Burnout shouldn’t be the price of success, but setting boundaries at work is easier said than done. Tarveen Forrester, who oversees workplace culture at Kickstarter, shares practical strategies for protecting your time and cultivating “sustainable ambition,” so you can crush your goals — without letting them crush you.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. I can't tell you how hard it is to say no or set healthy boundaries around work. I mean... Just last night, I was working until 10 p.m. I know I'm not alone in this.
We live in a world where extreme hustling is often seen as a positive thing and where adding more to your plate is rewarded. But there's a dark side to that that no one likes to talk about. Burnout and adverse health effects from stress and exhaustion. Kickstarter VP Tarveen Forrester knows that boundaries often get a bad rap. People are seen as lazy, for example.
But in her 2024 talk, she shares her secret sauce for developing a healthy relationship around the word no.
Like many of you, I was enamored by the hustle culture. As a VP of people and multi-time HR executive, I've led many teams and companies through burnout. I've also gone through it myself. Turns out, a lot of us have. Studies show that at least one in four employees globally have experienced burnout. Burnout sucks. If you know, you know. But you know what's worse?
It's dimming your light and your ambition. You see, your ambition is a very special gift. It's that fire in you that keeps you aspiring for more and pushes you to your fullest potential. I believe with the right tools, you can nurture your ambition and avoid burnout. This all starts with learning to set and maintain your boundaries within work, life and your relationships.
Now, boundaries kind of have a bad reputation, right? Some people think of them as an excuse to work less. others as a reason to say no to everybody and everything. And some even believe they minimize your dreams. But boundaries are actually what empower you to do more and do it better. Boundaries give your ambition a sense of rhythm and pace, so you can create what I call sustainable ambition.
So what's the secret sauce? How do we effectively set boundaries? Well, it starts with this hard truth. You can't do everything and avoid burnout. I'll paint the picture for you. It's four weeks away from that big deadline. You have mouths to feed, a home to maintain, workouts to attend, and then boom. The inconvenient thing happens.
Your child is sick, you're rushing to the vet, or the worst, you receive bad news that rocks you. You're now sitting there in this predicament of trying to figure out, how am I going to do it all? Well, guess what? You're not. Before you can even begin to tackle your goals, you have to make peace with the reality that you can't do and be everything, especially in these moments of the unknown.
Pushing yourself to the point of unsustainability is an extremely toxic cycle. And unsustainability and unrealistic expectations are exactly where burnout starts. So let's talk about how you can create a system to support your ambitions and your boundaries. First, you have to get crystal clear on your non-negotiables.
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