203The first is emotional. Conflicts at work need to be dealt with
and worked through so they do not begin to affect the rest of
your life. If denied, they can cause major depressions and other
illnesses that begin to spill over into other areas of life.
Make sure you understand work issues and face them
directly so that work does not emotionally control your life. Find
out why a certain co-worker is able to get to you, or why your
boss is able to control the rest of your life. Find out why your
successes or failures on the job are able to bring you up or down.
These important character issues need to be worked through.
Otherwise, the job will own you.
The second component is finite things such as time, energy,
and other resources. Make sure that the job, which is literally
never done, does not continue to spill over into personal life and
cost you relationships and other things that matter. Put limits on
special projects that are going to take more time than usual, and
make sure overtime does not become a pattern. One company
we know has such a high value for family that they dock people
for working overtime! They want them to put limits on their
work and be home with the family. Find out your own limits and
live by them. These are good boundaries.
Problem #9: Disliking Your Job
Boundaries are where our identity comes from. Boundaries
define what is me and what is not me. Our work is part of our
identity in that it taps into our particular giftedness and the exer-
cise of those gifts in the community.
However, many people are unable to ever find a true work
identity. They stumble from job to job, never really finding any-
thing that is “them.” More often than not, this is a boundary
problem. They have not been able to own their own gifts, tal-
ents, wants, desires, and dreams because they are unable to set
boundaries on others’ definitions and expectations of them.
This happens with people who have not separated from the
family they grew up in. A pastor was having great difficulty with
his church and the board of elders. Finally, right in the middle
Boundaries and Work