Self-Boundaries for Working Mums: Keeping the Promises you Made to Yourself

We’re a few weeks into 2026, and with the new year often comes a batch of resolutions: going to the gym, cutting out junk food, starting a meditation routine… The new year brings the promise of a fresh start and makes us believe that this time we’ll stick to the plan. Unfortunately, most of us rarely do.

This blog is about self-boundaries, specifically the ones we set around how we manage our time. It’s about the things you promised yourself you’d stop doing but find yourself repeating over and over. I’ll explore why these boundaries are so important for maintaining a balanced life as a working mum, why they’re so hard to keep, and what we can do about it.

Self-boundaries protect your time and energy

In your busy mum schedule, you have to decide where to allocate your time.

Here are a few examples of choices you might make:

• Leaving work at 2:30 p.m. twice a week to be there for school pick-up

• Not checking emails after hours

• Going to your yoga class every Saturday, no matter what needs to be done at home

• Blocking half a day in your work schedule each week where you don’t accept any meetings

• No longer cleaning the kitchen after others

These are self-boundaries, decisions you’ve made for yourself.

Self-boundaries can be time-savers. For instance, if you’ve decided to allocate a certain number of hours to a project, you want to stick to it. Otherwise, as per Parkinson’s Law, the project will expand and take up more and more of your time (more about this in my free time management training).

Self-boundaries also protect your energy. For example, leaving work an hour earlier twice a week to work out helps you stay healthy (and prevents you from crumbling under burnout). But what happens when you have an important project due the next day? Do you skip your workout? How flexible should your boundary be?

This blog is about the occasions when you’ve decided you’ll act a certain way but perfectionism, people-pleasing, or other fears get in the way and prevent you from sticking to your initial plan. Keeping with the example of leaving work on time, I’m focusing on situations where you choose to stay at work because of the standards you set for yourself.

This blog is not about holding boundaries with others - for example, when a manager hands over projects at the last minute or asks you to be available after hours (that will be the topic of another blog).

What’s behind those habits and why self-boundaries are so hard to keep

When you set a boundary, you’re not only making space for something that matters, you’re also giving up something else. And that’s why it’s hard to keep them!

Even if your choice seems obvious on the surface, there may be something deeper that’s hard to let go (e.g., the desire to be a “perfect” mum or a fear of disappointing others).

Let’s say you’ve decided not to check emails after hours because it aligns with your values: you want to be present with your family in the evening, and that matters more than being available 24/7 for your work team.

But then you find yourself reaching for your phone right before the bedtime story. It feels almost automatic, you can’t stop it! and suddenly you’re reading work emails…

Chances are, you’ll come across an email that upsets you, even though it doesn’t require an immediate response. Now you’re in a bad mood, and bedtime reading isn’t enjoyable anymore.

Worse, you might feel angry at yourself for breaking your boundary, making it even harder to be present with your kids.

The reality is that, even if you know your kids are the priority and your emails can wait, something pushed you to check anyway. This might be linked to people-pleasing tendencies (e.g., worrying that if others wait for your reply, they’ll think less of you). Or maybe you feel anxious about unexpected requests in your inbox and check emails to satisfy your need for certainty. You might even believe everything will fall apart if you don’t respond immediately.

Whatever the reason, it’s crucial to uncover it, because that’s what you need to address to truly hold your boundary.

Common culprits include perfectionism and people-pleasing, which often go hand in hand (as Carrie Pollard explains so well in her blog). Mum guilt is another big one, especially when it comes to taking time for yourself. And then there are fears: fear of being left out, fear something bad might happen, fear of getting overwhelmed later if you take time off…

Once you identify what’s preventing you from keeping your boundary, it becomes much easier to reassess and find realistic ways to stick to it.

How to hold your boundaries without letting mum’s life get in the way

First, be crystal clear on why you’re setting the boundary for yourself.

For example, if you decide to stop scrolling on your phone before bed simply because “everyone says it’s a bad habit,” that boundary is unlikely to stick. By contrast, if you put your phone away before bedtime because you’ve noticed scrolling affects your sleep quality and you want to wake up feeling energised, that’s a much stronger motivator.

So let’s be clear: there’s no point adopting habits just because others say you should. You need to believe this is what you truly want.

Once you’ve identified both your why and what might get in the way, you can balance the two. Reconnect with your why, then rationalise your fears (e.g., what’s the worst that could happen if you miss an email sent at 6 p.m. and only reply at 8 a.m.? If it’s urgent, your team will call you).

Managing your environment can also help, especially with tech boundaries (e.g., leaving your phone outside the bedroom, turning off notifications, or setting app restrictions) or nutrition boundaries (e.g., no junk food in the house means less probability to give up to cravings). Setting cues is another great strategy: if you place a book on your pillow in the morning, you’re more likely to read at night instead of binge watching Netflix.

Accountability is powerful too. Tell your partner or a friend about your boundary and ask them to check in. You’re more likely to stick to it if someone else knows.

Finally, make sure your boundaries are realistic and start small (e.g., not responding immediately to emails but waiting at least 15min, taking 20 minutes just for yourself in the evening). Notice how you feel when you set a small boundary, then decide whether to build on it or adjust.

Final note: Habits are hard to form. Meet yourself with compassion, especially if you’re working against perfectionism or people-pleasing tendencies.

If you’d like personalised support to help you keep your boundaries, you can book a one-on-one coaching session here.