3 Steps To Set Boundaries

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're somebody out there who's trying to learn and grow and improve yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, in all of your relationships, I just created a brand new video lesson. It's a mini course on how to journal, and it's absolutely free. So if you go to mindsetmentorjournal.com, you can download that video absolutely free with the lesson, and you'll also get 30 days of journal prompts to help you become better at journaling as well.

0:42So once again, it is mindsetmentorjournal.com. Today, we're going to be talking about setting boundaries in all of your relationships with other people, but also with yourself. And we're going to go over three different steps to setting your boundaries. And in all relationships, if we're not paying attention, sometimes we can feel like there's tension in a relationship simply because a lot of times I found that people don't set boundaries. So it's like, you know, you've been in a relationship with your parents your entire life. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you guys should set boundaries with each other?

1:17Because there's ways that maybe you're stepping on their toes. Maybe you're going further than you need to in certain ways and intruding. But maybe they're also doing the same. You know, and you look at all of your relationships, you look at your romantic relationship, you look at your parental relationships, your siblings, your family, your friendships, all of them should have some boundaries. And a lot of times we don't get really clear on what our boundaries are. And to be honest with you, a lot of times we don't get clear on what we want our boundaries to be, of what we feel is acceptable and unacceptable.

1:49And after a while, what happens is people tend to step on the boundaries that we can feel, but we haven't necessarily set in stone. And so most people have never really been taught boundaries or what they are, they just feel like they're being crossed, right? And so when you have that in a relationship, it can cause extreme turmoil with someone that you love. And if it's someone that you love, that's not what you want. You don't want to not want to answer the phone when they call. You don't want to try to avoid them. You don't want to feel feelings of like, no, I don't want to talk to this person.

2:26And so when you don't set boundaries, a lot of times people can accidentally, because it hasn't been clearly communicated, overstep boundaries because you haven't really gotten clear on what those are. And sometimes it could be extreme turmoil. Sometimes, if I'm being honest, it can just be like a low-grade resistance towards somebody, right? Like I can think of, I can always tell that my boundaries are being stepped on by somebody because they call me and I'm like, I don't really feel like answering the phone, right? You can do know what I'm talking about where you're like, yeah, I don't need that right now.

3:00You know what I'm talking about, right? And so what are the boundaries that we really want to set? And boundaries, basically the way that I see them, are limits of how we want to see and experience ourselves and other people in the relationships that we're in. And these are important because before we go into any relationship, the most important relationship that you have is a relationship with yourself. And so I get a lot of messages on my Instagram. If you follow me on Instagram, if you don't, it's Rob Dial, Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. But I get a lot of messages on Instagram where people are talking about, oh, you know what?

3:36Like, I really love my sister, but they are stepping all over me or they intrude or they feel like they have a say in what I should do in my life. A lot of times this is with parents more than anything else. I see this all of the time of parents just freaking overstepping boundaries. But the reason why is because the person never actually set a boundary. It's like they feel the relationship kind of wonky, but it's like you got to clearly communicate that. And so I know a lot of people reach out to me. That's probably the most common as far as overstepping boundaries is parents. And if I'm being fully transparent, it's usually mothers overstepping their boundaries.

4:16That's the one I hear a lot. And what people tend to do is a lot of people are people pleasers. I get a lot of messages that are people pleasers and they're afraid to speak up for themselves. They're afraid to speak up for themselves in a relationship with someone else. You know, they're like, I would rather not say that to my parents, because if I say this to my parents, it could cause disruption. And then it's easier just not to deal with than to deal with, you know, so they have, they have issues sometimes with their parents. Sometimes they have issues with their siblings. They have issues with their friends, with their partners.

4:49And a lot of people have issues, like I said, with their parents. And also a lot of people who have older children have issues with their children and they're really big ones. And so when we look at how we are in all those relationships, the first thing we've got to ask ourself is like, what are the boundaries that I have for myself in these relationships? How I'm going to show up, but also what is a boundary for me specifically? So like a lot of people have children that are out there and many people lose themselves as a human, as a sovereign human into being a parent. And this is why a lot of parents feel lost when their children end up finally leaving the house and they end up resenting them in some sort of way because they don't know who they are anymore without being a parent, right?

5:37Like I've seen a lot of messages about that. So before we start talking about other people and how we want them to show up in a relationship, we need to start asking how we want to show up in a relationship and what are our boundaries as far as who we are with ourselves in the relationship that we have with ourselves. Because as much as you have a relationship with someone else, you have a relationship with yourself that you deal with every single day, all day long. And with yourself, I'm just going to say this out loud, and some people are going to hate this. You should never put anyone else above you.

