Boundaries for Your Life and Business Part 1: What are Boundaries?

Boundaries are a great tool for helping us have successful lives and businesses.

But first off, what exactly is a boundary?

I deferred to two of my favorite “celebrities”, Terry Real (relationship therapist and author) and Brene Brown (social work professor, researcher and author) to find out how they define boundaries.

“Boundaries are a pre-requisite for compassion and empathy. We cannot connect with someone unless we’re clear about where they end and we begin.

If there’s no autonomy between people, there’s no compassion and empathy, just enmeshment.” - Brene Brown

“A good boundary is supple: it keeps you connected AND protected at the same time.” - Terry Real

Boundaries are actions we do to take care of ourselves. They’re not a way to control someone else, or a rule book for how someone should act. We create and implement them to protect our time and energy.

In this blog my aim is to give you a solid definition for what they are so you can start thinking about what yours might be.

Here are a couple boundary categories to get you started.

1) Personal boundaries are boundaries for how you will spend your time, money, energy.

This is what you will and won’t do with your time, money, energy, etc.

An example would be: After dinner instead of bingeing Netflix, I take a short walk.

Personal boundaries should reflect and support your personal values. The value this boundary supports is health and vitality.

For these boundaries to succeed you first you need to know how you want to spend your time, money and energy.

This takes some introspection. Be patient with yourself. Be curious about yourself.

Take some time to figure this out. Then be clear on what you need to do less of and what you need to do more of.

2) Interpersonal boundaries occur between you and someone else.

This is what sort of behavior you will and won’t tolerate from someone else.

This is not a rule book for the other person. This is an action you will take if someone does something you won’t tolerate.

An example would be first stating the need:

“Instead of coming straight into the house, could you knock on the door and wait for me to answer?”

If they continue to come in without knocking, then you would set the boundary and say, “If you keep coming in without knocking, I’m going to start locking the door.” Then you would follow through with this action. Notice that it was YOU who took the action of locking the door. You’re not forcing the other person to change.

An example in business could be: “I only accept customer communication through email. If you call or text, I won’t be able to answer.”

Then you need to follow through and send them an email reminder to move communication to email only.

People can struggle with interpersonal boundaries for a couple reasons. If we have people-pleasing tendencies, this can trip us up. If we want to make everyone happy, we may flex our boundaries and then make ourselves unhappy.

Fear can also play a role here. If we’re afraid to lose the sale with a customer we may flex our boundaries. Or if we’re afraid of what someone will think of us, we may flex our boundaries.

With both personal and interpersonal boundaries, having success comes down to managing our minds.

For personal boundaries, like stopping work each day at a certain time, it’s helpful to remember that we can never get all the work done. Can you create a thought about yourself that supports this boundary?

There can be fear around slowing down in our business, resting, and taking care of ourselves. Its counter intuitive for a lot of folks but rest and self care helps with productivity. We can’t be “on” all the time. Remember this when creating your personal boundaries around work and rest/leisure.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when trying to discover if you need to set a boundary with yourself or someone else:

• Does it impede on your emotional or physical wellbeing?

• Does it make you feel small or like you are settling?

• Do you feel like you are being taken advantage of (physical, emotional, financial, energetic, self, etc.)?

Now, can you come up with 2 simple boundaries you could put in place this week in order to take better care or yourself and your business?