So, who has your phone password? I am hoping it’s only you because that means you already use boundaries in your life to protect your personal space.
But, it’s easier to say no to some things like sharing your password than to say no to someone’s request even when you feel they might be taking advantage of your goodness, right?
And that’s exactly what, we are going to see right now, how to use psychology to build healthier boundaries for self esteem to have more quality relationships, make more confident decisions, and uncomplicate life exponentially.
“With healthy self esteem you’re: Assertive in expressing your needs and opinions. Confident in your ability to make decisions. Able to form secure and honest relationships.” – Mayo Clinic
3-Step roadmap to set healthier boundaries for self-esteem
STEP #1: What boundaries should I have (know where boundaries would help)
So, how do you know you even need boundaries?
To begin with, there are a few strong indicators against which you can check where you are at. Like, –
- If you ever feel taken advantage of, or taken for granted, it could mean there are weak external boundaries.
- When you are doing as much as you can for as long as you can… when your schedule is overflowing. That’s a sign of weak internal boundaries hurting our time management plans and adding more stress to life.
- if you can’t stop sometimes thinking about why someone said something to you, or doubting your decisions because of what someone thinks about it. That shows we need to set boundaries for self esteem to stop people’s opinions, their actions and reactions… which by the way are not our responsibility… from hurting how we feel about ourselves, from denting our confidence in our judgment, abilities, and capabilities.
See, the problem is, our self esteem affects how we think and feel… in CBT, thoughts create feelings, and feelings affect our choices and actions. So, the weaker the boundaries, the lower is our self esteem… how much value we believe our thoughts, feelings, and choices have.
What Helps Instead –
To know which areas in life would benefit from clearer boundaries beyond the ones we just discussed, use the Baader-Meinhof effect or frequency bias to work for you.
- Begin by thinking of the most recent situation that made you feel a way you didn’t like. Maybe you felt hurt, totally drained, or angry.
- Notice that feeling. It will be a clear indicator for you in future too that you need to set up clearer boundaries with that person or boundaries in that kind of situation.
The Baader-Meinhof effect or frequency bias will make you notice all those situations that make you feel this way, so that you know where else clearer boundaries can help.
So, how do you use this to have more confidence and meaningful relationships? How do you go about building those boundaries?
STEP #2: How to create healthy boundaries (figure out your strategy)
The key is to know clearly what is okay and not okay for you, and how much are you willing to stretch yourself, for how long, and for whom. See, we all know that any healthy relationship, whether it’s personal or professional, involves some kind of adjustment or sacrifice from everyone involved…. that’s how we maintain a common ground of agreement.
But, the problem arises, when you only give, give, give, because people then end up taking advantage of that. It’s not that everyone is trying to hurt us intentionally. It’s just that what feels very important for us, might not look that important to others because of the cognitive biases each and every one of us has.
Like, say, having a quiet cup of coffee in the morning might be important for you to start the day right. Now, your partner wants to ask you something important, which could have waited a bit, but they ask anyway because their question seems to be more important to them. You see, how this could become a problem over time?
What Helps Instead –
So, when you become aware of areas that would benefit from some clear healthy boundaries,
- Ask “what’s important to me”. It will show clearly where things are heading if we do nothing. That would either motivate us, or show we are not ready for it yet. But remember, setting healthy boundaries for self esteem is about valuing yourself and your time. It’s about being responsible for your own actions, feelings, emotions without taking responsibility of those of others.
- Next, get clear about what’s okay and what’s not for you… what are your dealbreakers. A nice way to break the habit of saying yes & then regretting the hasty commitment is to repeat the request back to the other person as if you are trying to understand it better. This gives us time to think it out a bit and agree only to those things that we really want to.
- Also, decide how would you respond when those boundaries are not respected. Be ready by thinking out scenarios “If this happens then I will do that”…because it’s very normal for people to forget, push back, or test the limits initially.
And this is where the next step becomes really important.
STEP #3: Setting boundaries without guilt (follow through)
So, we decided what’s not okay with us, and let people know about it and what they might expect if these boundaries are crossed. But, because it’s something not as important for them as it is for us, they might forget or even push back sometimes.
And that’s normal.
But this resistance becomes a problem when it’s repeated over and over as that shows they don’t respect your choice. And letting it pass can start hurting how much we value our own judgment… it will start hurting our self-esteem.
What Helps Instead –
To know the better way to go about this including why follow through is crucial for successfully setting healthy boundaries, watch the video up top.
I will meet you right over there.
