Five Characteristics of Effective Personal Boundaries
To establish effective personal boundaries, think speed limits.
We all know that having personal boundaries is important. They set the standards for what we will and will not allow in our lives. They protect us from being taken advantage of and also help preserve our physical and mental wellbeing.
What we rarely know, however, is how to make them actually effective. Fortunately, the process becomes pretty straightforward if we compare personal boundaries to speed limits.
That said, here are the five characteristics required to make them infallible.
1. They Are Firm and Non-Negotiable
Each road has a maximum speed limit at which vehicles may travel. If a speed camera catches a driver straying above it, they are fined. It doesn’t matter whether they were blatantly over the speed limit, or were barely over it by just a fraction of a mile. It’s not about how much. “Above the limit” is the operative phrase. Because the limit is firm and non-negotiable, once someone crosses it, that’s it — they are an offender.
Just like speed limits, personal boundaries should be firm and non-negotiable. Otherwise, we will spend potentially infinite amounts of time and energy negotiating with the offenders and debating questions such as how much above that limit is truly too much, or what the appropriate fine should be.
Do we really want to discuss with someone whether their actions truly hurt our feelings or made us feel uncomfortable? How we felt at the time those actions took place is a fact that should be judged according to the standards we’ve set, not according to the standards which are more convenient to somebody else. Like a speed camera, we sensed they crossed the limit. The offenders should be fined accordingly.
Remaining firm is particularly important with personal boundaries because, unlike machines, our human memories easily fail. After an hour, a day, or a week, our memory of the sensation or the event will not be as strong, and it will be easier for the offender to make us doubt ourselves and convince us that we overreacted. We could even be gaslighted.
Further, if we renegotiate a limit once, this renegotiated limit will stick as our new limit. In legal practice, we call this “setting a precedent.”
For instance, if Party A agrees to give a certain term to Party B in one contract, later Party B will expect to receive the same term in the next one. Party B will claim that a new negotiation of the term is not necessary because it will only lead to the same result and it would therefore be inefficient to go again through the already previously discussed arguments.
Similarly, if an offender succeeds in persuading us to move our personal boundary a little bit once, they will expect it again next time. Why wouldn’t they? If they’ve managed to convince us in the past, there is no reason for them to doubt they will convince us in the future.
As in the contract example, they will argue that it will save everyone’s time if we just agree to permanently modify the boundary. If we give an offender some leeway, they will not hesitate to request this leeway be made permanent.
To make matters even worse, if an occasion does prompt the renegotiation of the modified boundary, this renegotiation will again be in favor of the offender, and never in ours.
Why not ever in ours? Because we are adults who, consciously and out of our own volition, agreed to rules which were less favorable to us in the first negotiation. The offender now has expectations of what they are allowed to do, and reverting to the original boundary would be similar to breaking a promise or taking away the privileges they viewed as rights.
The offender will argue it is unfair to change the terms they have always gotten (or should we say, gotten away with?) and that we should keep our side of the deal. We will be portrayed as the disagreeable and unreliable one, unexpectedly making up arbitrary new rules.
Roles will be reversed, and the offender will suddenly look like the victim. When this happens, no one will respect our personal boundaries because no one respects the bad guy and arbitrary rules.
On the other hand, if the offender has been successful in renegotiating a limit in the past, there is nothing stopping them from renegotiating even further. There is no reason for them not to try.
After all, if we’ve allowed it once, why wouldn’t we do so again? That too — us allowing for negotiation of our personal boundaries — is setting precedent. The offenders will justify their request by saying there are new circumstances and “facts” that require making their desired additional changes.
This cycle will continue endlessly until the limit is set to what the offender feels comfortable with. People demand what they know they can get.
Hoping that a feeling of decency will stop them from going as far as possible is a losing strategy: Had they had such decency, they would have respected our boundaries in the first place and would not have bargained for new ones. Eventually, the limits which were supposed to be our personal boundaries, set where we feel comfortable, will be placed where it is convenient for others.
Fluid and negotiable boundaries allow others to decide for us. People’s behavior will always be subject to their goodwill rather than to the standards we want if we do not enforce them.
Firm and non-negotiable boundaries put the power in our hands to determine what is right and what is wrong for us.
2. They Are Clear and Unambiguous
Specific numbers are clear and unambiguous. That’s one of the greatest advantages of speed limits: They offer a pretty much foolproof indication of what is allowed.
