A Complete Guide to Setting Boundaries

This month, we’re going to talk about establishing boundaries: in your business, in your personal relationships, and beyond. Establishing boundaries is so important to everyone and something we don’t talk about enough! I hope you find value and comfort in these blog posts. You can read all posts in this series by clicking here.

This week, I’m finally ready to post my full guide to setting boundaries. This guide will cover everything you need to know about setting boundaries: what that means, how to do it, what to say, and how to keep yourself from letting boundaries lapse.

Boundaries are one of the best things you can do to keep your relationships—from work to home—emotionally healthy, as well as to improve your own mental health. There are tons of benefits to setting boundaries—you can read the pull quote below, but here’s a rundown:

• Setting boundaries reduces your stress, as well as your mental load. If you aren’t having to constantly balance the emotional needs of other people, or be on call to everyone at the same time, then you will experience way less stress.

• If you have children, setting healthy, respectful boundaries teaches them to do the same thing: to set healthy, respectful boundaries, to respect themselves, and to prioritize their mental health.

• Setting boundaries help define the line between your work life and your home life.

I’m glad you’re here and reading my guide to setting boundaries. As I’ve said in previous posts in this series, I’m not a mental health professional—just one person who loves to write and who attends therapy to help set boundaries in my professional and personal life! I hope you find this guide helpful.

How to Set Boundaries

What does it mean to set boundaries?

Good question! Here’s an example to help illustrate what that means.

Let’s say you are a mom of 2. Your children’s ages are 3 and 1. Both are walking, but only one is verbal at this time. They have a bad habit of always following you into the bathroom no matter what. You wish they wouldn’t, but if you close the door, the one-year-old throws a fit and the 3-year-old joins in.

What is a boundary to set in this example?

1. Establishing with the 3-year-old in age appropriate language that you want to be alone in the bathroom. Bathroom time is private time.

2. Remind yourself that you deserve private time. Again, bathroom time is private time and you get to decide if you want your children in the bathroom with you or not.

3. Encourage the 3-year-old to entertain the 1-year-old when you’re in the bathroom. “It upsets [baby] when I go to the bathroom. But bathroom time is private time. If she gets upset, can you comfort her for me? You’re so helpful! When I’m done, we can all bake cookies together.”

Firstly, the boundary is defined: you want to go to the bathroom alone and you have that right, even from your children.

Secondly, the boundary is communicated: from now on, you’ll be going to the bathroom alone and closing the door. There will be consequences if they open it.

Thirdly, acknowledge their emotions. “I know it’s upsetting with Mama goes to the bathroom alone. I love that you want to spend time with me. But bathroom time is private time.”

Lastly, you keep the boundary. When you go to the bathroom, you close the door and you don’t let your children sit at your feet.

That’s just one example of setting a boundary! But here’s a rough outline of those steps again:

1. Define the boundary and why it is important to you.

2. Communicate the boundary.

3. Acknowledge the needs of others.

4. Keep the boundary established (even when it’s challenging).

The last steps is admittedly the hardest one. How can you stick to your boundaries when you have a child crying outside the bathroom door? Or when a client calls you over and over on a Saturday afternoon? Or when your boss asks you to please respond to emails after 7pm? Where do you draw the line? Let’s talk about sticking with our boundaries—that will make up the majority of this guide!

---

How to Stick to Your Boundaries

Enforcing Boundaries with Love and Kindness

First things first, let’s remember why we’re setting boundaries in the first place.

In the example I provided, we aren’t setting a boundary with our children to be alone int he bathroom because we don’t like our kids. We want and deserve a few minutes alone; and we want to make sure our children understand that bathroom time is private time.

Boundaries are created out of love and a desire to be better--not a desire to hurt other people.

Setting boundaries doesn’t mean we don’t love the people around us, that we don’t like them, or that we don’t respect them. You can set boundaries and show love and kindness while doing so!

All that being said: sometimes, our boundaries aren’t respected. This doesn’t happen out of unkindness, usually. It just means that perhaps they don’t understand the boundary, they don’t understand why it’s important, or they don’t realize that what they’re doing is crossing the boundary. However, sometimes people do it, plain and simple, because they don’t feel like respecting your boundaries—which means they don’t really care about respecting you. In this case, the only advice I have is this: it’s not your job to make it easier for them to do this!

