In a world where people can ping you an email, drop you a text, facetime you, skype you, DM you, call you or disrupt your workflow before you can say the words “I’m busy”, boundaries are more important than ever.
And letting others hijack your productivity or recuperation time doesn’t serve anyone in the long-run as it can so easily sour your relationship with them.
Your time and energy are precious and building borders around your work and leisure time can have a monumental impact on your wellbeing. When creating new boundaries that work, it is important to take several factors into account. Here are 6 ways to make boundaries while keeping the respect, and goodwill, of your peers.
- Know Your Limits
Understanding your limits is the first step to setting boundaries. It is good to occasionally take a step back from your life and evaluate what relationships or actions are starting to drain your social energy or inhibit your performance at work.
You can’t control every aspect of your life because people are unpredictable. However, by noting down what you value most, you can help layout your non-negotiable boundaries. This might entail valuing time to yourself, and so penciling in Sunday evenings for ‘me time’, or valuing family and so making sure you are home for dinner twice a week — no ifs or buts.
Understanding what you need from life is the first step to sincere self-respect.
- I got new rules, I count ‘em.
Dua Lipa might have been onto something. When it comes to setting boundaries, you need to be clear with yourself about what they are. Instead of telling yourself that you won’t answer emails in the late evenings — set a concrete time boundary instead. Decide not to answer emails after 6 pm, and then make yourself digitally accountable. Mute email notifications on your phone, delete the email tab on your laptop or sign out altogether.
If Thursdays are date nights, maybe you can stay late at work Monday to Wednesday, but Thursdays are for you and your partner. If you fail to make concrete rules you are more likely to let your priorities slip away from you altogether. Try writing things down if that helps you remember to stick to them.
This is all part of permitting yourself. Reiterating and making clear why you are setting these rules prevents the guilt that stops us from imposing them.
- Stop Beating Around the Bush
Beating around the bush is a very British thing. We love to be faux-polite: say “sorry” several times without meaning it, or say “it’s not a problem!”, when actually — it is a problem. The issue with this approach is that by not communicating boundaries, a lot of residual resentment can build up over time between co-workers or friends. This usually ends up harming the relationship more than if you had just been honest in the first place.
Boundaries aren’t real boundaries if only you know about them. Starting to ignore certain individuals at times you dedicate to yourself or others can be confusing for them, and at times downright rude. Whilst for some, healthy boundaries are respected without a word being said, some people struggle to respect your boundaries if they don’t know what they are. Justin Baksh, a licensed mental health counsellor, explains that if you fail to advocate for yourself “your self-esteem and identity can be impacted, and you build resentment towards others”.
However, how you communicate these boundaries is crucial.
- Be Respectful
Be respectful in your communication. As an angsty teenager you may have yelled at your parents to “Go awaaayy!” every time they lightly tapped on your door — but adulthood calls for a little more grace.
Instead of articulating a boundary by saying something like, “You have got to stop bothering me when I’m working”, instead you could say “I need to focus on this for the next hour unless it’s urgent, could we speak afterwards?”.
When it comes to setting boundaries in the workplace, it can be a delicate matter as one can worry about being demoted. However, by being respectful, open, and providing reasoning you can gain the respect of your superiors and colleagues. Communicate in a way that recognises the company’s needs: “If I spend my time on X, I won’t be able to get Y done in time”.
- Collaborate
While it is important to have non-negotiable boundaries, it is equally important to listen to the needs of others. Your colleagues at work, for example, might also need a boundary or two from you! If you have a conversation about how you all work best, you could even end up creating mutual boundaries within your time. For example, no chit-chat between 10 and 12 while we all focus on our tasks. When a boundary is mutual it is far more likely to be kept without any arguments.
This is particularly important at work. So, for example, you could let your boss know that you’d rather come to work earlier but not stay as late and say something like, “I work better when I come in earlier rather than stay late. How does that work with your plans?”
- Practice saying “No thanks”
Excuses, excuses, excuses — we’ve all heard them. From the comical “My dog ate my homework” to “I’m sorry I can’t make dinner tonight, I’m just SWAMPED at work”, as you lie in the bath, soaking in essential oils.
However, when it comes to setting boundaries around your leisure time, it isn’t always necessary to explain. You can decide to not attend an event just because you decided not to attend that event. A polite “No thanks” is sometimes enough. This can feel awkward at first to do, but you can start small. For example, if your housemate wants to have a movie night and you’re not quite feeling it, a simple “no thanks” will suffice.
Be Patient
People are going to slip up and cross a boundary now and again, and you will probably do the same to others also — c’est la vie! Nevertheless, people are bound to get better at understanding your limits over time if you stay firm about them. As Henry Cloud explains in his best-selling book Boundaries, you don’t always need to verbally persuade someone, they may simply “be motivated to change if their old ways no longer work.”
