How to Set and Maintain Healthy Boundaries

So what is a healthy boundary, anyway?

A boundary is a clear line that protects you from being taken advantage of, or from compromising your core values and needs. Boundaries show other people how you would like to be treated: with respect. When they get crossed, or when you have none at all, you put yourself at risk of frustration, hurt, and being used. The clarity they provide is a gift for both people in the relationship. Guessing games help no one.

Why boundaries feel so hard

Struggling to uphold personal boundaries often comes from a need for approval, love, or acceptance. That usually starts in childhood, and until it is dealt with it rides right into adulthood. We are only as needy as our unmet needs.

If you have not resolved unmet needs from your childhood caregivers, you will look for someone else to meet them. That leads to disappointment, because no one else can give you what a parent or caregiver was meant to give. Once you are old enough to see this, you are the one who can fill that void.

It is incredibly liberating when you stop seeking from others what your parent failed to offer you growing up. It is often called "reparenting," and it is your special responsibility as an adult. If this is stirring something in you, read my post "The One Way to Love, Miracles, and Your Dreams."

Boundaries build self-esteem

Setting and maintaining boundaries is essential for a healthy, happy life. It is also one way to build your self-esteem. When you do not hold clear boundaries, you lack a solid identity, and confidence has nowhere to stand. Confidence is built through the decisions you make for yourself, and through how you perceive those decisions.

This is where personal integrity comes in. Before you can expect respect from others, you must first respect yourself. Do what you say you are going to do. Show up for yourself. Do not let yourself down. Stand up for yourself. Do for yourself what you have always longed for someone else to do for you. That is a game-changer. For more on this, see "Why You Break Promises to Yourself (and 3 Ways to Start Keeping Them)."

How to set healthy boundaries and keep them

1. Explore the boundary, and the why, before you set it. Your boundaries should uphold your core values, needs, and wishes. They protect emotional and physical well-being, along with financial, material, time, and intellectual needs.
2. Know why the boundary matters, and be able to explain it if needed. Be realistic and practical. You do not always owe an explanation. Sometimes a brief one helps the situation.
3. Be clear and specific, for yourself and for others. Be assertive if needed. Assertiveness is neither passive nor aggressive. It is clear and respectful.
4. Be consistent and own it, or do not bother. If you do not maintain your boundaries consistently, you are telling others you do not mean what you say, and that you do not value yourself.
5. Decide ahead of time how you will respond if the boundary is not respected. You will know it was crossed because you will feel it in your body: anxiety, anger, tightness, the whole chorus. You are far less likely to explode (or collapse) if you prepare a response in advance, rather than inventing one in the heat of the moment. See "12 Ways to Overcome Your Emotional Triggers."
6. Toss the guilt. If you are reading this, you are probably newer to holding the line, which means guilt and "unkind" feelings are common after you uphold a boundary. When that happens, remind yourself: you have nothing to feel guilty about. You are expecting respect. If they are unwilling to respect your boundaries, that is their issue, not yours.
7. Revisit your boundaries from time to time. Notice what is working and what is not, and adjust if needed. Life evolves. Relationships evolve. It is fitting that boundaries get a periodic check to see if they are still appropriate.

You've got this

Does it feel uncomfortable at first? Yes. Only because it is new, and not what you are used to. You are changing the rules for how you get treated to what they should have been in the first place. You are developing a new habit: the habit of valuing you.

Building and maintaining self-love and confidence is an ongoing journey. To begin working with me, just click here.