Enforcing boundaries with love and kindness will look different for everyone. However, here are a few example phrases I keep in my arsenal:

• “Do you remember when we talked about appropriate times to text me? It was a few weeks ago, so I just want to circle back to that and remind you that my working hours are…”

• "Last time we spoke, I mentioned that I do try to get to emails within 24-48 hours. A few days ago, you emailed me 3 times in 2 hours. I get that sometimes things happen, but due to the volume of my inbox, I have to ask you to please not do that. I appreciate you as a client and this project is so fun, but that does get overwhelming for me.”

• “I’m so excited to bake cookies with you later. But for now, I need to work. I’ve put the red light sign on my door. Do you remember what that means?”

Keep gently reinforcing boundaries! You don’t have to be rude (or feel rude!) when you do it.

---

Communicating Boundaries Respectfully

When we set boundaries, we want to make sure that not only are we communicating our boundaries, but also acknowledging the feelings of others as we do so. This might mean:

• Reminding our children that we love them and respect them and that, when we’re doing with xyz, we’ll do something fun together.

• Reminding our clients how much we appreciate their work.

• Reminding our friends and family that we appreciate them and love them.

Communicating boundaries respectfully also means acknowledging the boundaries and feelings over others. This might mean having longer discussions about our boundaries, how we communicate best, and how we don’t want to be spoken to. This is great for extremely close relationships, like your partner, siblings, parents, or others.

However, for clients, this is definitely more complicated.

Sometimes as freelance workers, we can feel not like we are a boss, but rather like we have multiple bosses. With all my clients, I try to reiterate one small fact: I am a freelancer, not an employee; as such, I am not beholden to rules of an employer like an employee would be. I set my working hours; I set my response times; and it is up to me set those expectations from the beginning. Those expectations are ultimately boundaries and if a client repeatedly pushes on them, the boundary needs to be established even more—and reinforced, as we’ve discussed. That being said, this is a relationship that is often much more fraught, because it is almost entirely without emotion.

Our work boundaries are often more challenging to communicate than our personal life boundaries—and that’s ok. Here are a few great things to say:

• “Hi there! I’m sorry if you expected a reply to this when you sent it. For the sake of my mental health and to allow myself to be the best employee, I do not respond to work emails or questions after 6pm. I try to get to these emails and texts first thing when I start my work day though.”

• “I noticed that you have been texting me after 6pm a lot recently. Here is how I prioritize my work. Would that help you better understand why I’m not getting to things at a certain time?”

• “Would it be helpful to schedule a weekly check in time so that we can handle all of these concerns at once? Maybe that will reduce both of our inboxes!”

This is definitely challenging work, but it is valuable. The more you communicate your boundaries, and reinforce them, the easier it will get.

How to Respond to Gaslighting

Setting boundaries is where we are all most likely to experience gaslighting, unfortunately. In this case, I want to the Mindgeek on Instagram, who has tons of resources to responding to gaslighting behavior.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sarah Crosby (@themindgeek) on Aug 21, 2020 at 11:27am PDT

Here are a few examples of gaslighting in response to setting boundaries:

• “I don’t remember you saying that” or “that’s not what you said!” when you remind them of your boundaries.

• “It’s not that bad”

• “You’re just being dramatic.”

If you experience these things, the only thing I can offer is sympathy; know that I understand, your boundaries are valuable and important; and that you know your truth more than anyone else. The Mindgeek’s tips are good ones.

---

How to Move Forward

Where do I go from here?

You set the boundary; you communicated it; you’ve been working on enforcing it… what happens now?

The thing about setting boundaries is this isn’t one-and-done work. It requires constant checking in and re-establishing. It can feel overwhelming to think of this work as being one that never ends. But instead of thinking of it as endless (“oh my god, I have to keep reminding my kids to do xyz everyday—this is the worst”), think of it as an opportunity: “each time I remind my kids of xyz, I get another opportunity to teach them to prioritize their mental health and relationships.”

Working on ourselves and our mental health isn’t ever going to be a one-and-done process. Don’t I wish it was! That being said, looking at things as opportunities to grow and change, to experience something new, to work on being our best selves is much, much better than thinking of it merely as endless, slogging work.

I hope you found this guide to setting boundaries helpful. Thanks for reading, as always!

3 Journal Prompts for Setting Boundaries

This month, we’re going to talk about establishing boundaries: in your business, in your personal relationships, and beyond. Establishing boundaries is so important to everyone and something we don’t talk about enough! I hope you find value and comfort in these blog posts. You can read all posts in this series by clicking here.

