I used to think that I had good boundaries in my life. Then I started focusing on boundaries, and I realized that I only had boundaries that were easy to set and maintain. Anytime there was a difficult boundary to set, I would usually end giving in and feeling resentful. In the moment it felt easier to say yes, but in the long run, it would have served me better to say no.
I thought I needed to have a good, defensible reason for saying no. I thought I need to explain myself to others when I wasn’t cooperating with their wishes.
A boundary is a limit or space between you and something else – other people, activities, even thoughts and words. Setting boundaries helps you manage your time and energy and maintains your values and integrity.
Recently I’ve been focusing more on boundaries, and some of my coaching clients have wanted to work on their own boundaries too. Watching them struggle to set and maintain boundaries, I had a realization.
Hustling for my worth, and respect, and self-esteem – they’re all tied up together with boundaries.
That sentence holds a lot of food for thought. The foundational piece of boundary-setting is your own self worth. If you don’t believe that you have value, it’s hard to make the case for respecting yourself.
Let me back it up even further: the first boundaries we need to set are those in our own minds.
Say you’re invited to go for dinner with a group of friends. You’ve had a long week at work, and you’ve already had two busy evenings. The boundary you’ve set is that you won’t be busy outside your home more than two nights a week. You immediately start to think about saying no to this dinner invitation.
That’s when your thoughts may begin to tell you things like this:
· You’re lucky they even invited you. They’re all better than you.
· If you don’t go this time, they probably won’t invite you again.
· Something really exciting might happen and you’ll miss out!
· What are you going to do if you stay home? Probably nothing. You’re so lazy.
Ugh, it hurts just to write those words. And yet, how often do our very own thoughts tell us things like this? This is what it looks like when we’re hustling for our own self-worth.
Our thoughts don’t mean to be hurtful. They’re just trying to protect us. The brain has a great capacity for rational thought, but fear is also a major ingredient in how we process information. Someone once said to me, “Our minds are trying to run state-of-the-art software on ancient hardware.” I think about that often. Some of the best ideas I’ve learned about managing my own fearful thoughts came from writer and coach Martha Beck.
So, if we want to set more boundaries, we need to start in our own minds. We’re going to have to wrestle those deep-seated fears into submission and begin to build up our own self-worth. We need to quiet that “protective” voice in our heads that tells us it’s not safe to set boundaries.
Journal Prompt: During the coming week, watch the self-talk in your thoughts, especially when you’re maintaining a boundary. Take some time to write down what the voice in your mind says to you.
Ask yourself this question: what boundaries do I need to set around my thoughts? How can I begin to do that?