You will produce a one-page plan that protects your time, your relationships and your recovery.
Good intentions about boundaries and rest tend to last until the next busy week. Then the 10pm message gets answered, the gym session gets skipped, and the criticism in Monday's meeting gets argued with on reflex. A month later you are back where you started, and it feels as if nothing you learned stuck.
This exercise puts module 7 onto a single page you can see, share in part, and review. It takes about 30 minutes. Nadia wrote hers in late January, after the hard December you read about in lesson 7.4, and her version is the worked example below.
Start with two boundaries you will state this month. Use lesson 7.2, Set a boundary and hold it when it is tested: each one describes your own action, is specific enough to follow, and comes with a plan for the first time it is crossed.
For each, write three lines: the boundary itself, the exact sentence you will use to state it, and what you will do the first time someone tests it.
Nadia's first boundary was the one she had already started: "I don't answer work messages after 9pm, except calls about a live event." Her sentence was the one she had used with Patrick. Her plan for a test was to reply the next morning by 8.30am, pleasantly, without comment.
Her second was new. "I don't take on extra projects during the December event season without agreeing what drops." The sentence: "Before we add this, can we agree which of my current projects moves or goes to someone else?" Her plan: if pushed, use the priorities question from lesson 7.1, Say no without burning the relationship.
Next, write one standing rule for how you will receive criticism. A rule you decide in advance is easier to follow than a good intention, for the same reason the if-then plans in lesson 3.4 work.
Keep it to one sentence. Some examples: "I always ask for one specific example before I respond." "I say 'thank you, let me think about that' and reply within two days." "I name the trigger to myself before I say anything."
Nadia chose: "I ask for one specific example first, and I don't argue in the same meeting." She chose it because the launch feedback in lesson 7.3 would have gone much better if she had asked the example question on Monday instead of Tuesday.
Write your weekly recovery routine with times attached, building on the activity from lesson 7.4. A routine without times tends to get pushed aside by whatever is loudest that week.
Nadia's routine: lights out by 11.30pm on work nights. A swim on Tuesday and Saturday mornings. Dinner with her partner, phones away, on Wednesday and Sunday. One evening a week, usually Thursday, with no work and no planning, which she spends at her mother's.
Then list your early warning signs, the things that tell you your reserves are running down before you notice it consciously. They are often physical or behavioural, like the signals in lesson 2.1. Nadia's were: sleeping under six hours three nights running, eating every lunch at her desk, snapping at her partner, and checking email in bed.
Add a line that says what you will do when two or more warning signs show up together. Nadia's was: "Tell my partner, protect the swim, and look at what I can push to next week."
Finally, name one person you will talk to when a stretch gets hard. Pick someone specific and reachable, not "friends". Nadia named her former colleague, the one who had told her everyone feels flat in January.
Then write where you would go for professional help if low mood, anxiety or exhaustion lasted for weeks or began to affect daily life: your doctor, mindline.sg, and your company's employee assistance programme if it has one. Writing it down when you are well means you do not have to look it up when you are not.
A finished plan fits on one page: two boundaries with sentences and test plans, one criticism rule, a weekly recovery routine with times, your warning signs and what you do when they appear, one named person, and where you would go for professional help.
Share the boundaries section with one person it affects. This makes the boundary real, and it means someone else knows what to expect. Nadia showed hers to Patrick in their next catch-up. He pushed back on the second boundary, then agreed to talk through workload before the next event season. That alone made the page worth writing.
Then set a monthly reminder to review it. Boundaries drift, routines slip, and warning signs change as your work changes. A ten-minute review once a month catches most of it.
This plan is also the last deliverable for the final project, which asks you to update it after holding the conversation you planned in module 6. Write the first version now, in the activity below, while the lessons in this module are fresh.
Write the one-page plan, share the boundaries part with one person it affects, and set a monthly reminder to review it.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).