Today’s post will be pretty short & simple. I wanted to share a few journaling prompts to help you explore your need for boundaries, what boundaries you want to set, and how you can set those boundaries.

As I’ve shared in previous posts, this past year has been a huge one for setting boundaries. Before I was laid off in July 2019, I worked constantly. Sometimes, I would drop everything I was doing when I got a Slack message. I have always worried about being viewed as lazy, needy, or inconsistent, so I made sure to be available 100% of the time. After I the layoff and as I started freelancing, I realized that this simply wasn’t a sustainable option for me. Especially as COVID-19 hit and we were quarantined, I realized that sometimes I just needed to say, “No I can’t do that” to just about everyone in my life. Dropping everything to go do a work task or dropping work tasks to go help Forrest were both unsustainable options.

Establishing boundaries around my work life and my home life were important especially because I work from home. I used these journaling prompts myself to help clear my mind, get all my thoughts out on paper, and created a plan for boundaries.

I hope you find these helpful!

Thanks for reading!

4 Signs You Need Boundaries

This month, we’re going to talk about establishing boundaries: in your business, in your personal relationships, and beyond. Establishing boundaries is so important to everyone and something we don’t talk about enough! I hope you find value and comfort in these blog posts. You can read all posts in this series by clicking here.

For years, I heard about setting boundaries. About drawing distinct lines. Putting the toxic people in your life that you wouldn’t be taking anymore or making it clear to your job that after 5pm, you were simply unavailable. I never considered that this was something that applied to me: I was stressed and constantly anxious, but I didn’t consider any of my relationships (with my family, with Danny, or with work) to be toxic enough to need boundaries.

But here’s the thing: toxicity doesn’t necessitate boundaries. A toxic relationship really is the last step in the process, where someone isn’t respecting your boundaries.

Everyone needs boundaries. And some of us are better than others are setting boundaries and keeping them. Some of us are better at recognizing when we need boundaries. So the question here is, of course: what are the signs that we need to set boundaries? Here are a few things I’ve noticed in my own life.

1. You’re Burnt Out.

To me, this is the biggest sign. You find yourself getting snappy and easily annoyed by everything: the people you love, your job, people at the grocery store. You never feel like you’re actually resting. You wake up every morning feeling just as exhausted as the night before and, worse, dreading your day of parenting, working, or interacting with others (or all 3!). That’s burn out, friend, and it’s unfortunately very common, especially among young professional women and mothers. We’re prime targets for not having enough boundaries, imposter syndrome, and feeling like we have to reach peak productivity to be important.

It goes without saying: if you’re feeling signs of burn out, you need to establish boundaries. Here are a few you might consider:

• Setting strict work hours and not adjusting these unless it is a bonafide emergency (as defined by you, not your boss, not your client).

• Scheduling in quiet time for yourself everyday. This might be a bath, watching a movie by yourself in your bedroom, organizing your closet, whatever.

• Taking a week off every 6 weeks to reset, recharge, and get some much needed chores done (or just relax).

2. You can’t get anything done.

It’s not procrastination: it’s stress, baby! Because you’re constantly taking on things for other people, allowing yourself to be interrupted or distracted, you find yourself pulled between 100 different tasks and stuck, unable to complete any of them. The laundry that needs folded. The living room that needs cleaned desperately. The dinner that needs cooked. The client project’s that need tackled. There is so much to do and it’s so overwhelming—but the emails don’t stop, your husband standing in the door asking about your child’s favorite stuffed animal doesn’t stop, said child running in to ask to go on a hike… it doesn’t stop.

Between the disruptions, the overwhelm, and everything else, you just can’t get anything done. It feels too hard, too overwhelming. It’s a sign you need boundaries. Here are a few suggestions:

• Set filters on your email or politely ask friends, associates, and clients to limit their emails to you throughout the day.

• Remind those in your household to keep interruptions to a minimum. Using a red-light/green-light system for your kids is really effective.

• Write a to do list of less than 5 items to help narrow your focus and trim away the fluff. If other tasks can be delegated back to clients or coworkers, do that and communicate that this is not a task you can take on.

3. You feel like you don’t have any space of your own.

Speaking of email… your email is full of people asking questions, getting your advice and emotional energy for totally free. Your Instagram DMs are full of people asking questions about your content, your posts, everything. You get texts from clients. You feel like you don’t have any space that you can control, that doesn’t feel overwhelming and demanding.

