What are boundaries?

Boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that you create to identify for yourself what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for you to behave, for other people to behave toward you and how you will respond when someone steps past those limits. Boundaries are NOT: agreements, deals, negotiations or ultimatums. Your boundaries are NOT the other person's responsibility. They are yours. Boundaries are the way we teach others to respect us, and how we respect ourselves. They are how we assert control over our own lives. Another term for boundary violations could be deal breakers. When someone does something that disrespects or crosses your boundaries, that’s a deal breaker. This person has blatantly shown that respecting you is not important to them, and a healthy relationship cannot be built on that.

In every day life, most of us use boundaries all the time - even though we may not be aware of it. If a salesperson is rude to us at a store, for example, we may not go back to that store. If a contractor tries to cheat us, we will probably not use that contractor again. If a coworker wants us to do something unscrupulous or illegal, we will probably refuse. Why? Boundaries. We are not going to involve ourselves in situations where we are being treated badly or unfairly, or where we are doing things that are risky, or that we don't agree with. We are standing up and saying, "I will not allow this in my life. I don't deserve this, I don't want this and I will not put up with it."

Enforcing boundaries with strangers or people we have no emotional investment in is easy. The key is to understand that you don't deserve to be treated that way by anybody, no matter who it is. If a customer service representative began cursing and screaming at you, you would hang up on them. It should be the same with everybody in your life. Boundaries empower you to walk away from situations where you are not being treated fairly or respectfully, and because of that, they are one of the most important skills you can learn. They are how you turn red flags into deal-breakers and keep yourself from getting entangled in toxic situations before it becomes so difficult to leave.