How You Can Create Strong and Healthy Personal Boundaries

This is a guest post by Jason Anthony on setting healthy boundaries.

Do you find creating boundaries challenging?

Some of the more stressful aspects we face in our personal and professional lives are managing our perceptions, beliefs, and emotions when dealing with others, stress, and negative situations.

We like to think that the people we care about have our best interest at heart and the world is working with us, but sometimes this isn’t the case. Sometimes the actions and behaviors of those close to us create the most damage, and sometimes the situations we end up in can be difficult to process or manage.

When you work towards strengthening your boundary, managing and processing these occurrences becomes a breeze. You become less affected by what happens to you and more effective in what will happen to you.

In its simplest form, your personal boundary is an invisible force that holds together who you are as an individual. It contains your thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, core beliefs, values, and energy. These are substances that make up your life and who you are. In the same way that a rubber balloon holds air, your personal boundary is responsible for keeping in all your resources.

Now, picture in your mind that you just filled a shiny red balloon up with air, and you have the end clasped between your finger and thumb. What happens if you let your fingers go? What happens if you or someone else pokes a hole in it? The balloon either pops, or the air rushes out, sending the balloon out of control and out of your reach.

Signs of a Weak Personal Boundary

With weak boundaries, it’s easy to allow someone or something to pop the balloon. It’s even easier to pop it yourself or let it slip out of your fingers. It feels like you’re drained and have no energy when this happens. Your thoughts become scattered and cloudy, and soon emotions tend to override logic and reality.

Simply put, a poor boundary leaves you feeling like you have no control. It’s at this point where everything outside of yourself dictates how you act and behave. Your mood and feelings are based on what’s happening to you. You become reactive and responsive to what’s around you, rather than proactive and in charge of yourself and your direction.

It’s a scary feeling and something I’ve dealt with on a personal level. It took some dire events in my life to realize that I was the only one able to do something about it, but before I could do so, I had to single out what it was that needed to be corrected.

Identifying The Improvement Areas

Depending on your situation, several factors can contribute to a weakened boundary. They can range from family members and spouses to outside factors like finances, your career, and something as simple as sitting in rush hour traffic. It can be physical or mental, or both. There are no limits to what we can let affect us.

If someone or something is causing turmoil, stress, drama, and sucking the resources from you, then they’re easily identifiable as an area that needs improvement. It can even be you. For myself, it was a huge struggle with my self-esteem. I had a horrible sense of self-worth, and as a result, I was a burden and drained myself and the people around me that I cared about.

It’s essential to include all the areas, including yourself. How do you feel about yourself, react to others, and approach conflict? Take an inventory of all the elements you are currently struggling within your life.

Thoughts will always remain thoughts if you do nothing about them, so list them out with a pencil, pen, or type them. By defining the issues and making them tangible, you make them manageable.

Strengthen Your Identity

You can now prioritize and categorize each instance with a list in hand. Which are the most urgent and should be dealt with immediately, and what can wait for another time.

Don’t worry if your number one priority may take more time than number 3 or 4. You can still hold the importance of one obstacle as the main priority as you work towards eliminating others.

For example, losing weight or quitting smoking may rank high on your list, but they take a considerable amount of time to accomplish. Keep them up there, but also work at chipping away at everything else on your list in the meantime, too. It will help you build momentum along the way.

Now comes the fun part.

I’m sure you will agree that time and energy are two rare and precious commodities. Since they’re such exceptional assets, it only makes sense to choose how you will spend them. You can do this by applying the 100/0 Rule.

It simply means you take full responsibility for the matters that are 100% in your control – everything inside the balloon. This includes your feelings, emotions, beliefs, ideas, thoughts, decisions, and actions.

You have 0% of everything outside of the balloon in terms of what you can control. This includes family and friends, co-workers, traffic, weather, finances, the economy, and even your spouse and children. Don’t be mistaken here, you may have X amount of responsibility when it comes to these things, but they are stand-alone entities in their balloons, for which you cannot control.

Another amazing and invigorating advantage you have in strengthening your identity is the power of saying “no.” Unfortunately, there are people out there who tend to take advantage of another person’s goodwill.

By saying no, you are putting decision-making power in your hands. Remember that you can’t be all things to all people, and it’s perfectly OK to decline a request for a favor or pass on an invite. In doing this, you make your boundary visible to others and yourself. You do not have to shut everything out of your life but try saying no every now and then. I think you’ll like it.

By strengthening your boundary, you increase your level of self-worth and set healthy limitations on your relationships and with the people in your life. This is a natural way to build confidence and a sense of value in yourself. In practicing and making yourself a priority, you’ll start to notice how things that may have derailed you in the past seem to roll off your shoulders. It’s a great feeling!

Action Steps To Take Today

Identify the areas of your life where you feel drained.

Can you control it? Apply and reinforce the 100/0 Rule with consistency.
Practice saying no and taking control where necessary.

Celebrate your efforts and victories – you deserve it.

Remember to monitor and track your progress along the way. Even if you’re still waging war, you can celebrate the victory of the more minor battles along the way. Each time you advance, it’s a step closer to your goal, which you can be proud of.

I sincerely wish that by sharing some of these ideas with you, you may gain a fresh perspective or perhaps something to hold on to, refine, or use as your own for many years to come. Now I’d like to hear what you think. Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments.