People who work in Human Resources usually have a great capacity to listen, anticipate and help.
Precisely for that reason, finding the balance between availability and your own limits isn’t always easy.
I’m Nara, the mascot of HR professionals, and today I bring you three skills that can help you set limits without losing the closeness that makes your work so valuable.
When you support others and someone comes to you with a worry, it’s easy for your body to start responding as if that urgency were yours too.
What I’m about to tell you can help you recover a bit of distance before deciding how far you need to get involved.
Because a well-set limit doesn’t break the support you give; it makes it more sustainable.
Skill 1
Real urgency vs. emotional urgency
When someone comes to you worried, their urgency is transmitted even before you’ve had time to analyze the situation.
It shows in how fast they speak, in their tone or in the way they present what they need.
And when we perceive tension, our brain directs attention toward whatever seems to require an immediate reaction.
It’s a natural response.
The problem appears when we confuse emotional intensity with the real importance of the request.
Because something can worry a person a great deal and still not need a solution in that very instant.
Before acting, it can help to ask yourself a very simple question:
“Does this need to be resolved now, or is it enough for the other person to know when they’ll have an answer?”
That small space between the request and your reaction lets you recover perspective.
And often, that also reassures the other person, because a clear indication can be enough for them to feel the situation is being handled.
Skill 2
Managing responsibility
When you work supporting others, it’s easy to feel you should solve everything that comes to you.
Especially when you know you could help.
But the mind tends to confuse responsibility with control.
When you try to control every part of a situation, your brain keeps too many matters open at the same time.
It stays alert to what’s missing, anticipates possible problems and tries to remember every detail so nothing slips by.
That effort consumes a lot of mental energy.
Managing responsibility means clearly distinguishing what is yours and what the other person needs to take on.
Before taking charge of something, it can help to ask yourself:
“What does this situation really need from me?”
Sometimes it will be a solution. Other times, it will be enough to guide or make clear what the next step is.
Supporting well isn’t about carrying everything, but about contributing what genuinely helps.
Skill 3
The discomfort of not solving everything in the moment
There’s something that usually happens when you decide not to respond immediately.
Even if you know the situation can wait, a small internal discomfort appears.
Your mind keeps reminding you there’s something pending, and acting right away brings relief.
That relief has an important effect: it teaches your brain that the fastest way to stop feeling tension is to solve everything as soon as possible.
Little by little, reacting immediately can become a habit, but not always because the situation needs it.
Often it’s because your body wants to recover calm.
That’s why setting limits also means learning to hold, for a few moments, that small discomfort.
You can acknowledge it exists without automatically reacting to it and remind yourself of something simple:
“I can take care of this later.”
The fact that a situation is still pending doesn’t mean you’re handling it badly.
You’re simply learning to respond with more judgment.
Because supporting others well also requires knowing how far you can go.
Humántica®
When you support others it’s easy to take on more than is yours.
Your body can get used to living in a constant sense of urgency, which is why caring for body, mind and emotion also means learning to respond with more clarity.
Sometimes supporting well means being available.
And other times it means knowing how far you can go without ending up carrying everything.
Although our work may seem focused on delivering training, it really isn’t only about taking care of the teams’ experience.
We also make daily life easier for those who carry the whole process from inside the organization.
Perhaps that’s why they tell us that when they work with us they feel we’re not an external supplier and that they have a team that truly understands what’s behind their work.
Because supporting those who support others is also part of doing things well.
I’ll still be around here, watching closely how you work… and learning too from everything you hold up each day.
And who knows, maybe at some point we’ll cross paths at the office. I almost always go with Berta to her meetings with HR.
— Nara
P.S.: What do you think is the hardest part of setting limits?
