In this solo episode of the Own It Podcast, host Nicole Hollar presents a practical four‑step framework for establishing personal boundaries. She begins by likening boundaries to laws or rules—values that require clear definition and associated consequences. The four steps are: (1) Define the boundary (often discovered only when crossed), (2) Set the boundary by communicating it to the other party, (3) Enforce the boundary consistently, including deciding on graduated consequences and being prepared to “kill the dragon when it’s a baby,” and (4) Respect the boundary, both by the setter and by others, which involves honest communication of needs. Throughout, Nicole illustrates each step with everyday scenarios (children’s tablet use, workplace hours, household chores) and more serious contexts (infidelity, friendships that conflict with core values). She cautions listeners to consider the personal impact of enforcement, avoid spiteful retaliation, and be willing to lose relationships if a boundary cannot be honored. Finally, she emphasizes the importance of learning to articulate needs and to respect others’ boundaries, positioning these skills as essential components of confidence and personal growth. The episode closes with a plug for Nicole Hollar Coaching and her website.
Chapters
Welcome to the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar, where we're going to talk about stuff to help you get out of your way, take charge of your life, and, well, other stuff too. Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar. I recently did a podcast about the traits of confident people, and I wanted to add to that by talking about the 4 steps of boundary setting. If you read Feeling Stuck, you'll notice that one of the tenets is called Confidence and boundaries, because it takes a confident person to not only be able to establish boundaries, but also to accept personal boundaries. When we think about boundaries, I want you to consider them like a value, like a rule or a law, because that's what they are. If you think about driving your car, that boundary is the speed limit. That's the law. Don't go over that or you have a consequence. What they've done is they've defined the boundary and they've established established what's going to happen if you go over it, and then they have to enforce the boundary. That's all a law is, is a boundary. At your home, they're probably called rules. You're not allowed to do X, Y, and Z, and if you do, you're going to lose some type of a privilege. That's a boundary. But with the— a child, it might be called a rule, and people enforce those all the time. And it's really important to remember that if you're going to set a boundary, you have to decide to enforce it. Because using that metaphor of a kid, if you keep threatening a kid to take away their, you know, their mobile phone and you never do, they have zero reason to believe you that you're going to enforce that boundary, that that boundary is important, that you mean it. Your boundary is only as good as your word. Boundaries are also Based on values, sometimes you're like, "No, I'm I'm just not. That's a boundary I'm not crossing with a friend. I am just not going to break into the store with you." I mean, I think that seems like a reasonable boundary. Like I do not want to commit a felony. Okay, that's great. Am I willing to uphold that? Yes. Am I willing to lose the friendship? Yes, because clearly our values are really misaligned. And if you Think in context of values, which you may have heard me talk about in the past. Those top 5 values for any topic, those are your threshold values. So when those are violated, if you stick it out and you stay in it, you're probably going to be miserable or you're going to have to leave it or change it because those are the things that are super important to you. If you look at boundaries in a relationship, you're like, man, He keeps throwing his socks on the floor. If that is something that's like value number 11, you're probably not going to divorce over socks on the floor. If it's part of a bigger thing, like you don't ever clean up and being a participant in that is important and it's a 3, you're probably going to be really bothered by it versus kind of irritated. If that makes sense to you. So when you think of boundaries, consider it in 4 steps. The first step is always you have to define what your boundary is. And the funny part is sometimes we don't even know what that boundary is until it's crossed because it's really more of a value. And some things— and I'll just use a, you know, I think a funny story— things that didn't bother you until you realized it bothered you. I went into my cupboard one day And there was those bag, like any type of bag where you pull off the top and it's resealable. And there were two of them in the cupboard with the whole top pulled off, except it was just dangling. That part you would have thrown away; it was just dangling there, but sealed. And I pulled them out and they were right next to each other. I'm like, oh my God! I showed them to my wife. I'm like, really? I'm like. Are you a crazy person? And she looked at me and goes, oh yeah? And looked around and picked up 3 different ball caps, 'cause I'm wearing ball caps all the time. I was like, okay, touché. And we kind of laughed about it because you didn't even know it was a thing until you realized it was a thing. But for more serious boundaries, you really wanna define what the boundary is for yourself and then set the boundary. So in order to set the boundary, you're going to have to let the other person or company, whatever it is, know This is my boundary. If you've told your new company, listen, I cannot work past 6 PM because of X, Y, and Z, and they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, that's you defining and setting your boundary. But what happens if they're like, hey Molly, would you mind working till 6:30 this one night? And then it becomes 2 and now it's 7. Are you enforcing your boundary? Are you willing to enforce your boundary? Because that's step 3. Are you afraid of enforcing your boundary because what will happen? Because maybe they weren't respecting it upfront. And I like the phrase, you have to kill the dragon when it's a baby. And if you don't understand what that means, it means when it's little, it's probably manageable to, to stop. But once it becomes big and full size, you're probably not going to stop a full-grown dragon. So we want to define our boundary, we want to set our boundary, and then we want to enforce our boundary. But you have to uphold the consequences of that. In the case of my work example, are you willing to stand up to your boss? Are you willing to say no? If you