How To Set Boundaries

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm 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 out there and you love this podcast, you would absolutely 100% love my book. It is 256 pages, three years of writing, 17 years of my life in coaching people. And it is called how, or is actually called level up, how to get focus, stop procrastinating and upgrade your life. If you're interested in getting it, it is available in many countries worldwide. Go to robdial.com and order it now. Today, we're going to be talking about how to set boundaries in your life. We're going to talk about how to set boundaries in any relationship that you have. And this is not just romantic relationships. This is all relationships. This is romantic relationships. This is parental relationships. This is relationships with your co workers, this is relationship with your boss. This is relationship with your siblings, with your family, with your children, with your friendships, with everybody. And the reason why this is important is because one thing that I have found over working with people for 17 years is that most people were never taught boundaries, were never taught what they are, and were never taught exactly how to use them, how to set them up. And if you don't set boundaries for yourself and for other people to associate with you, it can really cause extreme turmoil with someone that you love. And a lot of times that turmoil even, it could be really big turmoil or it could even be like just a low grade resistance towards someone. You're like, man, I really love my aunt. But, like, I don't know why I have so much resistance towards her. Well, it might be that she's overstepping boundaries, but it's not necessarily all her fault. Because maybe you haven't communicated your boundaries because you don't know what your boundaries are. And so you look at it and it's like, what are boundaries? Boundaries are our limits. They are your limits. How we want to experience ourselves is in a relationship with another human. And these are really important because before we go into any relationship, any relationship that exists in the world, the most important relationship that you have is with yourself. I get a lot of messages on Instagram and I read all of them. I don't have time to respond to every single one of them. I try to respond to as many as I can, but I just don't have time. And one thing that's very, very clear to me, that a lot of people are in relationships with someone else. And because they love that other person, they let that person step all over their lives. A lot of people I get messages of, like, my mother, she, you know, she oversteps and she does this and she does this. Or, you know, I told her that I'm trying to be a more positive person, but every 17 minutes, it's like she sends me another article from the news about how the world is imploding. And she's so fearful and she doesn't realize it, but she's putting all of her fear into me. And I'm just really resistant towards my mom. And so it's. I get messages like this in many different ways where my husband, he doesn't respect my boundaries. And I'm like, well, have you communicated your boundaries well? No, not necessarily. And so really, what it comes down to is the most important relationship that we have more than anything else is a relationship that we have with ourself. And we give ourselves up for a relationship. If we're not setting boundaries, we're giving up a piece of ourself for that relationship to be okay, if we're not setting boundaries. And so when you decide that you want to set a boundary, it's really about, what do I want, what do I believe, how do I want to be communicated with? And how can I go and be so firm in my relationship with myself that I communicate this with the people that I love with my parents, with my siblings, with my friends, with my partners, with, you know, people that I work with, with my children? This is a really big one because many people completely lose themselves as an actual solo human into being a parent. And it's why a lot of parents feel like they've lost themselves when their children finally leave. And so it might be you communicating this with your children, but also might be you communicating with your spouse and saying, hey, we need to have boundaries with our children as to, you know, we need to be a couple. We need to be our own sovereign beings and also take care of them. So maybe you have boundaries that you set for yourself that's communicated with your children, that's communicated with your spouse. Maybe you and your spouse have boundaries of, hey, on Friday at 6pm every single week, we already have a babysitter hired and we're have date night. And that's just a boundary that we set for ourselves in our relationship with each other. And so what happens if you don't figure out what these boundaries are? Which. We'll talk about all this as we go through today. Don't worry if we don't figure out what these boundaries are. A lot of times people overstep these boundaries because they don't understand they're there. And then you feel like you have to give a piece of yourself up. And you resist certain people and you resist relationships. And instead of hanging out with someone that you love, you'd actually prefer not to be around them. And so really, what it comes down to with the relationship with yourself is you should never put someone above you, because the better that you are, the better that they become. So many people are like, well, no, I put my husband above me. I put my children above me. And it's like, no, you shouldn't. You should put yourself first. That's not narcissistic. That's not selfish. You put yourself first because you realize that when you put yourself first, you work on yourself. You become the best you can be. You then become a better mother, a better father, a better son, a better daughter, all of those things. Too many people lose themselves in relationships. What today is about is rediscovering who you are. Because some of you listening have probably lost yourself to a relationship. And it's not terrible. It happens. You have to lose yourself sometimes in order to find yourself. But sometimes you find yourself through the losing. And you go, you know what? I've been stepped on a little bit too much. I don't want it to be that way