Do you feel people walk all over you? Invade your time, your space, and your emotional well-being? Let’s talk about how to set healthy boundaries in your life today.
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Mentioned on Ep 115: Do you feel people walk all over you? Invade your time, your space, and your emotional well-being? Let’s talk about how to set healthy boundaries in your life today.
Do you feel people walk all over you? Invade your time, your space, and your emotional well-being? Let’s talk about how to set healthy boundaries in your life today.
Welcome back to The Burnout Doctor Podcast, I’m your host Dr. Jessica Louie. We are talking about how to set healthy boundaries in your life today. Thank you for sharing your action steps from our last episode on how to have compassion for yourself. Many of you are taking action by using our complimentary Burnout Starter Kit – don’t forget to download yours today! We all write our own stories in our lives and homes. Let’s all bring joy into home and joy into work.
What are boundaries?
Boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for themselves what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave around them and how they will respond when someone steps outside those limits. The easiest way to think about a boundary is a property line. We have all seen “No Trespassing” signs – this is a clear message to others.
Why is it important to set healthy boundaries?
There are many reasons to set healthy boundaries in your life. First, it helps practice self-care and self-respect. It’s important to teach others how we want to be treated. Therefore, it sets limits in a relationship in a way that is healthy for both sides. It helps us communicate our needs in a relationship. Finally, it helps us make time and space for positive interactions.
What happens when we do not set healthy boundaries in life?
We may allow people to invade our emotional boundaries. This happens when we do not know how to separate our own feelings from someone else’s such as a partner or spouse. When we allow other people – his or her mood to dictate our own mood and level of happiness or sadness we start to co-depend.
I’ve seen codependency many times in my client’s lives. It’s something that needs to be acknowledged before we make a change to healthy boundaries.
I’ve also seen many people sacrifice their own plans, dreams and goals in order to please others. I’ve been guilty of this. When I didn’t have clear goals, then struggled with burnout in 2014/2015, I let other people dictate where my life was going. I was a people pleaser and it hurt my individual growth.
I’ve also seen the other side of not setting healthy boundaries – not taking responsibility for our own actions and blaming others for our problems. In the past, when I felt high stress and burnout, aka over 6+ years ago, I did a lot of blaming of other people and outside forces. I didn’t look within.
Barriers to Setting Healthy Boundaries
- FEAR of rejection
- FEAR of confrontation
- GUILT
- Safety Concerns
- We were not taught healthy boundaries
Healthy boundaries allow you to:
- Have high self-esteem and self-respect
- Share personal information gradually, in a mutually sharing and trusting relationship
- Protect physical and emotional space from intrusion
- Have an equal partnership where responsibility and power are shared
- Be assertive. Confidently and truthfully say “yes” or “no” and be okay when others say “no” to you
- Separate your needs, thoughts, feelings, and desires from others. Recognize that your boundaries and needs are different from others
- Empower yourself to make healthy choices and take responsibility for yourself
In my Joy at Work Course, you can get even more advice and action steps to set up the healthy boundaries in your own life!
Make sure you’re following along on our YouTube channel (youtube.com/drjessicalouie) as well with new videos going live every Saturday!
Make sure you’re implementing and taking action by implementing our Burnout Starter Kit and investing in yourself with our VIP 1:1 coaching or 1-hour strategy calls.
Until next time, spark joy my friends!
Tl;dr: Do you feel people walk all over you? Invade your time, your space, and your emotional well-being? Let’s talk about how to set healthy boundaries in your life today.
Note, my views are my own and are not associated or representative of my employer(s).
This podcast is for educational purposes only and not medical advice.