The Place Between People Please and No Ninja

I see you doing everything for everyone. 

Putting everyone else’s needs above your own. 

You’ve forgotten how to protect your time. 

Forgotten how to protect your purpose and your dreams. 

You are leading your people in your work, then you come home and continue to do for those you love. Only now, your starting to feel used and resentful. Feeling like your being taken advantaged of. 

So then you find your self going to the other side and shutting people out. Saying no to everything and everyone.  But that doesn’t feel good to you either and you start to get mad at yourself because truth be told you do enjoy doing for others. You think to yourself if only there was a happy medium. 

I have good news. There is a happy medium. There is a middle ground. It's boundaries. But not the way you may be thinking about boundaries. 

People often think about boundaries as having none, being what we call a door mat or a people pleaser to putting boundaries out that say you must behave this way around me or I’ll (insert threat). 

But here is what a boundary really is. A boundary is you your self knowing that if xyz happens the I will do this. A proper boundary is not an effort to control the people or things around you. No a proper boundary is simply allowing people and things to be exactly as they are and knowing what you will do in certain situations. 

An example would be if some one always asks you to take on a task you might try to people please and always say yes, even though you want to say no. Or you might swing to the other side and become a no ninja. Always telling them no because you are tired of being asked and 

you want to avoid it all. 

A proper boundary here would be knowing ahead of time. I am willing to take on x-number of tasks and no more. So I will say yes to the ones I know I can do and do well, while still maintaining my time and energy. 

This boundary allows the asking person the freedom to ask away as many times as they would like, and you know when you want to say yes and when you want to say no. Sometimes we may choose to state what that boundary is by saying thank you for asking I’m only going to take on 5 projects this month so I am going to be selective with which ones I do. Or maybe we don’t say anything at all. A proper boundary doesn’t have to be disclosed to anyone. It is simply there so that we know what we are going to do. 

As soon as you set proper boundaries with others, your relationships change, because you are always coming from a place of love. Others will start to notice that the things you do, you do more lovingly and with care instead of with frustration and resentment. 

When setting proper boundaries we remove any emotional attachment to the request. People get to be exactly who they are and we get to be exactly who we are. Everyone wins.

Setting proper boundaries is a beautiful thing.

Love you madly.

Leslie

P.S. For a free worksheet to help you identify and set your own proper boundaries around any person, any situation or anything, email me at leslie.canup@gmail.com put boundaries in the subject line.