One of the best ways to be clear about your boundaries is to align them with your values.
What are values? Values are principles that you feel deeply aligned with. Some examples of values are: authenticity, adventure, community, fun, knowledge, peace, success, and wisdom, and many more.
So how can being clear about my values help me with knowing my boundaries?
If I hold the value of fairness highly, and I find I am being given a lot more work to do than my co-worker who is on the same pay level and has the same responsibility as me, eventually I am going to become annoyed. I need to re-balance this situation to be more in alignment with my value of fairness.
Something else you can try is to think of an area where you are struggling with boundaries and pull up a list of values and see which values are being challenged in that area.
For example, you might be struggling with your husband drinking too much and sleeping over at his friend’s house once a month. What values are being challenged? It might be your value of health, that you feel it is bad for his health and you want him to be the father of your children. It could be your value of respect. Maybe when he stays out you feel disrespected in some way. For everyone the values will be different.
Once I know which value is being challenged, I usually find it much easier to have an assertive conversation with someone and put a boundary in place.
Which values do you find are most often challenged in your relationships?
