Something to readWorkload & wellbeing
Set Boundaries, Find Peace
A book about reclaiming yourself by setting boundaries: what they are, why they're hard to say, and how to keep them at work and at home
Why it’s worth your time
A lot of boundary trouble at work starts as a need nobody ever said out loud, and this book is a practical guide to saying it. Nedra Glover Tawwab, a licensed therapist known for her widely followed advice on Instagram, explains what boundaries are, why people avoid setting them, and how to state and hold them, with suggested wording you can borrow. It's written for people who keep saying yes and quietly resent it.
How to set boundaries at work
The book · About 6 hours of reading · Buy or borrow
How to get it
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- Start with the first part of the book.
It explains what boundaries are, the six kinds she identifies, from time to emotional, and what happens when they're crossed. The second part works through settings, including family, work and social media, so turn to work if that's where it hurts most.
- Say one work boundary out loud this week.
Pick the limit that would make the biggest difference, such as the hour you stop answering messages or how you'd like meetings booked, and tell the person it affects most, plainly and once. Then keep it.
Good moments for this: when resentment starts buildingwhen you start a new jobafter a week of saying yes to everything
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Your employer sets hours, deadlines and on-call expectations, so the useful limits are usually within that space: how you're reached, when you reply, how you take feedback. Framing one around doing your best work tends to land better than framing it as protection from the job.
What might make this harder
Ask what's behind it and what flexibility exists. Sometimes the answer reveals a real constraint you can work around, and sometimes it tells you something about the job. What you're entitled to depends on your role and where you work.
Questions people ask
What are the six types of boundaries in Set Boundaries, Find Peace?
Tawwab describes physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional, material and time boundaries. At work, time and emotional boundaries are often the ones to start with.
How do you set boundaries at work?
Decide what you need, say it clearly and early to the person it affects, and keep it consistently. Tawwab's short TED talk on boundaries at work walks through those three moves.
Is Set Boundaries, Find Peace worth reading?
If you want wording you can use this week, it gives you options to try. If work is the only place you need help, start with the work setting and skim the rest.
Who is Nedra Glover Tawwab?
A licensed therapist who founded the group practice Kaleidoscope Counseling and built a large following sharing advice on boundaries and relationships on Instagram.
What it says, and how it holds up
A boundary, in Tawwab's sense, isn't a wall. It's an expectation or a need you state so a relationship can work: when you're reachable, what you'll take on, how you'd like to be spoken to. Most of the work is in saying the need plainly. Tawwab runs a counseling practice and became widely known for this kind of advice on Instagram; she wrote the book to make the idea usable. Her publisher describes its techniques as rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy.
After laying that groundwork, the book walks through family, work, social media and other settings, with examples and suggested wording to borrow. At work, the most useful ideas are about time and communication: saying when you're available, how you prefer to get feedback, and what you can't take on. Her six-minute TED talk on boundaries at work is a good free way in.
It's a book to use more than to study. Tawwab has said that helping clients find the words is a big part of her work, and that many of the options she gives them went into the book. Because the second half takes one area of life at a time, from family and friends to work and social media, the work advice is one strand among several. Publishers Weekly reviewed it when it came out.
Boundaries help most when the problem is that people don't know what you need. They help less when the workload is simply too big for the hours, or when the issue is how you're being treated. Too much work is a priorities question for your manager; mistreatment calls for HR, a trusted mentor or outside advice, and what protections you have depends on where you work.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.