First, let’s talk about what a boundary actually is.

In a physical sense, it’s easy to understand that a boundary marks off where your property starts and where the neighbour’s ends. You are responsible for your property but not for anything that happens on your neighbour’s.

While not as easy to mark off, our emotional boundaries also mark off where our responsibilities start and end. Too many people feel out of control of their lives because they don’t have good boundaries.

Boundaries are like fences in that they keep bad things out and good things in.

This means that you protect yourself from things, people or processes that might hurt you and you nurture things or people that help you.

Notice I said fences and not walls. A wall means that nothing gets through from either side whereas a fence allows flow.

Boundaries are limits or barriers that protect you, your time and your energy.

When your boundaries are well-defined, they help to prevent conflict within your relationships. They are like your personal rules or policies.

Setting boundaries means owning and taking responsibility for your personal choices and the consequences thereof. You make the choice, you take responsibility and you can make a different choice if you don’t like the consequence.

You can’t control other people’s behaviour but you can control the extent to which it affects you. In other words, control your exposure to people.

For example, if you have a boundary that you only work on specific types of projects and a client gets upset about that, that is their issue. You don’t have to explain why you do so although you can if you want

I recently contacted a virtual assistant to see if she was interested in doing some work for me. She very politely emailed back to say that she doesn’t like to do such work. Well, even though I was slightly disappointed, I replied and told her that I LOVE her strong boundaries. I really do!

What would have happened if she’d taken on the work? She’d probably have hated it and been cross with herself for accepting it.

So how do you know that you have weak boundaries?

Here are some physiological signs:

• · Knots in your stomach when you agree to do something
• · Anger and resentment
• · Deep feeling of dread
• · Extreme procrastination
• · Feeling shocked or being appalled at what someone said to you

The first step to creating stronger boundaries is to learn to say no.

Remember if the reaction to your setting boundaries is not great (sulking, anger, nastiness, etc), it’s not about you – it’s about them. That feeling belongs on their side of the “fence”.

Complete these 3 sentences on a piece of paper (or in the comments) with as many statements underneath each as you can think of:

1. People may not… tell crude jokes in front of me
2. I have a right to … ask for help, time off, etc.
3. To protect my time and energy, I choose to do/ not to do  …… more than one social plan every weekend, only 3 hours of work on my business every week day

Those were my examples above. Over to you

Here’s to setting healthy boundaries!