How To Set Healthy Boundaries
Over the past few weeks we’ve talked about the importance of boundaries, what overly rigid boundaries feel like, what having loose boundaries feel like, but we haven’t really spoken about how one might go about setting healthy boundaries.
Learning how to set healthy boundaries can change your life and I’m going to give you the steps to do so.
1. Identify your rights- I’m located in the US, and maybe some of you are too. When I talk about identifying your rights, I don’t just mean your legal, constitutional rights. More so, I mean your rights as a human being. Your right to respect. Your right to dignity. Your right to humanity. Your right to feel whole. Your right to not have to prove your worth.
2. Figure out your own feelings- Harkening back to the feelings we identified in both our post around rigid boundaries and loose boundaries, are you feeling any of these? Are there specific relationships where you feel these more or less?
3. Identify your limits – What are you comfortable with? What does your ideal relationship look like with the different people in your life? You get to live your life on your terms. We get a lot of different messaging throughout our lives around what we owe others or how we’re supposed to behave in order to make others feel. The truth is, you don’t owe anyone anything and you get to decide the limits of all of the relationships in your life.
4. Say yes to what falls within those limits- If something feels good when it’s asked of you whether that be being available for something, going to an event, doing a favor, if it feels like it falls within the limits you’ve already determined and you have the emotional bandwidth for it. Say yes! Go for it!
5. Say no to what falls outside of those limits – If something doesn’t feel good, or pulls up a sense of dread when it’s asked of you. If your gut is telling you that under other circumstances maybe it would be a yes, but you don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it: Say No. You don’t have to say no with malice or frustration, you can say no with a smile. You don’t have to go against your gut to make others happy. You can say no to things and you’re allowed to not feel guilty for it.
6. Allow yourself to be flexible based upon the relationships that you have- Your boundaries aren’t set in stone. You’re going to find that the things that feel good are different based on different relationships in your life. They may also be different based on the different seasons of your life—and that’s okay!
Although this list makes setting boundaries very simple, it’s not always the easiest thing. As we discussed in previous posts, there are a lot of beliefs and fears that motivate the way that we set our boundaries if they’ve previously been unhealthy. Even though this is something that will be good for you in the end, it can feel really uncomfortable in the beginning as you navigate the new relationships you’re setting up.
If this feels extra difficult or insurmountable for you, I would be happy to help you work through it! Send me an email, give me a call, or just hit the button below and let’s get started.