# How to set and honor boundaries

People talk about you in your absence, so your reputation will precede you:

- Reputation is power earned through trust, so the best reputation is that people can depend on you.
- If you maintain good boundaries over time, you'll build a great reputation.
- A dimwitted and kind person will often succeed *far* more than an insufferable genius.

We all need good boundaries:

- Boundaries are emotional and physical spaces between you and others.
- Boundaries create the framework for all healthy communication.
- Boundaries aren't selfish or disobedient, but they *are* self-preserving.
- Boundaries are the only way to protect everyone from harm.

## Setting boundaries benefits everyone

Good boundaries fulfill our urges for safety and comfort, which are necessary for human connection:

- Each person clarifies where they begin and other people end.
- Everyone specifies exactly where other people can't cross, and other people respond appropriately.
- Everyone is free to think and feel anything without judgment, condemnation, or unhealthy peer pressure.
- Everyone can act freely until they start impeding others' ability to act.

While it's counterintuitive, good boundaries give everyone more freedom:

- Because everyone in a relationship is protected, that relationship can easily persist long-term.
- When people rely on others for a mutual benefit instead of necessity, they're interdependent.
- Interdependence opens people up to being [creative](mind-creativity-how.md) and original.

## Bad boundaries damage relationships

Every single [conflict](people-5_conflicts.md) or social issue comes through improper boundaries:

- Can't say "no" (Compliant) - feel too guilty or controlled to assert self, letting others abuse us.
- Can't say "yes" (Unresponsive) - too afraid to accept vulnerabilities or weaknesses, distancing ourselves from others.
- Can't hear "no" (Controller) - refuses to observe or respect others' boundaries, and eventually abuses others.
- Can't hear "yes" (Avoidant) - unwilling to connect with others, and isolates from social needs.

Poor boundaries damage our self-worth and distort our view of others:

- No sense of personal identity.
- Our feelings and thoughts over-conform to others' standards and seem inauthentic.
- Unnecessary, alienating autonomy.
- Inappropriately trusting others' promises.
- Failing to understand human behavior.
- Believing that nothing thought, felt, or done is private or personal.
- Expectations that people must report every feeling, reaction, opinion, relationship, and outside activity.
- Withdrawn or over-controlling behavior that conceals feelings to others and self.
- Intentions to stay unseen or unheard to prevent future boundary violations.
- "Blanking out" when stressed.
- Feelings of others physically or emotionally violating unspoken rules or boundaries.
- Deconstructive and discouraging self-talk.
- Selective amnesia and feelings of detachment about the past.
- Guilt and shame without any rational explanation why.
- Cold, distant attitude toward others who may violate boundaries.
- Harsh defensive or offensive behavior to protect personal space.
- Holding others to unenforceable rules or promising impossible consequences.
- Insists that everyone is completely independent of everyone else.
- Unable to share a common purpose, goal, identity, or rationale.
- Anger bleeding over from unrelated incidents.
- Sense of justice in violating others' rights.
- Has an attitude that "dares" others to come close or cross their boundaries.
- Insecure from feeling ignored, invalidated, or rejected in the past.
- Intimacy feels like violating boundaries.
- Tries to reject others before they can reject them first.
- Small failings are justifications for permanent rejection.
- Treats self as a victim, justified toward hyper-defensive behavior to fight further violations.
- Seeks martyrdom to fulfill purpose for a prolonged victimhood.

Two or more people with bad boundaries make strange relationships:

- Members shun or shame [creativity](mind-creativity-how.md).
- We become overdependent and over-involved in others' needs and interests, which becomes abuse when pushed far enough.
- People feel violated, used, overwhelmed, strangled, smothered, or imprisoned.
- Activities are *only* with others, without any solo tasks.
- Everyone is required to feel, act, and think the same way.

## Healthy relationships require mutually healthy attitudes

You don't really need to be "nice" if it's not your [personality](personality.md), but being respectful is absolutely critical for coexistence with others.

Healthy boundaries are reasonable and adapt as the situation changes.

Boundaries must be kindly expressed as public information.

Everyone is solely responsible for themselves:

- Everyone is responsible for their feelings and thoughts.
- Everyone is free to make decisions, including wrong ones.
- Everyone should receive all consequences for their actions because it was their decision.
- If someone makes a good decision, they're free to reap the rewards without condemnation.
- If someone makes a bad decision, others can choose to help but aren't required to.
- If anyone compares anyone to someone else, they're never entirely accurate.

Everyone is responsible for correctly handling their failures:

1. Confess their inability, failings, and wrongdoing.
2. Submit their failures to [God](religion.md) and others.
3. Turn from their bad behaviors.
4. Ask others for help when they need it.
5. Make amends to others whenever possible.

