7 Best Tips to Setting Healthy Boundaries

Simply put, boundaries outline the primary function for how you want others to treat you. They help you inculcate a sense of mutual respect and limit the likelihood of people who are either manipulating you or taking advantage of you. Setting boundaries can also honor your own need for self-care and your personal integrity. People with healthy boundaries have good self-esteem, self-awareness and value their identity. Although setting boundaries is an important skill, many people still struggle to learn how to identify and implement them

You can set your boundaries effectively only when you recognize your needs and emphasize them. Ideally, one should assert himself/herself in a way that’s very clear, concise, and unapologetic. Learning and practicing ways to keep up with your boundaries can improve your self-esteem and the quality of your relationships. Before looking into tips to set healthy boundaries, let us see the different types of personal boundaries that we need to follow.

Our personal boundaries can be physical, material, emotional or mental.

Physical boundaries are meant to protect our bodies. With physical boundaries, you can protect your personal space, by setting boundaries to who touches you and how.

Material boundaries help protect our time and the things we own. When you have these boundaries, they stop us from giving away all of your time, energy, and possessions.

Mental boundaries are set to protect one’s values, morals and mental health. Mental boundaries give you an opportunity to make decisions about how you want to behave in accordance with your own value system.

Emotional boundaries help protect your feelings. These boundaries help you put your feelings apart from those of the people around you and curb you from attributing your self-worth to the approval of others.

We have our boundaries comprised of a set of values and behaviors to protect ‘self’. We humans often have our boundaries not only from our parents or caregivers but also from elders and most of the time from our culture as well.

Here are the top 5 tips for setting healthy boundaries.

1. List Out Your Most Important Priorities:

Make a self-assessment and list out what are your hard limits, the rules to refuse to bend like with the things you are non-negotiable. Based on your most important priorities you can consider writing down these limits. Self-awareness is the first step towards a change within you. So when you know what makes you feel comfortable, you can easily set your boundaries.

2. Follow your Intuition:

Your mind constantly hints at you, if something isn’t a good idea. So, why not consider listening to it? It is basically guiding you in the right direction. Studies reveal that our intuitions help us process unconscious information to make faster and better decisions. For eg: If a job opportunity doesn’t feel right, it might not be the job you would want to do. Of course, occasionally, we do need to do things that we don’t want to. But if you are repeatedly accepting invitations or overextend yourself past your limits, then it means you are not respecting your own boundaries.

3. Take Responsibility For Your Life:

No matter how much you love your family and friends, but still you must show love to yourself. Always look into ways that make you feel happy without you depending on others for your happiness. Start taking responsibility for your life, this means:

• Taking ownership for your actions and how they affect people around you
• Accepting adverse situations in life as a regular part of your personal growth.
• Avoiding accusing others of causing your emotions
• Making decisions that you think are best for you

When you start being responsible for your life, you can avoid being a victim of your circumstances and this helps you simplify your boundaries.

4. Avoid Apologizing Unnecessarily:

Remember that a firm boundary does not require anyone’s approval. Moreover, apologizing doesn’t necessarily change how the person might feel about you. Excessive apologizing may show your insecurity and sense of guilt even when the situation is not serious and for something, you are not at fault.

5. Use “I” Statements And Get Habituated To Saying “No”

While “I” statements help you communicate your needs and feelings more effectively. Yet you must be mindful and careful of your tone and word choice. Remember that the goal here isn’t about inducing guilt or shame but only to assert your needs and draw to a reasonable solution while negotiating with others. Some of the best “I’ statements look like this.

• I would rather prefer to ______
• I would like to
• What I would like to see happen

Coming to using “No”, it’s a complete sentence. It’s not about being rude or impolite, but just about being clear. If it seems, using plain “No” is uncomfortable, you can use the better variants like the following

• I am honored, but I can’t
• Sadly, I have something else
• Damn! Not able to fit this one in!
• Unfortunately, now is not a good time.

Final Notes: Your boundaries may definitely help you love yourself. But, sometimes, self-help strategies may not help if you are overwhelmed with continuous rejection or self-worth. Psychotherapy services can help you understand your barriers and help setting boundaries. Your therapist can sit with you and work on skills for self-empowerment and assertiveness training. They do provide coping skills to strengthen your emotional wellbeing for a better you.