Setting Healthy Boundaries
Setting boundaries helps you prioritise your own mental and emotional health as well as normalising your personal identity. As humans, we all require guidelines that keep us in-check with our values, beliefs and norms and we create these with friends, family and yes even your boss.
Boundaries are like the guardrails that appear on the highway - there to keep you on your journey, guide you around then bends and corners without getting hurt. So how do you know what your own personal guardrails are?
Try asking yourself what do I need right now to feel safe/calm/in control? What is it that is making me feel unsafe/chaotic/out-of-control? And most importantly, what do I need to do to eliminate it?
Boundaries may look like…
Not answering your work phone after you clock out and leave your office
Saying, “no,” to the latest party you were invited to, because let’s be honest, you truly aren’t interested
Removing yourself from a text thread that is putting you into uncomfortable conversations
Setting boundaries for yourself, with your significant other, manager, or even your best friend is your way of saying, I’m not feeling comfortable with this right now and I don’t want to be part of this. When you first begin setting boundaries it can seem difficult, awkward, and sometimes just a little bit intimidating. This is ONLY because you are so used to putting others first, you’ve forgotten that your needs need to be met too.
Boundaries are liable to change as you go through life, so this process evolves as you do. Be flexible, invite change.
It is useful to remember that developing boundaries enables you to put you first and to effectively oversee your own life and what you find acceptable. It also helps to establish and show others what you expect of them. These types of life-guardrails can help you to avoid burnout, solidify your autonomy and identity to yourself and others and above all promote positive mental health and influence those around you in the same way.
You owe yourself an abundance of self-care and self-love, after all, there is only one of you…show up for yourself.
Start saying: I matter… my feelings matter. Today I come first.
So, where do you need to start setting boundaries within your life?