Each person must act with the right motivation:

- Everyone should consider the consequences of their decisions.
- Everyone should communicate with everyone affected by a decision.

Healthy boundaries foster worthwhile habits and behaviors:

- Accepting personal responsibility and building self-control.
- Tempering survivalist and destructive thinking.
- Taking risks and overcoming fears.
- Managing insecurity and fears of rejection.
- Appropriately expressing vulnerability and building trust.
- Supporting a healing environment and encouraging intimacy.
- Eliminating manipulation, abuse of power, and any obsession with control.
- Getting rid of overdependence and victim or martyr roles.
- Improving assertive behavior and removing passive aggressiveness.
- Setting relationship goals with others.
- Handling conflict and confrontation.
- Forgiving and forgetting.
- Removing guilt and shame.

## Pay attention to when others violate your boundaries

A. Identify symptoms of past or present violated/ignored boundaries:

1. Identify which of the symptoms are current or past-tense.
2. Write down details in a journal about the triggers for those behaviors.
3. Provide details about how those symptoms influence the present.
4. Describe how you feel about the symptom's effect on your life.

B. Understand what caused the boundary violations:

1. Track any irrational or unhealthy thoughts leading to the boundary violation.
2. Trace which beliefs drive those thoughts.

C. Replace the unhealthy thoughts with better ones:

- Find more reasonable thoughts, affirmations, and beliefs that encourage [habits](habits.md) that respect yourself and others more.

We cycle roughly through stages as we learn good boundaries:

1. Resentment, frustration, or anger at the various recurring violations as we discover them.
2. Finding role models for new behaviors we want to model.
3. Connecting with others who also love good boundaries.
4. Learning love for ourselves and gratitude for blessings.
5. Saying "no" in small ways in a nurturing environment.
6. Finding happiness as we bypass former feelings of guilt.
7. Saying "no" to larger things with difficult people or a legitimate risk.
8. Realigning our conscience to the new standard.
9. Respecting others' views and boundaries as much as ourselves.
10. Instinctively aligning our boundaries to goals by saying "no" when unsure and "yes" when it's called for.

## Honoring others' boundaries requires tact

Tact is behaving inoffensively:

- Avoiding offense requires honoring norms and sharing empathy for others.
- Everyone has a fragile ego, though most people learn defenses to protect it.
- We respect others' hurt to the degree we feel it, which is often how we connect and build relationships.

The Golden Rule is "treat others the way you want to be treated", but empathy is more than that:

- The Platinum Rule is "treat others the way *they* wish to be treated".
- While sympathy identifies others' experiences, empathy can identify their feelings and thoughts.
- Try to understand their background and see their perspective.
- Deliver authentic praise and avoid input that doesn't help.
- Never say clichés like "everything happens for a reason" or "this will pass".
- Only expect from others what they can legitimately do.

Giving empathy isn't difficult to understand, but is uncomfortably open:

- We must use feelings to interpret what other people are thinking instead of merely our expectations, which becomes more difficult the more that we know.
- Sharing feelings requires vulnerability.
- We frequently become accustomed to distrust if we weren't raised in it, and [it's difficult to break from it](habits.md).
- Empathy usually requires patience to hold your thoughts and slow your speaking until you know the exact words to express meaningful and relevant feelings.

### Tact honors many, many small rules

Your attitude is more important than your conduct:

- Promptly responding is a sign of respect, and people will forgive a cultural failing if they know you're *trying* to respect them.
- Typically, people are vaguely aware of your background from their first impression of you.
  - If you honor their customs, but they insist on what you're familiar with, use them even if they do it poorly.
  - If they instruct you about their methods, oblige and graciously thank them.
- Generally, you're safe if you can match the body language, speaking style, mannerisms, and posture of others around you with a similar social position.
- Learn to give plenty of affirming, inoffensive compliments to people when they're there and *not* there.
- There's no way to kindly communicate that you already know something, so simply say "thank you" and move on.

Give many affordances for others:

- People need to know when they're free to interject or respond.
- *Frequently* give them silence at the end of your complete idea.
- Provide simple questions throughout the conversation and adapt the flow of the discussion to their answers.
- The conversation will go *many* places, so if you have many things to say, you'll probably only say about 10% of them.

Research what you don't know:

- There are [many, *many* social rules](people-rules.md) to watch for, and you won't know all of them without lots of experience.
- Search the internet for advice.
- Ask friends familiar with the culture.
- Be careful, though, since asking strangers about appropriate behavior is sometimes [taboo](morality-taboo.md) as well.

Once you've learned tactfulness, you can often learn to [be more influential with others](power-influence-how.md), but it's not a necessary part of living well.