6:07now immediately i'm triggering some people that are parents out there some people that have spouses out there and they're like no no no like i put my children above everything else in my life and i respect that and that is beautiful but the better that you are the better that they become the better that you are as a person the more that you put yourself above everybody else the more that you become better to then impact those people and a lot of people lose themselves in being a parent. A lot of people lose themselves in relationship. And some of you may have lost yourself. And that's not terrible.

6:41Because in order to find yourself, you need to lose yourself sometimes. A couple weeks ago, I did an episode on why I think it is important to lose yourself. Because you can't find who you are unless you find out who you're not. And so sometimes this is important. But you have to put yourself above everybody else. When you put yourself above everybody else, you then prioritize how you show up in all those relationships and how you show up in all those relationships become better for everyone that you're in a relationship with. So I'm just going to say it. You have to be full of yourself. You have to love yourself.

7:14You have to think you're the best thing since sliced bread. I had a friend, a mentor of mine, I was at an event that he was running and a lady stood up and she asked a question. She's like, hey, I love what you're saying, but it makes you sound kind of full of yourself. What you're saying sounds great, all of these things, but it makes you sound full of yourself. And he looks her dead in the eye and he goes, who the fuck should I be full of? If I'm not full of myself, why should I be full of anybody else? And I'm not saying narcissistic ways where it's like, I'm going to put myself above everybody else and I'm going to make sure everybody else fails as I put myself on a pedestal.

7:54It's like, no, I know that when I prioritize myself and the boundaries that I have, then I show up better in these relationships. And me prioritizing myself is actually also prioritizing those other people as well. Because when I'm better, they're better. What I'm saying is you need to take care of yourself better. You can't pour from an empty cup. You can't just think that you can just help everybody else all the time if you're not helping yourself. And so I'm going to say it if people are afraid to say it. Canceling plans sometimes, not the day of, but like a couple days ahead because you need to prioritize yourself.

8:31Maybe you need to read. Maybe you need to just meditate. Maybe you just need some time alone. You need to slow down. Things have been really busy at work. Canceling plans is okay. Now, don't be the person who cancels 15 minutes before because that's a shitty thing to do. But canceling plans because you want to prioritize yourself is okay. You know, skipping a party to go to the gym is okay. Staying at home to cook is okay. Like, let's encourage people to prioritize themselves more, to respect themselves more, to develop a greater self-improvement practice, to have more self-love. Like, let's encourage that.

9:07Don't do it all the time. Don't think that you just don't hang out with anybody and you just prioritize yourself and you just cancel all of your plans. You never see anybody and you became a hermit. Don't do that all the time. but if it feels like, you know what? I really need time with myself. I really need time with myself to work on myself, to learn, to grow, to improve. Maybe just have some fucking silence. Do it. It's okay. I am giving you permission. I'm giving you permission to do it, right? And so I've been through it before. Like I've been through not setting boundaries with myself. Like my first company that I owned, I worked 110 hours a week for three years straight and I ran myself into the ground and I prioritized my business over myself.

9:44and sometimes you need to set boundaries with yourself. Taking days off, scheduling free days, scheduling your work time, all of that. Be careful. Don't run from your business and don't do what you're not supposed to do and call it a quote-unquote self-care day, but you have to start to develop some boundaries. And then what you do is after you develop boundaries with yourself, now you've got to start looking at all of your relationships and you ask yourself, what do I want this relationship to look like? This relationship with my spouse, what do I want my relationship to look like. Okay. There's a lot of people that I know, and I get a lot of message on this one, right?

10:16Like the way that some people say, like my husband talks down to me, like he wants to do X, Y, Z. He wants me to be this way. And he talks down to me in many different ways. And they just take it and take it and take it and take it and take it. And then becomes too much. Right. And so like, can you set boundaries in the way that you want your spouse to speak with you and the way that you show up for each other? And mind you, it is always a two-way street. It's not just like, I'm going to tell them what to do. It's also like, you need to tell yourself what to do in the relationship as well and see what they want.

10:44Like they need, they need boundaries for you in the relationship. Right. And so it's like your spouse, your children, your parents, your family, your coworkers, your employees, like you need to set boundaries in what these relationships are going to look like. And so once again, first off, you start with yourself and you start setting boundaries for yourself and getting very clear on that. And then you go after internal, you go external and start setting boundaries with other people. So let's go through the three steps of actually setting boundaries. Okay. Number one is you have to decide what you want.

11:13Like, what do you want? There's so many times where people reach out to me all of the time and I'm like, they're like, tell me their life story. And I'm like, what do you want? They're like, I don't know. Not what do you want from me? But like, what do you want in your life? And they're like, I don't know what I want in my life. I'm like, well, that's a pretty good place to start. Most people know what they don't want, but they have no clue what they want. Like if you were to build a perfect relationship with this person, what would it look like? What would that look like? How do you want to feel in that relationship?

