If you’ve spent any amount of time working with a life coach or therapist, you’ve probably heard about the topic of setting boundaries in relationships. Setting clear boundaries is essential for maintaining good mental health and a prerequisite for building authentic relationships. There’s a common misconception that setting boundaries means telling other people what to do. That’s not the case at all. Boundaries are about letting other people know what you will do if that boundary is crossed. You have no control over the actions or choices of other people, so trying to dictate or control their behavior is a fool’s errand.

To properly understand the concept of boundaries, we first have to understand what a boundary is. A boundary is a rule or limit that you create to communicate permissible ways for people to act towards you. In order for someone to violate a boundary, their behavior must directly affect you in some way. For example, if your neighbor paints their house a really ugly color and you hate looking at it to the point that you get annoyed every time you see it, that is not a boundary violation. That neighbor can do whatever they want with their house and it doesn’t directly affect you. If they however came and started painting your house the ugly color, that would be a boundary violation. 

In order for a boundary to be set, it must be clearly communicated. You set a boundary when you communicate what the boundary is (don’t paint my house without my permission) and what you will do if that boundary is violated (call the police, chase them off, scream, etc.). Most of us have unspoken boundaries that are kind of universally accepted. For example, most of us won’t tolerate being physically hit or yelled at. That’s a boundary we all kind of accept without having to talk about it. Other boundaries though need to be communicated, but only after there has been a clear violation of that boundary. For example, if you don’t allow smoking in your home, if that’s a boundary for you, you don’t need to tell everyone you meet about that boundary, you only need to bring it up if someone tries to smoke in your home. Once again, you set that boundary by communicating what the boundary is and what YOU will do if the boundary is violated. For example, if smoking in your home is a boundary for you, you could say something like, “We don’t allow smoking in our home. If you continue to smoke, I will ask you to leave.” Notice that you’re not telling the other person what to do. You’re only stating what you will do if the boundary continues to be violated. That person can do whatever they want to do and so can you.

Some behaviors are mistaken for boundary violations when they aren’t. For example, you may ask your spouse to take out the trash. If they don’t do it, that’s not a boundary violation. You may really want them to take out the trash, but they haven’t violated your space by not doing that, so it would not be appropriate to set a boundary in that circumstance. You may want to have a conversation about it, but it would be inappropriate to make a request with a consequence.

My last point is glaringly obvious but is usually the most difficult part of setting boundaries and that’s enforcing the boundary. After you’ve clearly communicated a boundary to someone, you have to then follow through with the consequence you communicated if the boundary is violated again. To use our previous example, if someone tries to smoke in your house after you’ve communicated that boundary, then you need to ask them to leave (or follow through on whatever consequence you communicated). The push back I usually get from people around this point is that they feel like they’re being mean when they enforce the boundary, but think about the alternative. If someone continues to violate one of your boundaries and you do nothing about it, what do you feel? Most people feel resentment, and resentment almost always expresses itself in passive aggressive behavior that is truly mean. So the choice is to either feel resentment and be mean or to set a clear boundary and have an authentic relationship with that person, because authenticity and resentment cannot coexist. That person may be hurt or upset when you first enforce that boundary, but if they come back and respect that boundary, you can now have an authentic relationship with that person because it’s based on truth and not people pleasing.

If you struggle with setting boundaries, I’d highly recommend getting help from a life coach. Life coaches are kind of like therapists for people without a specific mental health condition or diagnosis. Since there is no formal regulation around who can claim to be a life coach, I’d highly recommend finding someone who has received an accredited life coach certification.