I don't have Issues with Setting Boundaries! Or do I???

A few weeks ago, I chatted with well-being and empowerment coach Saskia Seeling for a podcast episode (find it here). One of the questions I asked Saskia was around the most common things that people she has encountered through her work struggle with. “Boundaries” was her response. 

I had never really thought much about boundaries before. But something about the way Saskia talked about it so passionately as one of the most impactful things people can work on to improve their lives really stuck with me. In the days after our conversation, I kept thinking about it. 

Do I have boundary issues? Could improving my boundaries help me improve my life? 

My initial response was a fairly confident “No”. I didn't think I had an issue with boundaries. Due to the way I've designed my life, there really aren't many people I need to set boundaries with, and I didn't feel like any of those people who do play a big role in my life overstep any boundaries I have or would like to have. 

And yet, something about it all stuck with me. I didn’t know why, but I had this feeling that there was something of value here.

Even though the whole topic didn’t resonate with me right away, I had a gut feeling that it’s worth going deeper. 

So I dug deeper. I read a few articles, listened to a few podcast episodes and started a couple of books on the topics. But still, none of it really resonated with me. 

The picture most of those resources paint is of a person (usually a woman) who can't say no to the people in her life. Someone who spends all her waking hours pleasing others – partners, kids, friends, parents, colleagues, bosses, etc. It was more or less the same story over and over again. Someone feels burnt out and tried because they say yes to everything to the point where other people take up every minute of their lives. 

I really couldn’t see myself in that – which is probably why I started a couple of books but didn’t continue past the free Kindle sample. 

I intentionally created a life for myself that includes a lot of free time and few responsibilities towards others (outside of work). I definitely don't think I'm someone who can't say no and constantly puts the needs of others ahead of herself. 

I was about to walk away from the topic of boundaries. But there was one thing that did resonate with me. Pretty much all the resources I had turned to, in some shape or form, talk about the fact that boundaries are something we do for ourselves, not for others.  

Brooke Castillo puts it well in an episode of her The Life Coach School Podcast (Ep 12 – Boundaries): 

“Boundaries are not something we create for other people. We create them for ourselves.”

What Brooke, and others who have argued similar things, mean by that is that boundaries are not about changing other people’s behaviours. The key to setting boundaries is to focus on us and how we will respond in a given situation – not about how someone else behaves or how we need their behaviour to change. 

A good example that Brooke gives about this is having a boundary that we do not allow smoking in our house. This is not about stopping people from smoking or threatening them with the consequences for them (lung cancer, death, etc.), but simply about being clear how we will respond if someone smokes in our house – we might ask them to stop or leave. The key here is that we don’t expect them to stop smoking altogether. That’s their personal decision. We just expect them to not smoke in our home. 

While Brooke's examples are still all about how we engage with other people, something about this whole idea that we create boundaries for ourselves resonated with me. 

Turns out, that was the little nugget of information I needed to hear to figure out why I was drawn to the topic of boundaries in the first place. 

I think there is a specific type of boundary that is less talked about. 

Maybe because it's less common, or maybe because the current view of boundaries is so relevant and important for many people that it overshadows a more subtle type of boundary. For whatever reason, everything I read or listened to talked about boundaries in the context of other people and how their behaviour is impacting our lives. 

But what about us? What about how our own behaviour impacts our lives?

What about boundaries we need to set with and for ourselves? 

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that, while I don't need to set better boundaries for others, I could probably benefit from setting better boundaries for myself – and being better at holding them up. 

Work is the perfect example of this for me. I love being a freelancer and the diversity that comes with it. Right now, I work for six different clients. Each one is different, and the work I do for each is different. I love that diversity. But sometimes, it can be challenging when several of my clients need a lot of work done at the same time. It's a balancing act. 

In addition, I love being a digital nomad, and I am so very grateful that all my clients support that lifestyle and let me work in ways that suit me. However, I do often feel a bit of extra pressure to do well because of that. I feel like I have to prove my worth more, so they keep letting me work this way instead of finding someone who is there in person in the office. I think this is quite a common thing amongst digital nomads – especially those who are ambitious about their careers. The other day, I was chatting with a couple who live on a boat for another upcoming podcast episode, and they mentioned feeling exactly the same way. 

The interesting thing – and how it all relates to boundaries – is that this pressure comes mainly from me, not from the clients. 

It’s me who feels like I need to do everything right away and always at 150%. It’s me who works 25+ hours a week for a client when I only agreed to 20. It’s me who agrees to (or sometimes even suggests) meetings on days I said I wouldn’t work (at all or for that client). It’s me who checks her emails 20 times a day and late at night – and responds to them right away. 

I can honestly say that I don’t feel pressure from clients to do any of this. In fact, they are generally super supportive when I set a boundary or an expectation that things might take a bit longer. 

It’s me who needs better boundaries. I need to get better at holding up boundaries for myself – not other people. 

Coming to that realisation has been amazing. It feels like I finally figured out the underlying issue behind all the work-life balance challenges I've had over the last few years. I just need to get better at setting boundaries for myself. Of course, that's easier said than done. But having this clarity is what I needed to come up with ways to put it into action. I've already made small changes like separating personal and work emails so I can check my personal emails on my phone without always seeing work emails and changing my notification settings in Slack to only notify me of new messages during certain times. 

There is a lot more work to be done, and I will probably fall back into old habits from time to time. But, as the German saying goes, "Einsicht ist der Erste Schritt zur Besserung”, which essentially means “Awareness is the first step to improvement.” 

I'm glad I listened to my gut when it was telling me to dig deeper into the topic of boundaries, even though what I learned initially wasn't resonating with me. 

Always trust your gut!! 

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