Intentionally indicate limits that promote your values

When my therapist first taught me the concept of boundaries, he encouraged me to write that word in permanent marker on the outside of my flip phone.

Remember flip phones? Where the buttons and display were kept inside the closed clamshell, and you didn’t know who was calling until you snapped open the hinge?

Well, one of my foremost problems as a codependent was feeling obligated to answer every single call. Even from unknown numbers. Because that’s what people pleasers do. They allow the demands on their time to be usurped by manipulators.

And so, writing the word boundaries on the phone reminded me to pause before answering the call. And in many cases, just let it go to voicemail and deal with it later, if at all.

This little trick was the first of what would become a lifelong strategy for setting healthy boundaries. As someone who struggled with chronic stress and anxiety for most of my twenties and thirties, the importance of this strategy cannot be understated. Once you discover that you don’t have to be a loving landfill for everybody else’s trash, it’s amazing how quickly your blood pressure decreases.

And so, boundaries are defined as intentionally indicated limits that promote your values. Let’s explore a few examples.

Are you trying to sustain momentum without burning yourself out? Try micro pacing, which is an elegantly balanced production effort between heating and cooling. If you’re not sure how fast or slow your creative projects should be progressing, give yourself a longer intervals of incubation than you think you need. Go slow enough so that if you run into something interesting, you have a chance to notice.

Here’s another one. Do you seek new work opportunities, but people and companies want your time for free? Use something called a labor limit, setting boundaries on your generosity of providing unpaid service. Decide ahead of time exactly how much time we are going to dedicate to this pro bono work. Spend thirty minutes on the job application questions, submit the document, and move on with your life.

One last example. Do you ever get information overload and become stressed and overwhelmed trying to catch up with everything? Try conscious consumption, where you apply a level discernment to the intellectual nourishment you ingest. Agree not to look at your phone for the first hour after you wake up, and not to watch or read any news for the last hour before you go to sleep. See how little you actually miss out on.

Look, there are as many ways to set healthy boundaries as there are people to set them. Find the tools that work for you. Don’t even let people shame you for drawing the line. And trust that how others respond to your boundaries is not your problem.

You don’t necessarily have to write any words on the top of your phone, but you do have to intentionally indicate limits that promote your values.

How might your people pleasing tendencies be causing you distress?