11:42How do you want to show up in that relationship? How do you want them to feel in the relationship with you? How do you want them to show up in the relationship? And then you'd be clear and communicate it with them in a nice way. You know, some people might have resistance. It might bring up resistance. inside of them, I start to feel triggered, but it's, it's about clearly communicating how you feel. And one of the things that's important, I say this all the time to people is you teach people how to talk to you and how to treat you. You teach them that through how, through, through the boundaries that you do or do not set, you know, what you deem acceptable and unacceptable, all of those things.

12:20You teach people how to talk to you. You teach people how to treat you. You can explicitly talk to them and also, you know, what they can see in your, your non-verbals of what is acceptable, right? So you've got to figure out what do you want? That's the first thing. Number two, which is the hardest part for everybody is you have to communicate it. All right. It might be hard. It is 100 % necessary. Take all of the blame if necessary. Take all of the blame. And like one of the things that I hear from people is like, oh yeah, I work from home now because of all the stuff that happened with COVID and now I'm remote.

12:55Now my mom calls me at three o 'clock on a Tuesday when I'm working and she's like, hey, can you go pick up my laundry, right? It's like, listen, I'm sorry, mom. I love you. I can't go pick up your dry cleaning. I work for Google and I work in for Google until 5 PM. There's nothing that I can do right now. And so you can start to actually take the blame if you want to have like, listen, I can't, I wish that I could, but I can't do this right now. You know, uh, I don't want you to call me and tell me about the negativity that you saw on the news, mom. I don't clearly communicate it with them. I'm working.

13:30I can't go pick up your stuff I'm trying to look at the bright side of things. I love you, but I don't want to hear you complain all the time You know, I don't want you to call me and tell me about all of the negative stuff That's going on in all of your friends relationships and try to gossip with me because it doesn't make me feel good Right some of you guys A lot of people might be afraid to have these conversations Because you're afraid that you're going to make the other person mad So let me give you a secret on that. It's called disarming So if you're about to have a clear, possibly triggering conversation with somebody, the first thing you always want to do is disarm the person.

14:03You want to disarm them. And the way that you disarm them is by starting the conversation like this. You say, hey, listen, can I talk to you about something? And they're like, sure. Before I do, if I can be honest, I'm actually afraid of telling you this. And I'm afraid of how you might possibly react. So do I have permission to just like speak for my heart and not be judged? And they're like, yeah, of course, of course you do. That's how everyone's responding. Oh yeah, of course you can. Right? And what you do is you're honest with them about how you feel and that you might be nervous, you might be scared, all that stuff.

14:38And then you ask, do I have permission? Do I have permission to speak for my heart, to be honest with you, and just not be judged? Because I'm just nervous about how you might take it. Oh my God, yeah, of course you can. Right? When someone says yes, when you say, do I have permission? and they say yes, they feel like it is them asking you for you to say it to them, which usually puts their guard down and allows them to just kind of feel into it and not feel triggered, right? And so usually disarming is the easiest way to do it if that's what you're looking for, but you have to, have to, have to clearly communicate it.

15:07So that's number two. And step number three is you have to stay firm. You got to stay firm. Build awareness and notice when you fall back into bad habits. It takes awareness. It takes tough love. Don't beat yourself up over it. But when someone starts to intrude on those boundaries and you're noticing it because it's just a habit, that's what they're used to. Your mom calls you back up again and starts to tell you about all the negative stuff in the news. It's like, mom, do you remember our conversation? Yes, but I have to tell you this thing. No, no, no, mom, mom, mom. Listen, I understand that you want to talk to somebody about this crazy shit that's been happening on the news, but I don't want to hear it.

15:43I'm trying to keep the news out of my life, trying to keep negativity out of my life. So can you please stop calling me with negativity? I don't know how she's going to react, but you are finally standing up for yourself and you're staying firm because people are going to keep testing your boundaries. That's what people do. They just test and they test and they see how far they can get. No, no, no. You're going to stay firm and you're going to actually do exactly what you say you're going to do. When people start, you know, intruding on your boundaries again, no, hey, sorry. Remember the conversation that we had.

16:12I'm not going to do this anymore. So you have to stay firm. So number one is you have to figure out what it is that you actually want to decide. Number two, you have to clearly communicate it with them. And number three is you have to stay firm on those boundaries. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If once again, you want to learn and improve yourself, there is an absolutely free video lesson I created about how to journal, how to master the art of journaling so that you can learn, grow, and improve yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually, everything.

16:43If you're interested in getting it absolutely free, once again, go to mindsetmentorjournal.com. And with that, you'll get the video lesson, but you'll also get 30 days of journaling prompts as well. So if you're interested, once again, it is mindsetmentorjournal.com. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.