Why You Should Set Working Boundaries

It is never too late to learn about your boundaries. I am coming to believe that it is perhaps one of the aspects of living that most defines our maturity and facility for accomplishing our goals. Boundary issues are common to most of us; in fact, our personal boundaries are the basic yet often invisible rulebook that guides all of our relationships. Our boundaries define how and what we communicate and what we give and receive, and they even provide, in the most basic sense, the parameters for what we expect from others and life itself.

Boundaries reflect how we love ourselves and what we value most deeply. They impact our capacity at work, with authority, with our money and our sexuality. Knowing when we want to say yes, when we want to say no, what feels like self-respect and where our own needs start and end are the foundations that build the sense of boundaries that control our lives. Mine have long been porous, which is a generous way of admitting that my lines between myself and others, in family and even more so at work, have been fuzzy.

An old friend once told me that our boundaries are the truest measure of how we love ourselves. I thought I understood the meaning at the time. Raising four children should have bestowed on me a mastery of setting limits and protecting my personal space over the last two decades. It hasn't. I am not alone in my struggle for healthy boundaries. Learning to define our boundaries is challenging for many people because they are fluid and change with our sense of ourselves.

In order to not deal with the changing nature of creating a true relationship between our selves and the people we love, people often over-commit to rigid boundaries or under-commit to any boundaries at all. Rift Gold This explains why many relationships swing between the "doormat" and "bulldozer" syndromes. On the one hand, we are accommodating to a fault, ever flexible and "nice," which makes us both the self-sacrificing loser in most conflicts and the self-righteous victim. On the other hand, the bulldozer is ever conscious of his needs but frequently unaware of the needs of others. Characterized by a strong sense of entitlement, people who employ this rigid boundary style tend to win at conflicts but lose respect and intimacy in relationships, often without recognizing what they are giving up.

Sadly, these extremes characterize many relationships, from intimate partnerships to family bonding and work contracts. Establishing a true center for our personal boundaries is not an education that most of us get growing up; rather, we are hard-wired with our invisible boundary rulebook instilled in us as our sense of self-worth and self-esteem. It has taken me half my life to realize that I am a better friend, RIFT Platinum mother and partner to others when I am a friend to myself first. Drawing the line in relationships that are dysfunctional and unhealthy is the only positive response you can generate.

The weakest link for most of us in setting boundaries is that we never learned that setting a boundary is equivalent to letting go of the outcome in a given situation. In fact, this is the key distinguishing feature between healthy boundaries and manipulative relationships. True boundaries, once set, release the outcome. rift gold It is a true letting go of what is not ours. Often the way that I have done them with my children is when my boundaries are perceived as threats. Not letting go, trying to control the outcome is a form of manipulation that often gets confused as boundary-setting in many relationships.

Another signal to rethink your boundaries is when you are unable to keep your commitments without constant resentment. I realized that as much as I do for others in the name of love, often the takeaway for those I am trying to love feels more like obligation. I don't want to love begrudgingly, and I don't want the experience of my love to feel half-hearted; I want my efforts to show up to be authentic. Yet with so many constant and continuous demands, fatigue and feelings of being overwhelmed can often get the better of the love, and before I know it, RIFT Platinum I am resentfully following through, doing what I promised without the love. This is another classic boundary issue that ends up confusing everyone involved.

Giving up the self-sabotage, over-commitment and co-dependency that my porous boundaries have long fostered is a new path that requires daily attention and vigilance. The work of setting and keeping healthy boundaries is bound to the action verb of self-forgiveness. Learning to sense and articulate my own needs and choosing where and when to share them might well be the single biggest life change I can commit to.