Anyone who has been able to obtain a driving license is also capable of checking the speed at which their car is going and of comparing it to the limit. If they are very close to it, they know they should either slow down or be particularly cautious not to go over it. If they are nowhere near the limit, they can simply cruise on their way, relaxing and enjoying the drive.
Blurry lines dilute our standards for how we would like to be treated.
Obviously, determining personal boundaries is challenging because, unlike speed limits, we cannot always just select a number. There are situations where it is possible.
For example, we could say: “I will not allow my date to be late by more than 15 minutes unless they have a valid excuse, such as a car breakdown.” We could easily use this rule for telephone conversations as well. If someone has promised to call at 10 pm, but hasn’t done so by 10:15 pm — we put our phone on silent and go to sleep.
If they have a good reason for why they were late, they’ll have the chance to explain it on the next day. And if they are a good person, they will also respect our time and will not be mad at us for having boundaries and going on with our night when they couldn’t keep the agreed time. Anything to the opposite of that would (and should) be a red flag for us.
The situations where personal boundaries cannot be determined by objective, fixed points are more challenging to handle, but just as important, if not more important, because the inability to quantify in some numeric manner makes us more vulnerable to being taken advantage of.
To illustrate the point, consider the previous examples where we are willing to wait for 15 minutes for someone. If that someone convinces us that the limit should be 20 minutes, we know exactly what we are giving away: The extra 5 minutes.
Now consider an example where our partner’s mother interferes in our relationship beyond what we find acceptable, but our partner either doesn’t find the behavior excessive or finds it to be so but prefers to just ignore it.
If we do not clearly and unambiguously enforce our personal boundaries, a lot could be at stake. As a start, whatever the mother is meddling with and our relationship with her, but also potentially the future between us and our partner, which could then even escalate to our health and wellbeing.
For this reason, it is essential to specify to the best our limits our personal boundaries, even if we are forced to resort to unquantifiable parameters and to clarify as we go along.
A simple procedure would be to identify the problem and what we would be willing to accept instead. For instance, if our partner’s mother makes regular unannounced home visits, we could request that she gives us a 24-hour heads-up and that she limits her visits to twice a week at most.
Sometimes, it is possible that we will reject a behavior entirely. For example, if a colleague makes inappropriate jokes which are offensive, we must make it clear to them that they must stop completely and that there is no way in which they could attenuate these jokes that would make them acceptable.
3. They Are Also Communicated Clearly and Unambiguously
This characteristic is pretty straightforward. After we’ve taken the time to reflect and decide what our personal limits are, we must let the world know, clearly and unambiguously, just like speed limits are indicated by large, explicit road signs.
In fact, the communication element plays an even greater role here. Speed limits are printed in regulations that people can read and are also tested on the driving license exam. In contrast, until expressed, our personal boundaries are not known to anyone but ourselves. Since everyone is raised differently, we cannot expect them to have an innate understanding.
People are not mindreaders, and there are no manuals we can distribute to them on how we want to be treated. Therefore, if we fail to communicate, we cannot expect others to follow our rules.
It would not only be impossible for them to do so without the necessary knowledge but also unfair of us to expect of them telepathic abilities. If something bothers us, we should say so.
If someone wronged us but tries to act as if nothing happened, we should raise with them the issue. We must be confident about how we deserve to be treated, assertive regarding our boundaries, and unambiguous about our needs.
By fulfilling our obligation to communicate our personal boundaries, we put the onus on others to respect them. This is what allows us to see red flags and differentiate between those who are impudent and those who were simply clueless.
4. There Are Rewards for Respecting Boundaries and Punishments for Disrespecting Them
Let’s go back to the topic of speed cameras. When a car gets caught violating the speed limit, be it ever so slightly, the driver is issued a fine as punishment.
There’s rarely any room for bargaining over the fine, and it doesn’t matter who the driver is. It is applied equally to everyone as soon as there is a violation, period.
But the fine does more than just punish. It incentivizes drivers to respect the speed limits because they know there will be actual consequences otherwise. It influences even drivers who would not break the rules regardless because they would find it unfair to them if the offenders did not get penalized.