aren't willing to enforce your boundary, then your boundary means nothing. If your kid keeps using the tablet past 8 PM, And sneaks it, and you keep telling them they can't do that or they're going to be grounded or punished or something, and you never do it, they have no reason to stop doing that. I know sometimes we want people to want to respect us because we just want them to want to. It's like, I just want my partner to want to wash the dishes. Well, nobody wants to wash the dishes. We just do wash the dishes, right? Unless you love to wash the dishes. So those are really important. You have to be willing to enforce it. I tell people, unless you're willing to enforce your boundary, just let it go. It's like anything else. Unless you're willing to do something about it, you're going to have to let it go. And it's also unfair to be angry at somebody for violating your boundary if they never knew about it. Now, in the case using my little bags with the thing, I mean, it was sort of more of a joke. It wasn't a big deal. But if it was really a big deal and I didn't know it was a big deal until I saw it, it would be up to me to go, hey, this is a real problem for me. And I would really appreciate if you would no longer do that and instead tear the whole top off and throw it away. I'd like to use some lighthearted examples because sometimes, you know, things get a little too serious in life. But there are certainly very serious things like infidelity. What are you gonna do? If somebody cheats on you, do you even know? Did it even occur to you? Do you give somebody another chance? Because there are steps of boundary enforcement, like, hey, what's going on? Did I realize we were a bit disconnected and we need to work through this? Do you give them a chance? And then if you do and they do it again, are you done? It's the same with the tablet. Do you give them another chance? Do you get a 3 strikes and you're out? It doesn't have to be an all or nothing, but it does have to have a very specifically stated graduated plan of how you're going to enforce it. And the fourth thing is, if you're willing to set boundaries, you're gonna have to be able to respect them too. And sometimes people don't know how to communicate their needs. And I'm a real big advocate for helping people learn to communicate their needs because a lot of times I've learned, and of course I've learned this in coaching, People didn't realize they were allowed to speak up for what they wanted or what they needed, or that they realized that they also deserved respect. So even if you see somebody who's a doormat, you can choose to wipe your feet on them, or you can roll them up and move them out of the way and say, hey, you don't need to do that. Let's establish some boundaries for you. Because just because somebody allows it doesn't mean you necessarily want to take it. And likewise, if people just put a firm boundary up, respect it. It doesn't mean we can't have discussions about it. Everything has some sort of behavioral flexibility as well. Now, I will caution you 2 things when you do boundary setting. The first one is, how is it going to affect you? And are you willing to lose a relationship? Using the tablet as an example, if you are somebody who entertains your toddler with the tablet, And they keep doing something that's making you crazy. You're like, "That's it! I'm taking the tablet from you." How's it going to affect you? That was what you were using as your entertainment source. Are you okay with that? Because you better follow through. If you don't follow through, then they are not going to believe your word, and your word is everything. So make sure that you are not doing things in spite because you don't want to also take something. That was helping you away because you were making a rash decision. Likewise, you don't want to do something in spite that might have taken something beneficial away from somebody. So it's really important to be mindful of spiteful consequences. Like, hey teenager, I know you wanted to do that really amazing thing this summer that really could have enhanced your life and you would have learned so much and taken such great things away from it. But because you are being a jerk, I'm not going to let you go to that camp over in the mountains when— where you would learn how to be independent. That seems like it's spiteful and could have been really beneficial. Is there something else that could have happened instead? So these are things that you want to think about. How's it going to affect you? Is it going to affect you negatively? And you also want to be mindful of spiteful consequences. And again, the second one is, are you willing to, to lose a relationship? Am I willing to lose the relationship with the friend who is like, hey, will you rob that store with me? The answer is yes. Am I willing to lose the relationship with my spouse because I keep threatening, if you do this, I'm leaving? How many times have you heard of— you may have known people where they get all flustered, they pack up their bag, they storm off, they get in their car, they drive away, and 2 hours later they're back. They essentially just keep threatening to leave, but they never do. So if you're not going to leave, then don't threaten it because your word doesn't mean anything anyway. And on top of it, it's not really healthy for anybody's well-being, and it's spiteful, and those things are intended to cause psychological harm as well. So you have to decide what you're willing to do when it comes to enforcement. Like, are you really willing to walk out of work? If it comes to your well-being, if the boss keeps saying, "No, you got to work all these late hours forevermore," and that was really not part of your agreement, these are things that you're going to have to decide. Are you willing to lose that relationship? And by relationship, in this case, I mean work. You know, is the friend worth keeping? Is that partner worth being with? Those are important questions. The kid—you're going to probably need to keep your kid. I would highly recommend that. But. What if it's a visiting friend or family member? Do you want to kick them out? Is that worth damaging the relationship because you got into a fight? That's up to you. I can't answer those questions. So those are the 4 steps of boundary setting. You got to define them, you got to set them, and you got to enforce them, and then you have to respect them. I'm going to leave that for today. I hope you have an amazing day, and remember, this is your time. You can find me as always at Nicole Holler Coaching on most social media platforms, as well as check out all the things that I have to offer for you at nicoleholler.com. Have a great day.
