by Kylee Harris

Boundaries can mean many things, especially in different settings. There are professional boundaries, personal, and emotional. When it comes to setting and upholding boundaries, some people have a hard time. In this month’s blog post, I’m going to take you through setting and upholding professional and emotional boundaries to help you maintain the strength in your values and authenticity. 

The word “boundaries” can be scary for some people, but for others like me, it’s an encouraging word that protects and provides safety to those it involves. Having strong boundaries can help your relationships with others and yourself. When we talk about what a boundary is, it might look different for different people. For me, a boundary is a verbal understanding between another person and I that I create for myself, but that they are expected to follow. Now, we aren’t talking about ridiculous things like “you must call me Royal Kylee” we are talking about things that others can do to make us feel safer and more comfortable in everyday life. Boundaries help us communicate our feelings creating respect for ourselves and others. Setting strong boundaries takes a lot of practice and confidence! You have to start somewhere. 

Professional Boundaries are sometimes hard to uphold, but to me, are easier than most. An example of a professional boundary is something like Your boss expects you to answer her emails at 11pm or do work off of the clock. The boundary you create is “I will not answer work emails unless I am clocked in and being paid.” That boundary set creates a respect for your time as well as a clear cut expectation for your co-workers and managers. One of the professional boundaries I uphold in the job space is not adding any co-workers on social media pages, and declining requests. This creates a clear cut line for me between my personal and professional life. I personally, would rather keep those two things separate and I don’t like feeling pressured to do anything outside of that, so verbally setting that expectation early is very important to me. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What if you make a really good friend at work and want to be friends with them outside of the work space?” The best part about boundaries is YOU create them. You don’t have to apply that boundary for everyone you work with. You can tweak it to your comfort level. Creating a boundary is like creating a rule for yourself and others to respect. Professional boundaries are so important to uphold and practice and I encourage everyone to sit down with themselves and really think about what they value in the workplace and what they would rather do without. There is nothing more important than your comfort and safety. Addressing professional boundaries can be tricky, so I always encourage everyone to be as upfront and honest as they can be! Even simply saying “Hey, I’m working on my professional workplace boundaries and advocating for myself, can I talk to you about something important to me?” Is starting a longer conversation and is the first step on the road to self respect. 

Another example I tend to see is how to address someone who may have upset you at work. Addressing their behavior and how that affected you is creating a personal boundary within a professional boundary. Everyone deserves to be treated how THEY want to be treated. Remember that. As we are discussing treating people how THEY want to be treated, let’s talk about some personal boundaries and how to address and uphold them in and out of a professional environment. Personal boundaries are a little harder to speak up to people about because they require strength and confidence. Creating a personal boundary example looks something like…… say you have a close friend who talks a lot about calories and eating healthy and counting calories and fat content of foods but you personally struggle with disordered eating and are uncomfortable every time they bring it up. A personal boundary looks like pulling that person aside and telling them that it makes you uncomfortable and you would like them to not talk about disordered eating with you. Sounds easy right? For some people it is, and for others it’s more of a challenge to address and assert your needs because they aren’t in a rule book, they are in YOUR RULE BOOK. Finding that comfort and confidence takes time, but it also takes a lot of self reflection to ask yourself what you need and want from other people. Upholding that boundary just takes time practicing. Saying it out loud multiple ways and practicing different scenarios can help you find the right groove and hopefully start getting comfortable standing up for yourself. 

  Don’t ever let anyone tell you what your boundaries should and shouldn’t be. Just like your moral compass, they’re YOURS to use how you’d like.