This is an interesting point because it might feel like it doesn’t differentiate from the others. But I think the point here is: sometimes we have to set boundaries on our communication and carve out space for ourselves that doesn’t feel like it drains us. You might want to just enjoy Instagram and not be bombarded by repetitive DMs! Or you might want to reply to fun emails from friends that don’t ask for favors, free advice, or whatever. You want to enjoy those digital (or physical) spaces without the pressure to be working, productive, providing a service, or answering questions that you’ve already answered.

Here are a few boundaries you might consider:

• Setting up filters in your email. (Seriously, this helps SO MUCH).

• Communicating with friends that you love talking about your work, but that you simply can’t provide free services to them. (This is a hard one for me too, so I get it!)

• Setting clear standards on Instagram and other social media about what kind of messages you will and won’t respond to.

4. You feel guilty constantly.

You’re behind on a client deadline, but can’t focus because you feel so bad that your child is out in the living room alone. You go play with your child only to feel guilty that you should be working on that massive to do list for a client project.

Everything you do makes you feel guilty. Every choice makes you feel guilty. You never feel like you can rest because you feel so guilty.

Carrying guilt is so common these days. There’s a lot to think about, a lot to worry about, and, of course, a lot to feel guilty about. However, if you’re feeling guilt over everything you’re doing and not doing, you need to create some boundaries to free yourself from those feelings and expectations.

Here are a few ideas:

• When you find yourself spiraling into guilt, set up a series of actions to take, such as taking a walk, listening to a song you love, or doing literally anything else besides stewing in your guilt.

• Make a schedule and stick to it: these are the hours you work, these are the hours you spend with your kids, these are the hours you have to yourself.

How to Set Boundaries As A Mom

Happy August! This month, we’re going to talk about establishing boundaries: in your business, in your personal relationships, and beyond. Establishing boundaries is so important to everyone and something we don’t talk about enough! I hope you find value and comfort in these blog posts.

A few months ago, I was talking to my therapist about how difficult it felt to give my son the attention he needs while also finishing my work. She asked me a few questions about how we spent our time during the day. I talked about the added pressure I felt to be doing activities with him: making things and keeping him entertained.

“It sounds like you need some boundaries,” she said.

We kept talking on our Zoom call and when I hung up, I sat for a while thinking about what she had said. Boundaries? With your kids?

I knew all about setting boundaries: I have pretty strict boundaries set up between my work and my life, such as no working after a certain time, taking every other Friday off, not checking my email on my phone, and more. But as a mother, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what it mean to establish boundaries as a mother. With my kid!

We tend to think of setting boundaries as an ultimatum, as something negative or a consequence of something bad happening. But the truth is, the more I thought about what my therapist said (and the more we talked about it over the next few weeks), the more I realized that setting boundaries doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be a good thing!

Let’s talk through a few points about setting boundaries as a mother (or parent!). (As a reminder, I’m not a counselor or therapist; this is just what I’ve learned from researching and establishing boundaries in my own life.)

What does it mean to establish boundaries as a mother?

Imagine it: you’re in your office, working away at a task that shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. 5 minutes in, your son rushes in and needs help. You get up to help him. 5 minutes later, you’re back at your desk… and your son rushes in again to ask you to do something else (fill in the blank: make a comic book, make cookies, go to grandma’s…) That 30 minute task stretches out to an hour, 2 hours, as you work to give your child the attention he needs (because you feel guilty if you say no).

“Sometimes we need to set boundaries around things to protect our own mental health, and that’s ok.⠀⠀”

— ourmamavillage on Instagram

Now, imagine this scenario: you’re in your office, working away at a task that shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. 5 minutes in, your son rushes in and needs help. You say, “Did you check the door?” He loops back and see’s the “red light” sight on the door, which means “give me time.”

Establishing boundaries isn’t about punishing our kids or making them feel unimportant in comparison to our jobs. It is about providing us the ability to get our work done and not lose our minds in the process.

As working moms (or not working moms, but just moms trying to get shit done during the day), we can often feel like we don’t deserve to set these boundaries because being a parent is one of our jobs of many. We manage homes and schedules, we work jobs, we do the laundry, and we entertain the kids. And if entertaining the kids gets in the way of the other jobs, well, shouldn’t we prioritize our kids? Not necessarily.

