The Art of Saying No: How To Set and Preserve Better Boundaries

The trick to leading a healthy lifestyle and healthy relationships is to set reasonable boundaries for yourself.

Setting boundaries is extremely important for leading a good life and for having healthy relationships. However, setting boundaries and sustaining them takes strength, conviction and some skill. Having healthy boundaries lets you understand and know your limits thereby increasing your self-awareness. Boundaries keep you happy and content and are deemed by many psychologists as an essential skill. However, not many are capable of building and sustaining boundaries and might find it to be a challenging task.

Observe and Engage With Your Feelings

It is important to know and understand your feelings about something in order to build boundaries. How does a certain thing or situation make you feel? If it makes you feel anxious, stressed or uncomfortable, it’s time to draw some boundaries. In case of a conflict try going to the root cause of the matter and figure out what is it exactly about the situation that is inducing negative feelings in you. Once you have your answer you’d know where to draw the line.

Define Your Limits

Just knowing about your feelings would not be of much help if you cannot define them. Confusion draws blurry lines which do not help in setting boundaries. You need to have clarity regarding where you stand on a certain matter and that would help you to draw better boundaries. Identify your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual limits. Get an idea about your tolerance and the extent to which you can push it. If something makes you feel stressed, define that in concrete terms. Better vision helps in setting better boundaries.

Be Direct

Do not shy away from explicitly laying down your boundaries. If you find someone crossing your boundaries, make it clear to them. Be direct and ask them to approach the matter differently. People are not mind readers and it is important for you to guide them through what makes you feel better or uncomfortable.

Allow Yourself To Stick to Your Boundaries

Do not compromise with your boundaries. Your boundaries are usually connected with your values, vision and ideologies. Guilt, fear, loss and self-doubt can often make you want to compromise with your boundaries. However, it is important to tell yourself that you have to do what you got to do and that its okay to stick to your boundaries no matter what.