Many people may know what the word “boundaries” means but don’t know what they are. You may consider boundaries as something like a brick wall or rope line used to keep unwanted people out. But boundaries are not inflexible lines drawn in the sand that are clear for everyone to see. Boundaries are yet another way to take care of ourselves.
When you understand how to set and keep healthy boundaries, you can avoid the feelings of bitterness, disappointment, and anger that build up when your limits have been pushed. In today’s article, we will discuss some ways to set boundaries and the importance of setting boundaries.
The Importance of Setting Boundaries
Boundaries produce trust and build healthy relationships. Even when some people don’t like what you do, they will probably still respect you for standing up for your beliefs. Boundaries also produce safety in relationships. When your privacy is respected, you are more likely to feel heard, respected, and appreciated.
Most of all, you are not taken for granted by your loved ones, colleagues, and superiors. It is not only about others’ requirements but about yours as well. Repeatedly crossing your confirmed boundaries can feel similar to emotional or verbal mistreatment. Therefore, it is essential to know that the people who don’t like the renewed you are likely not your people.
Your boundaries set the standard for how others behave around you, how you want to be treated, what you will and can accept, and what you will not and cannot—they are based on your needs and values. Making these simple requests is not selfish, rude, or self-centered.
It is about understanding your value, recognizing your priorities, and making sure that others do as well. It is about you generating the space and time for you to thrive and achieve your professional goals and your dreams. You can only serve others if you are strong, confident, and grounded. These qualities can only originate from within you.
Ways to Set Boundaries
1. State Your Feelings While Interacting with Others
Challenging emotions like feeling overwhelmed, angry, and frustrated can be helpful evidence as you uncover when, where, and with whom to set boundaries. These emotions can signal that others might be intruding on your time or space.
Recognizing your own emotions will enable you to set impactful boundaries in the future. Instead of throwing the feelings away, ask yourself, “What am I feeling? Why am I feeling that? What would I need to change for me to feel more comfortable?”
2. Know Your Limits
Identify what your intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual boundaries are with strangers, colleagues, friends, and family. Scrutinize past experiences when you felt discomfort, anger, resentment, or frustration with some individual.
It may have been since your limits had been crossed. Create a ‘Boundary Chart’ that draws each boundary per relationship category and fills it in with the boundary standard you feel comfortable and safe with, and vice versa.
By creating this pattern, you can have a benchmark to evaluate when someone is overstepping your boundaries. Your boundary criteria will develop over time. Constantly update your chart with your growing experience and resulting requirements.
3. Prepare Your Well-Being Provision
Introduce conversations about boundaries with a thoughtful approach to set the stage for an empathetic, open discussion. This can be advantageous if you are concerned about causing trouble by changing well-established patterns in existing long-term relationships with family or friends.
Lay the first stone by sharing your resolution to set boundaries. Explain why it is vital to you and how you believe it will assist you. Centering your well-being sparks a significant exchange around an absolute value: your wellness and health.
4. Practice Makes Perfect
When you start acting assertively, if it’s a departure from your usual behavior, you may be afraid that others will identify you as mean or rude. But establishing your boundaries means that you value yourself, your requirements, and your feelings more than the values and opinions of others.
Being self-assured does not mean that you are unkind; it means that you are being fair and honest with people and kind to them in the long run while upholding your peace, dignity, and self-respect.
After all, not notifying someone that they have crossed a line only leads to antipathy on your end and confusion on theirs. The only way to set ideal boundaries is by telling someone they have crossed yours.
5. Be Assertive
Creating and stating boundaries is excellent, but the follow-through really counts. The only way to genuinely make others aware that your boundaries have been crossed is to be unswerving with them. Being assertive, especially if you are unaccustomed to doing so, can be daunting. So start small with something convenient and build up your assertive skill. You may start with things like these:
- Did the waitress get your order incorrect? Ask her what you ordered.
- Did the cashier overcharge you? Ask for a correction.
- Is a distant cousin intruding on your personal life? State that you would rather talk about something else.
- Is a work colleague pushing their work onto you? Remind them that it isn’t within your responsibility; you are occupied with your work.
- Did a friend do something to hurt you? Ask them to meet you and explain why their words or actions hurt you.
6. Practice Saying “No Thanks” Without Showing A Reason
It is common to feel like you need to explain your boundaries to others. But you don’t do that often, and sometimes the most straightforward, most honest response is “No, thanks.” Giving some excuse or faking your reasoning can ultimately make you feel guilty or out of line with your inner self.
Practice saying “No, thanks” and nothing more. Start small; say “No, thanks” when your mate asks if you want to watch a TV show you find uninteresting, or “No, thanks” to the person who wishes to buy you a drink at the bar.
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7. If All Else Fails, Just Delete and Ignore
State your boundaries first, then follow with action. As long as you have tightened the loose ends and given family members/friends/colleagues, or whoever it may be, closure from any promises you may have made earlier, you no longer owe them anything.
If you have declared yourself and made it clear to another person that they are not respecting your boundaries, it is okay to ignore communications from that point forward. Remind yourself of your value and that no one has any right to make you feel uncomfortable or take your self-defined liberty away from you.
8. Generate A Post-Boundary-Setting Mantra
If you are known to be a people-pleaser, setting boundaries will significantly alter old patterns, complete with the obligatory growing pains. Like, it’s normal to feel guilty, selfish, or embarrassed after setting an (entirely legitimate) boundary. Be gentle with yourself and admit that your boundary-setting muscle takes time to be developed.
In the meantime, prepare a mantra to repeat after setting complex boundaries. It can be as easy as “I set boundaries for safety” or “Setting boundaries is an act of self-love and care.” Your mantra can be your anchor, a lasting reminder that this journey, however hard, has your best interests.
Conclusion
Boundaries can be identified as the limits we set with other people, which point out what we find acceptable and unacceptable in their behavior and actions towards us. The capability to know our boundaries generally comes from a healthy sense of self-respect or valuing yourself in a way that is not dependent on other people or their outlook toward you.
Unlike self-esteem (which some research has found to be powerfully related to the comparatively fixed personality dimensions of high conviviality and low neuroticism), self-worth is finding inherent value in who you are so that you can be aware of your intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual worth and boundaries. In this post we have shared some ways to set boundaries.
