You are training people, all the time, on how to treat you. Your behaviour constantly gives other people messages, some subtle and some less so, about how to behave towards you and how to communicate with you…
Whether or not you respect your own time and how you behave around this gives off messages about how you value yourself. Do you let other people drain your time and energy or do you respect yourself and maintain strong and healthy boundaries.
Boundaries are the physical, mental and emotion ‘line’ between us and other people. Some people’s boundaries are too rigid and they push people away and some are too sloppy and this allows other people to violate your boundaries and get into your personal space.
The good news is that once you are aware you can do something to enforce your boundaries and teach others to treat you appropriately. Here’s some top tips:
- Get to know your boundaries. It’s normal for people not to know this. You only know when someone has violated them because it doesn’t feel right or you end up wasting time on something that’s not important. What’s OK for you and what’s not? Be clear on what you think is appropriate behaviour towards you.
- Develop behavioural cues that give people the message you want to convey, for example:
Stepping towards someone who is being aggressive or angry will assert your position and stop them in their tracks.
Use a hand gesture that signals this conversation is finishing.
Use a voice tone or set of words that signals this conversation is finished.
By developing consistent cues, people will soon unconsciously learn them without you having to verbally tell them. If you are speaking to someone at your desk and the phone rings – do you answer it? The covert message you give is that you pay attention to what is most important, so if you pick up the phone you are telling the person at your desk that the call is more important than them – is this the message you want to give? There’s no right or wrong just make sure you are giving the message you intend.
Maintain relationships by respecting other people, even if they are violating your boundaries. Rather than just cutting them off, find kind ways to tell them without over explaining yourself.
People will react to you setting boundaries at first, you might get labelled as ‘boring’ or ‘no fun’ but that’s just because they can’t play their games with you any more. Be consistent and keep going, start with small things if you’re concerned about how other people will react and over time you will be able to set effective boundaries with others and never be invaded again.
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