Do you know where your Boundaries are?

First Published 30 March 2023

If you don’t know where your boundaries are, perhaps it’s time to go hunting!  And when you work out what and where they are, it’s a really good idea to protect them.

Boundaries can be physical, emotional or mental and they really do help in building and keeping healthy relationships – it’s a good idea to be mindful of other people’s boundaries too.

Ask yourself what you feel comfortable with in your interactions and how much time you are happy to give.  Then assess whether or not the people you surround yourself with respect you and your boundaries (behave towards you in a way you feel is acceptable) or if they don’t.

Remember though, if you don’t communicate your levels of comfort, the other person won’t know when they are getting close or pole vaulting right over your boundaries.

Here are a couple of ‘top tips’ to protecting your boundaries once you have taken some time to work out what they are (and if you need help to set them, that’s something we can do together in a coaching session)

1. Get comfortable saying no: in saying no to someone else, you are saying yes to you.  Practice saying it firmly (and politely) and remember ‘No.’ is a complete sentence – you don’t have to explain yourself if you don’t want to.
2. Regularly review your boundaries: things can change.  Be clear in identifying what makes you uncomfortable and/or violated and communicate this.
3. Set Limits: you don’t have to be available 24/7 – you get to say when you are available.  If you are thinking of a work setting – think about what is appropriate, an an example, is it OK to be expected to reply to e-mails at 10pm when your working hours are 9-5?  Also set time aside for you – whether it’s sleep, a walk, to eat or meditation – look after yourself too.
4. Trust your gut: listen to your intuition if it’s telling you to run away from a situation or a person! (if you need a reminder about trusting your gut and your intuition – I wrote about that on the 16th of Feb – if you don’t still have that mail click ‘view in browser’ at the top of this mail and then ‘past issues’ to read the previous e-mails)
5. Don’t feel guilty prioritising yourself: don’t make me break out the putting your own oxygen mask on first analogy again… 😂 you are important, remember to treat yourself as such.

If you would like to work on this in more detail, completely tailored to you, book in for a coaching session – one off session as well as packages are available.

As usual, the link to my calendar for a complimentary chat is below.  If you have any comments or anything to add to the above from your experience, hit reply and let me know your thoughts.