What Are Healthy Boundaries And How To Create Them?

What are healthy boundaries and how can you use them to become your own Boundary Boss?

Did you know that setting healthy boundaries AND maintaining them is one of the hardest things to implement within your business and your personal life?

Despite most of us recognising how important they are, that knowledge doesn’t make them any easier to stick to. Setting and sticking to healthy boundaries is like anything – it’s a muscle that you need to regularly flex and practice for it to become a habit. 

It can be really difficult to set healthy boundaries in a work space when you’re surrounded with colleagues influencing your day. And as business owners, it’s often super challenging. But it can be even harder with friends, family, or a significant other.

When we allow ourselves to get dragged into other peoples “stuff” – their feelings and their experiences – we often end up taking on something that isn’t ours. We carry the weight of others despite the fact that this doesn’t serve us at all. But many of us are natural caregivers and as such, we’re prone to giving our energy away to other people all of the time. 

When our boundaries merge with that of others, things can get a little murky. We end up feeling overwhelmed and drained because we’ve placed our worth into pleasing someone else, instead of protecting ourselves. It can give us a false sense of importance by overgiving and being “indispensable” or “important” in someone else’s life. After all, it’s nice to feel needed and wanted but we have to tread a very delicate line here.

If you think about this, it can actually be one of the biggest forms of manipulation because by doing this, we are not really showing up honestly and authentically for our loved ones. We are essentially showing them a side of us which is scared of their disapproval. That’s incredibly uninspiring and to be honest, quite toxic.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. How would you feel if you discovered that a close friend of yours was so scared to speak her mind freely, in fear of upsetting or disappointing you, that she’s just been agreeing with you this whole time? Now flip the situation and take a good look at how you’ve been behaving around your loved ones.

Truth is what ACTUALLY serves them long-term. We empower them by telling them the truth, letting them hear our honest feelings and allowing them to take their own action. This helps to ensure we do not create a false sense of codependence. In this situation, trust me when I say that honesty really is the best policy. 

The good news is, even if you have always tried to be a people pleaser, it’s not too late to turn things around and start to put your boundaries in place. 

If you find yourself feeling over-responsible in your relationships, you can still take action that will help you release that responsibility and put some healthy boundaries into place – ones that help both you and them! 

The first step to setting boundaries is to understand the story around your fear. 

What are you AFRAID will happen if you stop saying yes, when you really should say no? 

Start questioning the narrative in your head every time you’re about to fall into the trap of “weak boundaries”. Remember, to be kind to yourself through this process; it can be hard and take some getting used to but the more you can see it all without judgment, the easier it  will become for you to make those changes and shift your behaviour. 

It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re changing habits that have been engrained over your lifetime. And, it’s also likely that you might ruffle some feathers, at least initially, particularly if you’ve always said, “Yes, no problem” to every request that has been asked of you. But just like you’ll become better at setting boundaries, they’ll also become far more commonly accepted by your friends, family and colleagues with time.

Here are some practical tips to start implementing your boundaries.

After you’ve uncovered the stories keeping you in this pattern, it’s time to free yourself from it. You can do that by…

• Being fully present in your body —notice how you feel in your body when the thoughts of saying a compulsive yes come in 
• Create time to meditate regularly, so you begin to identify your thought patterns 
• Notice what fears stop you from saying no! 
• Say you’ll come back with a response if it’s hard for you to say no in the moment 

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