The Night My Son Said "I Thought It Was Our Time"

I remember one evening clearly. It was the moment I finally understood what setting boundaries at work actually meant, and what not having them was really costing me.

I was on a late video call for work, well beyond any reasonable hour. My son was sitting alone in the lounge room waiting for me. I knew he was there. I could feel it. But I was distracted, immersed, telling myself I just needed to get through this meeting.

When he quietly opened the door to my office, I turned to him and asked him to leave until I'd finished.

He walked away with his head down.

When I came out of the meeting, he looked up at me and said, "Mum, it hurt my heart when you said that. I thought it was our time."

At that moment my heart broke. He was right, it was our time. The meeting had no urgent reason to be held that evening, there was nothing that couldn't have waited. But I hadn't even considered declining it. I just showed up, the way I always showed up, because the alternative, what my boss might think, what message it might send, felt like a risk I couldn't take. And as a result, in that moment my son paid the price for a risk that wasn't even real.

That moment changed something in me. Not immediately, these things rarely do. But it planted a question I couldn't stop asking myself. Whose time was this, really?

Why I Believed My Time Belonged to My Employer

I spent over 25 years working in corporate and for a large proportion of that time, I had convinced myself (although wouldn’t admit it out loud, or to myself) that my time belonged to my employer. Not just during work hours, all of it. I know this because of the guilt I felt picking my son up early from school. The low hum of anxiety every Sunday evening. The constant sense that something was always being left undone, that I should always be doing something else.

That guilt was exhausting and looking back, it drained more of my capacity than the actual work ever did.

The Truth About Owning Your Time at Work

But here's what I know now that I didn't know then. I always owned my time. I was just telling myself I didn't.

Every late-night email check, every missed pickup, every lunch eaten at my desk, those weren't obligations. They were choices. Choices I was making, and then handing the responsibility for to my employer so I didn't have to sit with the discomfort of having made them.

As long as the company owned my time, I didn't have to decide what I actually valued. I didn't have to define what a good contribution looked like, or where work ended and my life began. I just followed the current and felt resentful about where it took me.

The conflict wasn't coming from my workload. It was coming from the gap between how I was spending my time and what I actually cared about. And I had never once sat down and clearly defined either of those things.

What Women Who Switch Off Actually Do Differently

I remember watching colleagues who seemed to switch off properly at the end of the day. Who left on time without appearing to agonise over it. I genuinely couldn't understand how they did it. What did they know that I didn't? What had they done with the guilt?

What I've come to understand is that they had made a decision. Consciously or not, they had defined what their contribution looked like and committed to it. They weren't braver than me, they didn’t care less, they just weren't outsourcing that decision to their inbox, or employer.

I, on the other hand, was measuring my worth entirely by whether I exceeded my budget, delivered on projects, developed my team, thinking my boss seemed pleased with me. Even after a strong performance review I'd convince myself I was one good mistake away from being fired. I had no internal measure of what doing a good job actually meant, so I could never feel like I'd done enough. The bar moved constantly, because I'd never set it myself.

And the cost of that wasn't just professional. It was the evening I asked my son to leave my office. It was every moment I was physically present but mentally somewhere else entirely, half in the room, half at my desk, fully in neither place.

How to Set Boundaries at Work Without Guilt

The shift came when I started defining things for myself.

What does a strong contribution actually look like? What are my hours? What am I available for, and what am I not? What does leaving on time actually mean for my team, and is the story I'm telling myself about it even true?

When I got clear on those things, something unexpected happened. My output improved. Not because I was working more, but because I was no longer running on fear. Fear is an exhausting fuel. It keeps you busy without making you effective. It fills your evenings without filling your life.

And when I wasn't running on it anymore, I started actually showing up in the rest of my life. As a mother, a partner, a friend. Not the distracted, half-present version who was always mentally back at her desk. But as someone who was present, engaged and frankly a lot nicer to be around. As someone my son deserved.

Why This Is Harder Than It Sounds, And Worth It Anyway

I won't pretend this process is easy. It requires clarity, about what you value, what you're choosing, and why. It requires discipline, especially when your brain runs wild with worst-case scenarios about what your boss will think, or what might fall through the cracks.

But I can tell you this with complete certainty. The discomfort of making that change is nothing, compared to the slow drain of spending years feeling like your time, your life, belongs to someone else.

I spent over a decade waiting for permission to own my time. Permission that was never coming, because no one was withholding it. I was.

So if you are thinking you need to leave your job, or lower your career aspirations, or get a different boss, or move companies, in order to get a handle of your time. I can tell you that you don’t. You just need to decide that the time is yours.

Because it always was.

If you're a woman in corporate who takes pride in your work, but are exhausted, and you're ready to stop outsourcing your time and start owning it, this is exactly what we work on inside The Reset Method. You can find out more here.