How To Set Healthy Boundaries That Will Lead To Your Freedom.

You can only change your circumstances by first changing your attitude.

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” ~ Tara Brach

The problem is you don’t know yourself enough to set boundaries for yourself.

Personal boundaries are the imaginary lines we draw around ourselves to maintain balance and protect our bodies, minds, emotions, and time from the behaviour or demands of others.

Do you have boundaries in your life?

Do you have boundaries in your business?

Do you have boundaries in your relationship?

Do you have boundaries in your work?

A life of no boundaries leads to a distorted way of living. It’s a life of not knowing when to push harder, a life of not knowing when you have enough, and how much more you need to improve.

A boundary is a limit or space between you and the other person; a clear place where you begin and the other person ends . . . The purpose of setting a healthy boundary is, of course, to protect and take good care of you” Writes Joaquín Selva.

Setting boundaries in your lives;

• Creates room for trust in your relationships.
• Allow room for experimentation in your business.
• Allow you to pause and be able to analyze things before you act.
• Lets you know when you have enough.

Specifically, healthy boundaries can help people define their individuality and can help people indicate what they will and will not hold themselves responsible for.

Most people self-sabotage themselves because of their lack of boundaries. When there are no boundaries, there’s no restriction. When there’s no restriction, there’s no room for growth.

Understand that you can only change your circumstances by first changing your attitude.

The law of self-sabotage

Each of us has a particular way of looking at the world, of interpreting events and the actions of people around us. This is our attitude, and it determines much of what happens to us in life.

If our attitude is essentially fearful, we see the negative in every circumstance. We stop ourselves from taking chances. We blame others for mistakes and fail to learn from them. If we feel hostile or suspicious, we make others feel such emotions in our presence.

We sabotage our career and relationships by unconsciously creating the circumstances we fear the most. The human attitude, however, is malleable. By making our attitude more positive, open, and tolerant of other people, we can spark a different dynamic — we can learn from adversity, create opportunities out of nothing, and draw people to us. We must explore the limits of our willpower and how far it can take us. Robert Greene.

When you don’t set boundaries for yourself, you will always live on speculation. And if there’s anything with being a speculator, it’s that a speculator doesn’t know what needs to be done at every point in their lives.

In the words of George Horace that says:

When a speculator wins, he doesn’t stop till he loses, and when he loses, he doesn’t stops till he wins.

I was at a friends place the other day, and his girlfriend called to check-up. Along the way, the tone of their conversation changed and both of them got angry for one nose-diving into the affair the other. Their conversation became so intense that they had to hurl abusive words at each other until we try to calm both parties down.

This is an example of what not setting boundaries in your relationship leads to. More generally, the consequences of not setting healthy boundaries often include “stress, financial burdens, and wasted time which can cause mental distress”.

In other words, a lack of healthy boundaries can negatively affect all aspects of someone’s life. Without healthy boundaries or with very weak boundaries, we struggle to have healthy relationships.

What you need in setting boundaries.

Have a Reality-Based Values

To set healthy boundaries in your life, you need to know what you place your values on.

Getting to know your core values and learning to make decisions, even saying “no,” based on your core values is how you start setting boundaries.

Knowing your core values will also help you set boundaries for how others can treat you. A core value of respect requires that you give respect as well as have conversations with others who are not showing you respect.

“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.” ~ Henry Cloud

Having a set of personal values will make it easier for you to set boundaries.

Values are your strongly held beliefs about what is valuable and important to you. Your values will guard you against temptations. Your values determine what is acceptable behaviour and what is unacceptable.

Good values are immediate and controllable, socially constructive and reality-based. Honesty, innovation, curiosity, vulnerability, self-respect, and creativity are examples of good values.

Good and healthy values can only be achieved internally by first building the trust within yourself.

Understand that the goal is to identify your values and create boundaries that help you honour those values.

Live with a Philosophy

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” ― Epictetus

What is your philosophy?

Your philosophy is what you know, how you hold what you know, and how it affects what you do.

Many people live a life without having a philosophy. This leads to a haphazard way of living.

In all of life problems, philosophy must always be by your side because it’s what will guide your active reasoning at all times.

Your philosophy creates your attitude, your actions, and your results which later creates your life.

A positive philosophy turns into a positive attitude, which turns into positive actions, which turns into positive results and turns into a positive lifestyle. Same as a negative philosophy says Jeff Olson in the book The Slight Edge.

Your philosophy stems from what you place your values on. It’s hard to have a positive philosophy while having bad values because they can’t go hand in hand.

Philosophy helps creates boundaries by allowing you to focus on what is within your will and your control because that is the only thing you have power over.

Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control. Epictetus.

If true freedom is what you are after, it’s your boundaries that will help you create it.