In Professional Troublemaker, Luvvie Ajayi Jones says that healthy boundaries are important in relationships. Setting boundaries can include everything from telling people when they’re doing something that makes us uncomfortable to establishing rules for the way people interact with us online.
Boundaries can be scary because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, come across as rude or unlikable, or face rejection. If we accommodate others without setting healthy boundaries, we allow ourselves to be taken advantage of and mistreated. Let’s explore the difference between healthy and unhealthy boundaries, and how to set limitations with other people and yourself.
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What Are Healthy Boundaries and Unhealthy Boundaries?
When you learn how to set healthy boundaries, you make sure that the people in your life know how you’d like to be treated, which can make things more comfortable both for them and for you. On the other hand, if you don’t set boundaries, you’ll likely experience resentment, anxiety, and exhaustion in your relationships. Without boundaries, your friends, coworkers, and loved ones will fail to live up to your standards, as they won’t know what those standards are in the first place. Inevitably, you’ll be frustrated and disappointed when these failures happen.
In Set Boundaries, Find Peace, Nedra Glover Tawwab says that boundaries can be explicit or implicit. For example, you might explicitly set a boundary with your roommate that you expect them to stay out of your room while you’re on work calls. By contrast, you might implicitly expect your roommate to not take money from your wallet without asking. As Tawwab notes, our tendency to be either explicit or implicit about our boundaries is shaped by our childhood relationships with our parents. If your parents had many unspoken rules and expectations, then you’ll tend to have implicit boundaries, whereas if your parents clearly expressed their rules, you’ll be more likely to have explicit boundaries.
Your boundaries are informed by your personal history. Depending on your past relationships, you might develop boundaries differently. Tawwab specifies two types of unhealthy boundaries that people often develop: weak boundaries and strict boundaries (or as Tawwab refers to them, porous boundaries and rigid boundaries).
| Your Cultural Background Informs Your Boundaries One aspect of your personal history that shapes your boundaries is the culture you grow up in. For example, US culture emphasizes individual autonomy and success, which leads people to develop boundaries that protect their own individual needs and interests. By contrast, in cultures where the family is the fundamental unit of society, people tend to form boundaries that prioritize the needs of the family over the needs of the individual. While it isn’t inherently unhealthy to prioritize either yourself or your family, when taken to extremes either one of these paradigms can become unhealthy. For example, if you prioritize your own needs to such a degree that you shut others out, your boundaries may prevent you from forming close relationships. On the other hand, if you’re always putting others before yourself, your boundaries may stop you from pursuing your own goals and tending to your own needs. |
Tawwab’s first type of unhealthy boundary, weak boundaries, are boundaries that are too flexible to protect your needs. Weak boundaries make it hard to say no to people, even when you’re already feeling overwhelmed. Other signs you may have weak boundaries include a desire to make everyone happy, fear of rejection, and needing approval from others.
For example, suppose you’d like one of your coworkers to contribute equally on shared projects, but you always end up covering for them as deadlines approach. While you’d rather not take on the extra work, you always agree to do it, out of a desire to help your coworker. In this scenario, you have a weak boundary with your coworker—because you’re unable to say no, you end up stretching yourself thin. As a result of the weak boundary, you overwork yourself, and you may even feel resentful toward your coworker.
If you weren’t allowed to prioritize your needs as a child, you may end up with weak boundaries as an adult. As Tawwab notes, this is especially common in adult children of parents who struggled with addiction.
Strict boundaries are the second type of unhealthy boundary that Tawwab describes. Strict boundaries are the opposite of weak boundaries—they lead you to push people away in an attempt to keep yourself safe.
If you have strict boundaries, you might refuse to forgive friends for minor offenses and instead opt to cut them out completely. While cutting people out instead of working to set boundaries and resolve issues might keep those people from hurting you, setting such strict boundaries may lead you to lose friends and experience loneliness.
According to Tawwab, you might develop strict boundaries if others have taken advantage of you in the past. Strained relationships with family and friends who ask to borrow money, as well as a history of being taken advantage of in romantic relationships are common factors that can lead you to develop strict boundaries.
You may have strict boundaries if you experience fear of vulnerability, an inability to share, or you cut people out without first making an effort to repair the relationship.
How to Establish Boundaries With People
By setting healthy boundaries, you minimize the chances that people will transgress or violate your standards by doing something you don’t tolerate. Although setting boundaries can be awkward and uncomfortable, it’s essential to ensure harmonious relationships.
