7 Tips That Will Help You Set Healthy Boundaries In Your Relationships

It's amazing how much boundaries can improve the quality of a relationship. However, establishing boundaries is not simple, nor does it happen overnight. So what are healthy boundaries and how can we implement them?

Boundaries are a necessary "guide" that we create for ourselves and communicate to the people we associate with in order to show them what is okay for us and what is not, how we want to be treated, what we are willing to accept and do, and what no.

Limiting means making it clear to the other person to what extent they can interfere in my life and affect me. An important condition for doing something like this is exonerating yourself. That is, to stop confusing the sign of love and respect with saying yes to everything, offering constantly and not having tensions.

Being in a relationship does not mean that you alter your identity or change the elements of your personality. Don't forget that everything comes from you. If you are not well within yourself, how will you be well with those around you?

Meet yourself

To learn to set boundaries, you must first know what you want, what you need and what is important to you. It is therefore important to spend time discovering yourself in general and especially in the present. And that's because we don't always want the same things and priorities change according to life phase. At the same time, however, there are also entrenched desires, values and dreams that do not change easily.

Set limits for yourself too

You can certainly identify your behaviors that are not benefiting your life. They are therefore also a field of renegotiation and demarcation. Identify what you are doing that is not useful and try to change it with personal work. Something that will definitely help you understand more about the behavior you want to change is to ask yourself when it is happening and in relation to what. Each of our behaviors occurs in relation to something that happens either inside us (e.g. an emotion) or outside us (e.g. another person's behavior). For example, whenever the person you are in a relationship with does something for himself, you feel alone.

Start saying "no" to small and simple things

"No" is something directly related to delineation. So to get used to this new state of limits, start with situations that don't make it too difficult for you. Setting boundaries may be a whole new behavior you want to adopt, so give yourself time, be understanding, and acknowledge every successful effort, no matter how small.

Limits are set on behavior

Many times, you may find it difficult to express your refusal because you consider this to be about the person as a whole. But in reality, most of the time you want to set the boundaries against a specific behavior and not the person as a whole. That's why it's important to identify exactly the behavior you want to limit and focus on it, rather than talking in general terms.

Don't back down when you set boundaries

For every action there is a reaction. If you have never set boundaries before, of course, some may be negatively surprised and/or dissatisfied. The latter have probably never set personal boundaries in their own lives, so the concept of boundary is something they perceive as 'abandonment' or 'selfishness'. Here's the catch: Thinking that because someone was unhappy with your limit, you shouldn't have set it in the first place. This is also an additional lesson for you to learn to be okay with the other person's dissatisfaction.

Everyone is responsible for their own feelings

When we deny someone something, it is very likely that they will become angry or disappointed. And so you start to feel bad and upset, you change your attitude and you end up saying yes because you felt responsible for the other person's sadness. In essence, however, you take responsibility for the other person's feelings and feel that you are the cause of their disappointment. But this is not the case. You cannot control other people's feelings and they directly depend on how they interpret the events and not you.

Don't make excuses

Many times you have felt the need to say no and then you start justifying your choice. Making excuses reinforces the feeling that you are the one creating the problem. Just say no, without much detail. After all, without much information it is difficult for the other side to find a way to convince you. However, in some cases you may need to give some more details about your attitude, so that your behavior and motivations can become clear from the other side.