You deserve to set boundaries because:

• You deserve to be able to finish a simple task in a short amount of time.

• You need space and rest just as much as anyone else, including your children.

• Your child will benefit immensely from it as well.

How can you set boundaries with young kids?

There is a lot written out there about establishing boundaries with mothers. That is, if you’re an adult and you have a difficult or toxic mother who interferes with your life. There is considerably less out there about establishing boundaries with kids, probably because this is relatively new for women, especially in the millennial generation. We were raised to think kids were our 100% and the current media bent (as well as hospital initiatives like BFHI) is that we should martyr ourselves for the good of our children. However, running ourselves on empty for the sake of our kids… isn’t great either, we just don’t have the evidence to support it quite yet.

So when it comes to setting boundaries with your kids, what can you do?

• Put a small sign on your office door to indicate if they can come in and ask you a question. (My son responds well to “red light” and “green light” signs as he understands what these mean without being able to read.)

• Communicate your boundaries clearly, in language that children understand at their developmental stage. (“When mom is working in your office, please knock before coming in or asking a question” will work for older kids; it won’t work for a 3-year-old!)

• Enforce that some areas are off limits for kids, such as your bedroom or your office. Remind them to knock or ask politely before coming in to ask you something.

• Let kids feel the consequences of a boundary being crossed. It’s easy to give in when kids are sad or disappointed. However, keeping boundaries enforced for both of your sakes is important. Let them understand the consequences and feel the emotion.

What does setting boundaries teach our children?

Setting boundaries in our lives is really hard. We’re all tempted to let them go at certain times (like when your boss texts you to do something ASAP), but setting boundaries, and protecting our mental health, isn’t just good for us. It’s good for our kids too.

Here’s a great post from ourmamavillage on Instagram that I highly recommend you read the entire caption!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess: Therapist for Parents (@ourmamavillage) on Jul 9, 2020 at 6:15am PDT

Here’s the summary though: it’s kids job to ask for the world. That’s their job! However, giving them the world doesn’t teach them anything about boundaries or what is best for them. If you child asked for ice cream for every meal, they’d be very happy if they got it for every meal. However, they probably wouldn’t feel very good after a few days. It’s our job as parents to create the boundary that says, “you can have ice cream with dinner, but not for every meal. In the meantime, let’s talk about what kind of ice cream we’ll have with dinner!”

In the same way, setting our boundaries as parents helps them learn to set boundaries, protect their own mental health, and respect the needs of others.

How do we stop feeling guilty about establishing boundaries?

Now, here’s the big one: how do we stop feeling guilty?

Part of the reason we feel so guilty is because we are inundated with media that suggests we should feel guilty. Would I have been happier postpartum if I hadn’t read article after article about feeling guilty about not being able to breastfeed? Possibly. If I had just sat down my phone and focused on what was working, would I have been happier in the choices I had to make? I actually am pretty sure of that. Would we feel less worry if we didn’t Google things? Also, definitely.

There are entire Instagram accounts dedicated to feeling guilty, momshame, breastfeeding this, bottle feeding that. It’s easy to get stuck in the idea that there is one best way to parent and we have to follow it or else we’re doing something wrong.

Here’s what I want to ask you: do you think moms in the 1950s were laying awake every night wondering if they were doing it right? The answer is, maybe a few did, but probably not as much as now. Here’s another question: do you think your mother lied awake at night feeling guilty for not letting you have everything you asked for? I know my mom definitely struggled and didn’t get enough time to herself (sorry mom! I love you!), but I don’t think she felt that guilty when she closed her bedroom door and turned up the TV.

If you struggle with guilt (and trust me, there have been a lot of nights in the last 6 months where I’ve lied awake worried that we haven’t done anything fun for Forrest), here’s my advice: stop consuming media about feeling guilty as a mother. Unfollow the Instagram accounts that seem to bathe in their guilt publicly. Unfollow anyone who makes you feel guilty. Stop Googling about it! And most important, set the boundaries so that, when you are in a space to be just with your child, you’re able to have more fun than when you’re letting yourself be run dry.

If you start you feel guilt settling (and sometimes we feel guilt in our body before we think about it), remind yourself that you’re doing your best and that you are protecting both your needs and your child’s (or children’s) needs, that you have a hard job, and our lives right now are not normal. However, if you show your kids love, respect their emotions, and do the best you can… they will be fine. They don’t need supermom.