Step #1: Identify Your Boundaries
According to Tawwab, there are two kinds of boundaries you need to establish: personal and social. Your personal boundaries are your standards for how people should treat your physical body. Personal boundaries specify what level of physical and sexual contact, if any, you’re comfortable with in your relationships.
To identify your personal boundaries, reflect on a situation where physical touch made you uncomfortable. Ask yourself what specifically made you uncomfortable and how you’d like to be treated in the future. Once you’ve identified a situation where you’d like to set a personal boundary, define the boundary by writing down a statement that includes both the behavior that makes you uncomfortable and what changes you’d like to see.
Step #2: Know What You Control
When you’re overly concerned about how others feel, it’s easy to feel responsible for their emotions. However, their feelings aren’t your responsibility—you can’t control people’s emotional reactions. Taking responsibility is also unrealistic and disrespectful because you unintentionally treat someone as incapable of handling their emotions. Instead, Not Nice by Aziz Gazipura recommends treating everyone as a fully functioning adult who’ll inevitably feel a range of emotions.
If you find yourself constantly feeling responsible for other people’s feelings, Gazipura offers several strategies:
1. Sitting With Emotions is a meditative exercise you can do anytime you’re feeling guilt or anxiety about how someone else is feeling. When these feelings arise, close your eyes and bring your attention to where your discomfort is sitting in your body—maybe it’s knots in your stomach, a constriction in your throat, or tension in your jaw. Breathe deeply while focusing on the physical sensation of the emotion, and then try to soften the area of tension. As you practice sitting with your own discomfort, you’ll find that it’s not as scary as you imagined and the feelings become easier to manage over time.
2. The Personal Bubble is a visualization that can help you stop taking responsibility for people’s feelings. When you first wake up, or as you go through your day, imagine a giant translucent bubble around your body. The bubble is semi-permeable, is in your control, and can let in connection, love, and excitement, while blocking judgment and anxiety. Imagining this bubble can help you empathize with others’ feelings without taking them on as your own.
3. The Pattern Interrupt is a practice of noticing your tendency to take responsibility, and then changing your behavior. First, notice when other people’s feelings are making you feel guilty or anxious. After you notice your instinctive response, intentionally introduce a new one. Maybe when someone else is feeling strong emotions, you take a few deep breaths, or say to yourself, “I am not responsible for their feelings.” The goal is to find a new behavior to replace the old one and implement it until it becomes a habit.
While you’re not responsible for others’ feelings, you can still provide support during tough times. Gazipura explains that challenging emotions often arise from unmet core needs such as certainty, connection, and contribution. He recommends asking questions to help others identify these unmet needs and explore ways to support them in fulfilling those needs.
Step #3: Communicate Your Boundaries
Once you’ve identified your personal and social boundaries, it’s time to set those boundaries in your relationships. To do this, you’ll want to clearly and directly communicate your boundaries as you’ve defined them in the previous step.
Nedra Glover Tawwab argues that the best time to communicate your boundaries is during or immediately after an uncomfortable situation. Communicating your boundaries immediately helps end uncomfortable situations as quickly as possible, and also prevents resentment from building. On the other hand, if you don’t speak up immediately, other people will have no way to know you’re uncomfortable with a certain behavior, which means they’ll likely continue their behavior. If weeks or months go by and you still haven’t spoken up, your negative feelings about the incident are more likely to fester into resentment.
For instance, suppose your partner says something that embarrasses you in front of your parents. While you’re a little upset, you decide to put it aside to avoid making a scene. Then, the next time you’re all together, they do it again. Naturally, you’d feel even more upset and embarrassed the second time, and you’d also probably begin to feel frustrated with your partner. By speaking up in the moment the first time it happened, you would have avoided being embarrassed twice, and you’d also prevent frustration from building between you and your partner.
Tawwab stresses the importance of being assertive when communicating your boundaries. By being assertive, you let others know that you’re serious about your boundaries. By contrast, if you adopt an apologetic tone, it sends a message to others that your boundaries may have wiggle room.
Similarly, you should avoid explaining your reasoning. While it may feel natural to tell others why your boundaries are important, Tawwab notes that explaining yourself only creates opportunities for others to argue with you.
For example, suppose you offer to let your brother use your car for a few hours, and he doesn’t bring it back until the next day. If, as Tawwab prescribes, you choose to be direct and assertive, you might say something like “When you borrow my car, I need you to return it on time, otherwise I won’t be able to lend it to you.” Statements like these make it clear what you expect from your relationships.
By contrast, if you choose to explain yourself, you might say something like “I need my car to get to work, pick up the kids, and run errands.” While you might intend to provide clarity, your explanation only gives your brother room to argue by saying that you can walk or use public transit to do all those things.
