Boundaries: Their Importance And How to Set Them

Every person in this world creates a certain type of personality from the very moment their mind starts to grasp the things around them. Hence, we all have things that we like and that we despise, no matter if they are masked behind our reactions or not. These things can exist at the physical level (f.e liking a certain car), but the most important ones for every one of us stand at the psychological level (f.e liking/disliking a certain behavior).

3 Reasons Why Boundaries Are Needed

To get to the point, I will start analyzing the reasons why knowing and then establishing our own boundaries is very important to us and those around us.

Avoid situations that you dislike

The obvious one is that by understanding yourself and knowing what you like and dislike as a person, you can start creating the right situations for yourself to be a part of. By seeing the things that you like, for instance, in other people, you can appreciate these attitudes more. Moreover, by seeing the things you dislike in other people, you can also evade these people or the uncomfortable situations that they create.

That also works for yourself; everything you like/dislike in others reflects how you see certain things in life. For instance, if you dislike it when others are late for their meetings with you, then you won't be satisfied when you start not being on time for your meetings constantly.

Limit your anxiety

Understanding your own limits can help you minimize your formed anxiety in certain scenarios in life. Anxiety is a message our subconscious mind is sending us to take a certain action so that we can avoid a situation we despise and think might happen in the future.

So if for example, you dislike it when people don't answer your phone calls for a long period of time and that keeps happening for a large number of times, the next time you might think about calling them, anxiety might pop up so that it will stop you from doing something that might result in a situation you despise. Knowing your own boundaries can help you deal with these kinds of situations so that you won't need your anxiety to kick-off to get through them.

Be satisfied with yourself

Lastly, comes to the practical reason; establishing your own boundaries helps you overcome difficult situations in life and generally helps you lead a happier life. It is vital to address that everyone has a different order of importance to their own boundaries. That means that some things might be heavily liked or disliked by some, but by others not so much.

This plays a major role when setting our boundaries because when for instance something is very important to our well-being, we absolutely need it so that we can be happy with ourselves.

That gives us an extra layer of thought in the process; what kind of flexibility does every boundary that we create for ourselves has. So when something is very important to our happiness, let's say not lying or getting lied to, we can't afford not doing anything about that when we see that happening.

By creating our own boundaries, meaning a certain level of acceptance of something that we dislike, we enable ourselves not to get in situations where we will get hurt.

For the aforementioned example, by establishing a certain level for the times that you get lied to by someone and you forgive them, not only will you be satisfied with yourself if you abide by your rules, but you will also be freed from people that you most likely won’t along with since they don't respect your boundaries.

How to Form Your Boundaries

We have already seen why boundaries are important to our lives, so the next part is the actual formation and implementation of them.

Find and set your boundaries

First off, we must understand our minds first. You won’t be able to create firm boundaries that will last longer and protect you from even the hardest of hours if you are not aware of your needs and wants.

Every one of us needs to think as to what characteristics are his/her forte, which human behaviors and characteristics are likable and which are not, which are the ones that they can tolerate (for both themselves and others), and on what level.

These 4 things are hard to be completely aware of and might take some time to be truly sure about your answers. But you can make it easier for yourself with just one task: grab a pencil and a piece of paper. On that paper try to write down the answers to the above 4 questions. When you fill it out, leave it in a place that you have quick access to so that you can read it easily and as much as you can.

Now every couple of months, check the paper and try to see if you find something is amiss, or something that you haven’t written yet and correct them or write them down.

Implement your findings

The aforementioned paper is your guiding light for setting your boundaries. For all the things you are sure about and that you value a lot, you have to write down the limits and the consequences for you and others when crossing them.

Let us use the example of when someone is making fun of an important aspect of you, for instance, the hard work you have put into anything, in a demeaning way.

Since you find that important and you don’t want to accept that behavior against your work, you let the other person know that and the consequences for crossing that line the next time (it can be not talking to them again, or not showing them your work again, etc).

It helps a lot to have a plan of action for situations like this, and that single piece of paper can provide you that. Otherwise, you will always try to withstand certain things that you are supposed not to and be unhappy with yourself for not attaining anything that you want and can.

Alex Haley said this in even better and simpler terms:

“Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you”

Ending Note

Every person on earth has their own values and thoughts and they subconsciously categorize them on a scale starting from extremely dissatisfying to extremely satisfying. Everyone can be aware of their values and the corresponding tolerance they have when someone (or themselves) crosses the line.

So, when you find yourself stuck in any kind of situation, ask yourself this: Do I desire this to happen once more, and an infinite number of times? If the answer is no, then you have to reevaluate your values and reestablish them in a way that will make your behavior change according to your newly formed values and limitations, so that you can avoid these situations in the future.

At the end of the day, if we all try to respect our and other people’s boundaries we can achieve even higher levels of happiness and fulfillment. The only hard thing in the process is finding that faded line.

Guides

1. Self-development and understanding: Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Arthur Schopenhauer, Dale Carnegie, Rhonda Bryne, Mark Manson, Rolf Dobelli, and others.
2. Learn more about psychology: 2KnowMyself