One of the greatest mistakes we can make is giving preferential treatment to specific individuals, such as someone we are romantically involved with. Besides the inherent unfairness towards others, it is a terrible approach for us as well, because:
- It indicates to those privileged individuals that we are willing to place them above our own needs and self-respect. We are no longer on equal footing with them, but place them in a position of power as superior to us;
- If we do not enforce our own rules, we lose their respect because we lack self-respect — this lack must mean we are not very worthy and portrays us as clingy and weak-willed;
- It incentivizes them to test our other limits as well and check what they can get away with (again, the power of precedent);
- It is no longer possible to tell who truly cares about us and who is around only as long as they can conveniently get what they want from us without giving equally in return. We can easily become victims of people with narcissistic personality or other disorders.
There are almost never any circumstances under which we should make an exception or modification for anyone. If such circumstances arise, they will be so exceptional, it will be very obvious to us we have no other choice.
But more often than not, when we hesitate to apply the punishments we decided on while we were still thinking objectively, it is due to our emotional attachments.
We hesitate because we want to avoid conflict; we hesitate because we people-please; we hesitate because we have feelings for someone. However, if we are serious about our personal boundaries, we must remain rational and proceed as if we were a speed camera that had just detected a violation.
As for the rewards? We can increase what we give to people who acknowledge and respect our personal boundaries, such as more time and attention, help and being there for them in times of need, loyalty, etc.
We should be good to the people who are good to us; not to those who aren’t.
5. There is Zero Tolerance Towards Violations
Just like a driver who repeatedly violates speed limits is assigned penalty points in addition to paying fines and can lose their driving license, a person who repeatedly disregards our personal boundaries should be assigned penalty points.
Once a certain level of disrespect is reached, whether through one major transgression or through repeated small ones, we must cut off the offender’s access to us completely.
We must do so even if we otherwise really enjoy their company or really would like to forgive them. We must not fall victim to mistakes such as making excuses for them, justifying their misbehavior, or focusing on their potential to do better.
People’s actions are the reliable indicator of how much (or little) they appreciate us or care for us. If they reach the ultimate limit, it is more than a red flag; it is a major stop sign.
There should be no second chances afterward either. Even if we learn of their dramatic sob story, their past misfortunes do not give them the right to mistreat us. We must stick to our standards, what we expect, what we don’t tolerate, and where we draw the final line — for all the reasons pointed out in the previous four characteristics.
If for some reason it is impossible to completely remove the offender from our lives (e.g., because they are a colleague with whom we are forced to work), we should seek to limit our interactions with them as much as possible and continuously seek to terminate any transgression of our boundaries.
Bonus: There should be rewards and punishments for us if we break our own rules
To make our personal boundaries truly effective, we should incentivize not only others, but ourselves as well. Especially if we’ve not been very good with enforcing them in the past, whether it was because we were not assertive or communicative enough, or because we’ve made exceptions to the rules for certain individuals.
Depending on how much or little we struggle with maintaining our boundaries, we should set a specific period of time (once a week/month/quarter) during which to reflect on how we are doing. We should examine our main relationships (romantic interest, friends, colleagues) as well as our casual everyday interaction with strangers and conduct a bluntly honest review:
- Have others respected or ignored us?
- How have we responded in terms of rewards and punishments?
- Have our actions been in line with what we want?
- Did we brush off small offenses?
If so, great. Maybe we should celebrate this with some reward, such as a day at the spa. If not, then we should ask ourselves further questions:
- How exactly did we fail ourselves, and what should have we done instead?
- How can we remedy the issue?
- Are there any conversations to be had or any relationships that should be cut off?
After that, we should take the appropriate corrective measures to reestablish our boundaries. Then, we should identify the personal weakness which made us break our own rule and fix it.
Finally, we should find an appropriate penalty for ourselves that will give more life and realism to the future consequences of not standing up for our boundaries, so that we have something immediately at stake in the present moment and are prompted to act with urgency.
We should make the rewards as attractive and the penalties as unattractive as needed for us to have the right level of motivation.
Summary
To recap on the points made in this article, effective personal boundaries should feature the following characteristics:
1. They are firm and non-negotiable.
2. They are clear and unambiguous.
3. They are also communicated clearly and unambiguously.
4. There are rewards for respecting and punishments for disrespecting them, which are applied equally to everyone and without hesitation.
5. There is zero tolerance toward violations. Once someone strikes out, there are no second chances.
Bonus: There should be rewards and punishments for us if we break our own rules.
Let us save this list onto our phone, print it on our planner, or hang it on our wall, and we’ll be ready to handle any ride.
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