Tawwab recommends that you take time to rest and let difficult emotions settle after communicating boundaries. It’s important to give yourself a break after setting boundaries because communicating boundaries can be difficult and uncomfortable, especially if you’re new to it. Taking time to eat a comforting meal, read a book, or chat with a friend are all things that can help you decompress after setting boundaries.
Step #4: Reframe Your Words
Saying no to yourself is hard, and saying no to other people and external commitments can sometimes be even harder. To stay resiliently focused on the tasks and goals that matter most, evaluate anything that diverts your time and energy by whether it serves your primary goal. This includes your habitual distractions, work obligations, and even opportunities that may look appealing but are wasteful in the long run.
One tool that Jeff Haden (The Motivation Myth) provides to emphasize the power of saying no is to reframe “I can’t” statements as “I don’t.” For example, if you’re spending an afternoon making calls to build your client base (toward your goal of being a freelance public speaker) and you’re frequently tempted to quit this task early, don’t tell yourself “I can’t stop until I’ve made my daily quota.” Say instead, “I don’t stop until I’ve made my daily quota.” The word “can’t” opens the door to resentment—as if the stated task was imposed from outside—while leaving room to negotiate with yourself. Rephrasing as “I don’t” makes completing the task a part of who you are and has been shown to bolster resilience and motivation.
Setting up boundaries at work is also vital. Odds are that you spend a great deal of time not focusing on the tasks that you’re best at or pushing yourself forward to your goal. If you’re already a high achiever, this is likely because you’ve said “yes” too often and have taught your colleagues that you’re always available. Haden suggests dialing back on this habit so that the people you work with won’t use you as a crutch. Don’t be afraid to deflect and delegate jobs that don’t support your main goals. Setting boundaries isn’t dismissive—to the contrary, it can foster productive relationships and help your colleagues to be more self-reliant.
This also involves saying no to things that may seem like opportunities at first glance, such as a request to mentor someone, plan a party, or accept additional work responsibilities. Haden argues that you should look at each offer and ask if it will help you on your way to your goal and if it will do so better than the plan you’re following now. If the answer is no, then as much as it pains you in the short term, turning down an opportunity can be a choice that saves energy and time.
Step #5: Take Action to Reinforce Your Boundaries
The final step in the process of setting boundaries is reinforcing your boundaries through action. Specifically, Nedra Glover Tawwab recommends that you restate your boundaries so that others know you’re serious, and set consequences for boundary violations.
Tawwab argues that restating your boundaries is just as important as initially communicating them. It’s important to repeat your boundaries because people need to hear a piece of information many times in order to internalize it and make necessary adjustments. In addition to helping others internalize your boundaries, repetition lets others know that you’re serious about your boundaries, and that they haven’t changed since the last time you spoke.
As with communicating your boundaries, the best time to restate boundaries is when violations occur. While it can be tempting, don’t let things slide even once, as this sends the impression that your boundaries aren’t serious and don’t always apply.
Finally, Tawwab notes that you should decide in advance what to do if someone continues to violate your stated boundaries. This may include consequences. Consequences can feel mean, but they often help others to understand that you’re serious about your boundaries. And, even if others choose not to adjust to your boundaries, consequences can also protect you from further harm and discomfort.
For example, suppose your boss routinely asks you to work weekends, despite the fact that your contract specifies you’ll have time off on Saturdays and Sundays. When stating your boundaries, you could include as a consequence that when asked to work on the weekend, you won’t respond and won’t come in. Even if your boss refuses to respect your boundaries and continues to pester you, this consequence protects your boundaries and your time.
How to Set Boundaries With Technology
You’ll still need to fend off all the distractions that will try to tear your attention away. To do that, you’ll need to learn how to set healthy boundaries—not just for other people, but for all the technology you’ve come to rely on: your computer, your TV, your WiFi, and most of all your phone. In Make Time, Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky suggest dozens of strategies to limit the ways that colleagues and devices can distract you from your Focus.
Some techniques are simple and some are extreme, but all are based on the central premise that your time is more important than the latest shiny thing shouting for your attention.
1. Let People Know You Mean It
The modern working world is governed by calendars and lists of things to do, and for most of us, we’re not the only ones with the power to schedule our time. The first thing you must do is block off time for your focus on your calendar. If your calendar can be viewed by others at your workplace, this will let them know that you’ve set aside time for your specific task or project. The authors stress that you should be firm with the time you’ve set aside for yourself, but also make sure that you use that time constructively. Be willing to reschedule or even cancel other activities. Not every meeting has to be a meeting, nor do they need to take as long as they do.
