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Boundaries are crucial, and I talk about boundaries a lot, but many people may not understand what that actually means. There are several kinds of boundaries that we have in our lives, not just this big boundary order type of thing that we talk about. Personal boundaries are very important. I've stressed that in the past few blogs, but I'm going a little bit deeper today.
One of the first boundaries that comes to mind is physical boundaries. We've heard about that a lot in the news in the last few months with all of the drama that's happened in Hollywood and a variety of other places for varying boundaries being violated, sexual harassment and whatnot. Those are boundaries where someone is invading your space when they shouldn't be invading your space without your permission. Those are definitely boundaries that you want to protect no matter what.
Mental boundaries. Everybody has opinions. Everyone has beliefs. As humans, we need to respect the beliefs and understandings of other people. We may not understand from their perspective, but here's a challenge for you. Try to. Try and figure out where people are coming from, not just people from different walks of faith or different backgrounds, but people we've grown up with and people you have known for a long time. Their outlook and their perspective on things can be different than yours and a boundary is to respect their beliefs, as well as they should be respecting yours.
Emotional boundaries. Oftentimes, people can be emotional when it comes to situations and some people are a little bit more dramatic than others when it comes to things. They may react differently to situations that you say that may upset them, similar to what I shared in a different post about, "No," is a complete sentence. It can be the situation of you said, "No," to somebody and then you get quite emotional about it. They have to respect that boundary and they have to respect your decision to be the way that you are and feel the way you do about a particular situation or matter.
Material boundaries. Ever loan somebody a book or a tool or your lawnmower and they never return it? That's a boundary that they crossed. That's something that they shouldn't do. If you borrow something from somebody, return it. Actually, here's a pro tip for you: Return it in better condition than you borrowed it. If it's something like a tool or a lawnmower, clean it. Return it to them better than when they gave it to you. They're in all likelihood going to loan you something again if you need it or, more importantly, be there for you in times of need.
To establish boundaries, it's crucial that you come to grips with what you want to do. A couple things that I do regarding boundaries is write down how I feel about things. If something is bothering me and it's eating at me inside, then I write it down and I write down how I feel about it, so that way you can prevent those situations from happening if at all possible or understand why those situations arise in the first place.
Technology is another boundary. I'm using technology right now to write this, and in the other room, I have my cellphone. Cellphones, as you know, have all kinds of notification settings. Many of you, I'm sure, have a variety of different apps and they have this little red circle on them with a number. My recommendation to you is to go into your settings on your phone and turn all notifications off except for your phone and text messages. If you get tons and tons and tons of text messages you may want to shut that off too. I don't turn mine off because I get messages from loved ones and business clients and I want to make sure that they can reach me when they need to, but you also have to establish those boundaries on when they can reach you.
Don't check your phone at night. The recommendation of having your phone in a different room when you go to bed, I highly support that. I do, however, I use my cellphone as an alarm clock. I know that's a no-no. Work with me. Help me out. I want to find a really nice alarm clock and then I'll put my cellphone in the other room. Those are a couple things you can do from a technology standpoint.
This is something that I want you to do: The next time you go to a store or a restaurant and you are dealing with a clerk that's taking your order or ringing up a product, or they're serving you in such a way that you are getting something from them, treat them like a family member that you love and adore and look forward to seeing. If you treat everyone you encounter that way, can you imagine what kind of world we would live in? That's my personal challenge to you. From now on, everyone you interact with, treat them as if you're a loved one that you actually love. If you do that, your world will change and so will theirs.
Communicate with your boss. If you're running into work boundary problems, then I think you need to really have a good conversation with your boss, and in the next couple days, I'm going to share more about how to approach your boss if you need to start establishing boundaries and what you do. You don't want to go to your boss and say, "Look, boss. I'm not gonna do things this way anymore, and this is how I'm gonna do it. That's the way it's gonna be because Stone Cold said so." You'll be on the unemployment line if you do that, depending on your boss, of course. There's a better way to do it, and I'll show you how.
Until next time, be well.