We’ve been revisiting boundaries lots here at Bird HQ recently. This week we redesigned our boundaries webinar and rolled it out with two organisations to great success. And we’ve been reflecting on our own boundaries and where we might like to implement more in order to maintain integrity and alignment to our personal and organisational values.
When we don’t implement boundaries it can leave us feeling resentful, it can lead to lower self-esteem and self-respect, in some cases it can lead to damaging behaviour (such as numbing out with alcohol or food or technology) and it can erode trust in relationships.
When we don’t implement boundaries it can lead others to feel unsure about whether we really mean it when we say yes. It’s actually more of a compassionate move to implement boundaries, than not to. As Dr Brené Brown says:
‘Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.’
We can get hijacked when trying to implement boundaries by that unhelpful inner voice that says things like ‘I can’t say no to this they will be disappointed and then they won’t like me anymore’ or ‘I will come across as ungrateful and rude if I say no to that offer’ or ‘I might lose my job if I set a boundary around that’. But if and when we grab hold of that inner voice and put it to one side we can see that setting boundaries allows people to truly understand us better, and the people and opportunities that are the right fit for the true version of us will stick around.
Boundaries are powerful. We grow when we implement them. And so do others around us.
What boundaries do you want to implement today?
With love as always, Hannah and Team Bird
Image by Quentin Lagache https://unsplash.com/photos/toRqtc8iP60