How to get people to respect your personal boundaries.

What are personal boundaries? The best way to get someone to respect them is to first define them for someone who doesn't know them?

🤷‍♀️ We often talk about concepts as though we all know what they mean, but often we know inside our body only but cannot put the feeling or knowing into words.

👩‍🏫 If part of the definition of being a professional is having the ability to clearly articulate what it is that you do then it is time to define boundaries, but more importantly, define YOUR boundaries.

❓ How will others know where your boundaries begin or end if you don't even know what boundaries are?

👉 So, the first step in getting someone else to respect them is to first define them for yourself!

👉 Boundaries are invisible fences that protect us from psychological and physical harm.

🛑 They are internal sirens: guidelines, rules, limits you create to identify reasonable, safe or permissible ways for others to behave towards you PLUS how YOU will respond when your fence is climbed.

📏 Just as fences are different (height, material, look), so too are personal boundaries.

⛓️ The fenceposts are built from our values and the fencing material built from our knowledge, feelings, experience and dreams all linked together.

👫 Our boundaries can change in different situations and with different people (think mobile barrier fencing here) but they still do the job of keeping others out to protect yourself and give you a clear line of when to respond.

🐾 Just as a watch dog may bark as their defensible space is approached and spring into full work as their space is entered, so too do your boundaries give you the right to let others know where your boundary is and to defend it.

👍 So there you have it: boundaries are invisible fences to protect your soul, your thinking, feeling, beliefs and values AND they rely on yourself as a boundary watch dog.

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