What is your automatic response to the word boundaries?  Do you feel yourself cringe when you think of establishing boundaries? Does it feel limiting, selfish, or disconnected? This was my story for the longest time.  

 

I did not see boundaries as my friend until I realized that I am the one who gets to set them. When I do so intentionally, keeping in mind my values, capacity, and enjoyment, everybody wins.  

 

I would love to tell you how I chose to rewrite this story and discover the beauty in my boundaries. Today, they allow me to do my best for others, not because I do less for others but because I became intentional about what I said YES to, and the outcomes raised the standard for my impact and contribution.  

 

Before focusing on the outer world and what we do for others, I make it a point to look inward. Take a look at the engine, so to speak. Connect to your inner drivers. Reflecting on boundaries led me down a path I didn't expect. It made me think of trust.  

 

Pause here before reading on: How do you think trust connects with boundaries? 

 

Do you trust yourself to know where your boundaries are? 

 

A boundary is not there to make someone else "do" or "not do" something; we all know we can't control other people's behavior.  

 

A boundary is a decision about what YOU will do in response to someone crossing a line you established for yourself.  

Shhh, don't tell anyone, but this includes consciously and thoughtfully shifting that line through choice. 

 

This isn't about whether it's acceptable to change your mind; it's about HOW you go about changing your mind. 

 

Knowing yourself and what is essential to your well-being at a given time takes unapologetic intentionality and clarity. Clarifying what is essential for you takes time and space, and once you get there, it may change, but you will get there faster next time.  

 

Living a life of impact takes consistent action, follow-through, and adaptation.  

 

How often do you tell yourself, quietly in your thoughts, that you will do something (or not) and then break your promise to yourself in a split-second decision? I am talking about your inner dialogue, those conversations no one else hears. The voice in your head saying things like 'maybe tomorrow' or 'they need this more than I do' might not seem like a big deal since no one else has heard you make that promise to yourself or break it. But is it really not a big deal? 

 

A split-second shift in response to environmental pressure is different than a consciously thoughtful shift that originates from your values, capacity, and enjoyment.  

 

In that split second, you're crossing your own boundary, choosing the path of least resistance.  How can we expect others to respect our boundaries when we are unwilling to do so ourselves?  

 

That adage "you teach others how to treat you" could land a little deeper with a small addition. 

 

You teach others how to treat you by how you treat yourself.  

 

We can sense this about each other. Remember "parent/grandparent shopping" when you were a kid? Did you ever choose to appeal to various authorities for various requests? How did you decide who to ask?  

You sensed the level of their boundaries on a given subject. A kid can see squishy boundaries a mile away.   

 

Suppose the pattern of quietly breaking your promises to yourself continues.  

In that case, self-trust is compromised, self-confidence suffers, and a perpetual people-pleaser appears on the scene to make you feel secure in a different way, secure on the surface level, secure in being liked by others. 

 

What if you focused on trusting your own decisions before worrying about others' approval? This shift helps build trust and respect with others because it starts within you. 

When you trust yourself, people know your 'yes' is genuine. It takes energy, but there's strength AND softness in that. 

 

Until we come to a place in life where we examine this, we all do what works; some of us continue to lean into that people-pleaser coping strategy and say "yes" to more and more activities, desperately trying to prove that other people can trust you, all the while not being able to trust yourself. Imagine how much energy this takes up. I lived that life. 

 

When I got to that place of examination, I had to deal with a habit that got me into this mess in the first place: The habit of not saying yes to my promises to myself. Those were the silent, tiny promises I made in my head, the ones no one knew about.  

 

What makes it ok in my head to say that I will use my lunch hour to exercise and instead say yes to a last-minute phone meeting that "urgently" appeared out of nowhere? 

  

Was I willing to sacrifice self-trust and self-confidence for a fleeting sense of peace when I said, "Yes, let's meet on my lunch hour" instead of "Please pick another time" and experienced that momentary friction of a "no"? Who says there ispeace in that kind of a "yes" anyway?  

What are we after when we consciously choose one thing and reflexively switch our choice mid-flight?  

 

Without realizing it, this chase for false peace caused me to break more and more promises to myself to make more space to say "yes" to other people's priorities while ignoring my own. My impact was scattered. A wall of resentment started building up brick by brick, and before long, I was not having fun with any of the things I said "yes" to and was facing a health crisis.  

 

What about that deep security in knowing that I can trust myself to handle whatever comes?  

 

Through this crisis of my cancer diagnosis, I realized that I wanted THAT deep security more than the false peace with someone else's priorities!  

 

I wanted deep security in knowing I could handle whatever came, one step at a time.  

 

I leaned on my faith here, and I still had to trust myself to keep going and put one foot in front of the other. 

 

When you reach that sense of security, your actions feel steady and calm. You're free from ego when you succeed and free from guilt when you 'fail.' 

 

I put 'fail' in quotes because failure is not a dirty word in this context.  

It is an opportunity to decide whether you want to:  

• Move on entirely.
• Try again.
• Shift course and try again. 

 

It was time to rethink how I made decisions. Instead of focusing on what I could do for others, I began filtering my time and energy based on three things: 

1. My core values, 
2. My current capacity, 
3. My excitement for the project. 

 

 

I realized that if something aligned with my values, I had the capacity, and I was thrilled to say YES, the result from this action would be exponentially bigger and better for everyone involved, including myself.  

Considering the multiplier of exponential growth, everybody wins from this space.  

 

This became a distillation process that increased the potency of my impact on my world, big or small.  Every "no" became MARGIN that waited, ready for my absolute "yes." 

This changed the landscape of my daily life.  

I didn't doubt my ability to get anything done, AND I no longer made promises to myself that I knew I didn't intend to keep.  

I also stopped making promises to myself or others that did not address at least two decision-making questions:  

• Does this align with my core commitment/values? 
• Do I have the capacity in my life NOW? 
• Does saying "YES" to this brings me joy and excitement? 

I require all three for big decisions.  

 

There is so much more to boundaries than limitations; there is so much beauty in intention, impact, and integration.  

 

As always, the choice is yours!