The hardest part may be learning to say no to other people’s requests for your time. But you need to set healthy boundaries with insistent people. Knapp and Zeratsky insist that you should always be honest about why you’re saying no, and they even suggest rehearsing a script for telling people no if you find it difficult.
2. Take Time Back From Technology
Today’s information industry has fine-tuned its tactics to keep you checking your apps, responding to notifications, and consuming new media to such a degree that it takes a concerted effort to resist its drag on your attention. From their careers in product development, Knapp and Zeratsky speak from firsthand experience about Big Tech’s tactics.
Websites, apps, and streaming services are in constant competition for eyeballs, clicks, and revenue. Unlike industries with a slower turnaround, tech developers can determine in real time how successful their strategies are. As a result, the cycle of competition has produced a system of addictive, intermittent rewards coupled with an utter lack of barriers to accessing news, games, memes, and clickbait.
The barrage of modern media is so overwhelming that it takes more than sheer strength of will to keep it at bay. The authors contend that you have to actively put barriers back in place to keep your devices from stealing your time.
3. Lock Down Your Phone
The single most pernicious device that impinges on your ability to concentrate is your smartphone. Phones have completely revolutionized society by bringing great advances to our ability to communicate and access information. However, the price we’ve paid as individuals is a massive drain on our time and attention.
Knapp and Zeratsky recommend deleting all social media apps, games, and even your email from your phone. If that’s too extreme, they suggest you turn off all notifications and remove the apps from your homescreen, forcing you to choose when to use each app. Finally, you can leave your phone behind, especially while you’re working on your Focus. Leave your phone at home, in another room, or even in a locker if one’s available. In other words, turn your phone into a tool that serves you, and not the other way around.
4. Slow Down Your Email
Many people make clearing their inbox a priority every day. This can become so overwhelming that responding to email uses up most of your productive time. While many jobs require quick email responses, Knapp and Zeratsky point out that for most of us, always responding isn’t as important as you’d think. Your employer or business will benefit more if you spend your time doing meaningful work than if you squander it by reacting to random email queries. If your job is such that some communication is time-sensitive, you can set up an email autoresponse to let people know how to reach you by other means (such as your business phone).
The authors present several strategies to take control of your email time:
- Only respond to email at the end of the day, when your energy is lower. (Email doesn’t require as much mental work as other tasks.)
- Create an email schedule to check two or three times per day. (This can be especially useful if you need to communicate with people in certain time zones around the world.)
- Budget your email time, using apps to lock you out if you have to.
These practices will probably stop you from cleaning out your inbox every day. In that case, Knapp and Zeratsky advise that you set “once a week” as a more realistic goal for an empty inbox. Whichever method you choose, let your colleagues (and friends and family) know that you’re going to address email slowly, and not to expect a rapid response.
5. Turn Off Your TV
This recommendation from the authors may be particularly hard to hear, because relaxing at the end of the day is so important, and we’re currently living in a Golden Age of quality TV content. However, most of us don’t realize how much time we give up to the TV. Knapp and Zeratsky suggest setting healthy boundaries with television by making it an occasional indulgence, not an everyday activity.
Also, you can save money on your TV by being intentional about what you watch. If you cancel continuous streaming subscriptions, you can still rent individual movies or shows from platforms such as Amazon and YouTube, or borrow DVDs for free from your local library. Most streaming platforms make it possible to subscribe long enough to binge a series and cancel when you’re done.
6. Use Technology Purposefully
Knapp and Zeratsky recommend you disconnect from the 24-hour news cycle. Instead, they suggest you set aside time to read the news once per week. Modern news is modeled around sparking fear and anger in consumers to drive your attention toward ads. Any events of major importance will still be in the news when you get around to it, and hopefully with more nuanced analysis than spur-of-the-moment “breaking news” allows. If something major happens in the world that you need to know about, the authors insist that it will reach you through other means than your devices, such as hearing about it from people at work.
Knapp and Zeratsky suggest removing the Internet entirely from your morning routine, arguing that the moment you first log into your email, check the news, or look at social media, your struggle to fight against distraction begins. The longer you can delay that from starting, the longer you’ll feel clear-headed and focused. If you need extra help avoiding the internet, you can even consider putting your home’s router on a vacation timer, so that the Internet is only available for certain hours of the day.
Further Explore How to Set Healthy Boundaries
To learn more about how to set healthy boundaries, read Shortform’s full guides to the books where these ideas come from:
