you have a partner at all, and they understand how important your schoolwork or your professional work is. And regardless, it's important for you to know what you can contribute to the relationship and what you cannot and how to say that. So one example of boundaries is like, I love spending time with you and I need to make sure that I allocate enough time to my school work. And again, this is saying, I honor us and I honor our time together and I need to honor my priority, which is school. And another way to set a boundary with a partner, for example, if you live together, is by saying, this week is a really busy week for me. I know normally I'm able to alternate days with you for doing dishes. This week, I'm not going to be able to do that. Can you help me pick up the slack? And this is an example of a boundary where you're saying, I normally can do that, but I cannot. Can you compromise with me? And hopefully they're open to compromising. I hope that you have a partner who's willing to do that for you. But even if they're not, you're saying, I can't do it. And if you don't communicate this boundary, then you open the door almost or you leave the door open for conflict of like, well, why didn't you tell me you were busy this week? Or why didn't you just let me know that you weren't going to be able to do that? I would have taken care of it. And if you're in a relationship, then you know how important communication is. But that's an example of a boundary. And I can't tell you how to set boundaries in your relationship or which boundaries you need to set because every relationship is different. And everyone's priorities are also different. For some people, family may come first while they're in school. For other people, school may come before their relationship. And it's important to think about what can you do and what can you not do? What are you willing to give? And not every boundary is forever. Like I said about my parents, for example, my boundary about answering phone calls is usually around midterms. I'm studying a lot, so I can't do this right now. So boundaries are really individual. They're really specific. They need to be communicated in a way that's consistent with who you are and how you would say something. I don't want to give you a script for how you should say or set a boundary when I'm not you, you're not me. But I hope that this video gives you the insight to kind of think about what areas of my life do I need to set boundaries in, if not all of them? Who do I need to set boundaries with? What are my limits? What kind of conflicts or problems can be prevented if I set boundaries? And then hopefully you can execute on that. And as I've said throughout this video, boundaries are essential for preventing overwhelm and stress during an already stressful time, which is graduate school. And I hope that you'll be willing to practice the ways that you can set boundaries. It's something that can feel really uncomfortable at the beginning. It's something that you can feel kind of guilty for when you're doing it for the first time, and that's okay. It's something unfamiliar potentially, and that's why it feels that way, but ultimately boundaries are a form of self-love and self-care, and I hope you already know how important that is as a grad student. Self-care is everything as a grad student. So I hope you found this video helpful, and I hope that you will also connect with me on Instagram at gradlifegrind, and I hope you'll also watch more of my videos in the future and subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks.