Following on from my last newsletter, I am pleased to offer you advice and tips about setting personal boundaries … for others and for yourself.
If you would like to read about setting professional boundaries, please see Don’t Cross My Line (Part One).
Personal boundaries
If you are working from home either all or part of your working week. you may need to find strategies to help you set boundaries within your home environment. These may include:
- Clarifying to those you live with your working hours
- Putting a Please do not Disturb notice on the door to say you are working/on a video call/in a meeting
- Letting people know your break times
- Asking people in advance to keep noise to a minimum
Other personal situations
There are multiple situations where you may want to set personal boundaries.
Situations can include:
- Someone invading your physical space – tell them you feel uncomfortable talking so close and ask them to move back a bit
- Your friend talking non-stop on the phone – set limits on the length of the call, say I have five minutes left, close the conversation politely – so that you can give quality listening when you are on the phone in the knowledge of when the call will finish
- Division between partners of leisure time versus attending to responsibilities – come to a mutual agreement of days and times for each, plan it rather than simply letting it happen
- Your flat mate or family constantly leave lights on when they are not in the room, as if it’s some festive display – say how concerned you are about the rising cost of energy and ask them to turn off the lights when they leave a room so that you can keep costs down.
- A visiting guest wants to talk continually –
if you’re working from home, remind them of your working hours and also explain that after work you need some personal time for yourself to wind down. - Intruding eg a friend or family member asking you about your personal finances, relationships or social activities – say when you feel uncomfortable talking about personal matters.
Assertiveness with self
Some boundaries require assertiveness with the self, before being assertive with others.
Be mindful of what you offer to do – so you don’t have to extricate yourself from situations you got yourself into due to lack of assertion and the desire to please others before yourself.
It could ultimately mean that you are unable to keep the promises you made as a result of burnout.
Offering to do something simply to please is likely to prove stressful, especially:
- when you don’t feel comfortable offering,
- it’s something you don’t want to do, or
- it will put you under unnecessary time pressure
In conclusion
If you don’t have clear boundaries, others won’t know when they are crossing them. The more you stretch your boundaries, the more others will stretch them for you.
- What boundaries do you want to preserve?
- What boundaries do others overstep?
- What will you do about both?
To kick-start or refresh and boost your assertiveness, together with your personal power, find out about my self-help guide. This valuable assertiveness resource helps you achieve positive change in just 21 steps.
