Fearless and Focused

Do you suffer from the “Sunday Scaries”? The slow creeping anxiety as the weekend draws to a close and a new week lurks on the horizon?

No matter how much you love what you do – a busy demanding job and a busy personal life with people that rely on you can easily become all consuming and feel like you’re drowning.

If this is you, you’re most certainly not alone. In the 2022 Deloitte Women at Work report 53% of women were reporting higher stress levels than the year before and 40% were actively looking for a new employer. Goodness knows what that number is now given the global events of the last year, a shrinking economy and ever increasing pace of life. Coupled with the growing digital demand for our attention, as we get ‘pinged every 2 minutes with information’ (Microsoft work trends index 2025) from work email, personal email, Teams chats, WhatsApps, the school updates, the mums groups and that’s before we get on to anything social. The noise is intense and distracting.

Feeling anxious about the week ahead is usually the first indication that you are feeling overwhelmed and, whilst this blog is called Fearless and Focused, let’s be clear that’s not at any cost! I’ve been there with the Sunday Scaries and experienced burnout on a number of occasions and I would never want anyone else to go through that. So what I’m going to focus on in this post is boundaries – which are absolutely essential.

In my early 20’s I developed a really unhealthy relationship with work – I had my own business and the buck stopped with me. That’s a lot of responsibility for a 22 year old. I could never switch off, the weight of responsibility as an employer, paying suppliers, keeping footfall up (it was a coffee shop in case you’re wondering) was too much and suddenly my body intervened and forced me too stop. Those early years were formative in setting bad work habits which, once I was in the corporate world working for someone else, become all consuming because I couldn’t put the right boundaries in place. It was a complex mix of a lack of confidence, people pleasing and fear of failure. I started to experience overwhelming anxiety at weekends, a paralysing fear for Monday morning and what the week would bring. The need to work all hours and late into the night because I didn’t know when to stop or how to switch off. My loyalties were to something (I’m not even sure what) but certainly not to me.

My body eventually intervened again – let me be clear your health is not worth your career, because ultimately no matter how good you are at what you do, you are replaceable – it’s harsh but true!

Reflecting on that now here are a three things you can do if you’re feeling anxious about the days or weeks ahead .

1. Have you got the right boundaries in place?
   • You must take the time to put boundaries in place. To do this sit down and make a list of your negotiables and your non-negotiables. The later being the most important. Your non-negotiables will be personal to you and depend on what’s important to keep you happy, healthy and in balance. Write them down – what will you not compromise on? It could be doing the school pick up several times a week, or having tea as a family. It might be a regular gym class or getting time outside every day to help you reconnect and refocus. And then make a list of the things that you would be willing to negotiate on (think compromise) – for example working late one evening a week if needed, have a working lunch twice a week etc…
2. Have you contracted with yourself to formalise your boundaries?
   • Once you agree your boundaries make a contract with yourself. At a minimum write them down but ideally make sure you pin them somewhere you can see them regularly as a reminder. Tell your manager if are able to or a trusted partner or colleague to keep you accountable. If you lead a team, this is a really good exercise for everyone to do and then share and have a conversation about them so you can all respect each others boundaries. It will really help you understand each other better. It’s also important to share them at home with your partner who can help you enforce them but it will also help you have a conversation about some of the things you are juggling as they may not quite understand everything you have on your plate.
   • The thing to remember is that at first boundaries might be hard to uphold but it’s worth the effort because the more you enforce them and stand up for what’s important to you the more it will become a habit and the more it will bed in and become second nature. It will also build your confidence in pushing back.
3. Are you clear on what your ‘must do’s’ and ‘would like to do’s’ are?
   • I love a list and it’s also the best way to get a grip on everything we have to do. Sometime the thought of a busy week with lots of moving parts is because we’ve not got everything in one place and we’re worried we will drop a ball. This is where you need to put pen to paper. A Sunday list is one of my non-negotiables now I have a young family, a busy job, a partner who works away a lot. Start by making a plan for your week ahead and write down everything you know you have to do on one page and everything you would like to get done on another. Remember the ‘would like to do’ list is totally negotiable because you never know what curve balls might come your way. The reason lists work so well is because we can work through them methodically and track progress and as we cross things off we get a real sense of achievement and that’s really important.

Now you may be thinking that’s all pretty basic but sometimes it’s the simple things that are the most effective to help reinstate a sense of control and ownership. If you are feeling anxious the best thing you can do is pause and step back from the situation – these three steps are actively engaging our brains to focus on what needs to happen and not speculate.

Finally – remember to be kind to yourself. Think about the context I set out at the start of this post, there is a lot going on and if you’re a high achieving individual being realistic with how much you can achieve in any given period of time is also really important. You’re brain has the ability to focus in 20 minute sprints, use this to your advantage as you plan your day, and map out your time. Routine is your friend in all of this. Routines bring certainty and structure and help you be more productive and reduces stress.

If you’ve read this to the bottom – I hope you found it helpful. Sunday Scaries can happen for many reasons and there may be other things going on in your life. What ever it is these three things are a helpful starting point because in my experience writing things down will help you really grasp the size and shape of the challenge and work back from there.