anymore. I know who I am now. I'm gonna actually go out and actually communicate with the world. And you have to be. There's no real other way to say it. You have to be full of yourself. You have to love yourself so much that you'll do this. And I love the phrase being full of yourself. Because I'm not saying narcissistic. I'm not saying that you need to not care about anybody else. You need to be selfish. What I'm saying is you need to take care of yourself first. You cannot pour from an empty cup. I remember a mentor of mine one time, I was at an event he was speaking at, and it was a small event. There's only like 50, 75 people that were there. And he's like, you have to be full of yourself. And a lady stood up and she's like, I've got a question for you. Like, you say that you have to be full of yourself, but that sounds, like narcissistic. It sounds selfish. And he goes, really? And she goes, yeah. And he looks her dead in the eye, and he goes, who the fuck should I be? Full of. And if you really think about that, it's true. It's like should you be full of everybody else and not full of yourself? When you be full of yourself it means like, hey, it's prioritizing yourself. It's like, hey, it is okay to cancel some plans because you decided that you want to work on yourself or because you're anxious today or because you want to read or you're going to skip a party with your friends that you were going to go to because you want to work on yourself and go to the gym or you decided, you know what, I'm going to stay at home and cook and I'm going to have a self care day. It's time for us to like start to encourage and respect self love and self improvement in ourself and also other people and don't do it all of the time. Don't just cancel plans five minutes before. But if you feel like something, you know, be respectful of other people obviously. But if you feel like, man, like I just don't feel good today and I know I've got dinner today with my friend. Text your friend, hey, I'm not feeling really good. I'm just gonna stay home. I hope that's okay. I'm sorry for canceling so late. I love you. Right. And actually starting to see that you need to set boundaries for yourself, for your life. And I've been through a journey in my life of, you know, when I was younger, my first company, I had no boundaries. None. I would work 110 hours a week. It was from 7am until 11pm every single day, Monday through Sunday for three years until I ran into the ground. And I realized that not only do I need to set boundaries for myself in relationships to people, sometimes I need to set boundaries for myself, for my job, my business that I own, people that I work with. And deciding, you know what, I do need to take some days off. I do need to schedule some free time. I do need to schedule my work time when I'm working, when I'm not working. I do need to have vacations, I do need to travel. That's just one thing that I love. And be careful. Don't. This is a really fine line as I'm speaking about, I do understand this. I'm not saying don't run from what you're supposed to do and call it a self care day. Like if you're like, oh, you know what, I'm supposed to go ahead and make this presentation today for work. But I really need Self care day. So, yeah, I'm not going to do it. And so don't run from your responsibilities. But what I'm talking about is prioritizing yourself. And so let's dive into it. How do we set boundaries? What does this whole thing look like? Well, the first thing that you want to do is you want to decide what you want. Like, what do you want for your life? You know, if you were to build the perfect relationship with this person, with your spouse, with your sister, with your mother, with your father, if you were to build the perfect relationship with this person, what would it look like? How do you want to feel in the relationship? How do you want to show up in the relationship? How do you want them to feel in this relationship with you? How do you want them to show up in the relationship? And the important part is to be really, really clear. Don't just say like, oh, I want to feel good in the relationship with my mom. That's stupid. You want to get better than that. Like, be clear of exactly what it is that you want. And then you start to come up with a plan of like, okay, I kind of think I know what I want in my relationship with my husband, okay, now that I know what I have in my relationship with my husband, how would I communicate this to him effectively? And then you decide to bring it up and plan out how you're going to communicate to him in the way that you feel is respectful and why it is also important to you. And you have to realize that you teach people how to talk to you, you teach people how to treat you. And so the first step is decide exactly what it is that you want and get very, very clear on it. The second step is you need to communicate it. I know this is the awkward part. This is where everyone's stomach started to turn as I'm talking, right? It might be hard for you to communicate your boundaries with someone when you've never actually clearly communicated any boundaries with this person. It might be hard, but it's necessary. Take all of the blame if you have to, right? Like, take all of the blame. So let's say, for instance, you work from home, right? Your mom calls you and she's like, hey, honey, I don't have time. I know you work from home. Can you go pick this up? Instead of saying, I'm working, I can't go pick your stuff up, right? Instead of doing something like that, say, listen, honey, mom, I love you, but I have a job. And just because I don't go to work doesn't necessarily mean that I can do whatever it is. I don't go to a physical office. Doesn't mean I can necessarily just run errands for you. So I'm open to helping you out. But listen, I don't get off until 6 o'. Clock. I can't do anything until then. So I would recommend, you know, seeing if somebody else can do it for you, hiring somebody to do it for you, asking one of my siblings if they could do it for you as well. Right. Maybe your mom calls you and she's just. Like I said, I heard this example, hear this example all the time of like, my mom, she's so fearful. She sends me messages, messages. And this, you know, talks about how this person was murdered in a city five hours away from me and saying, oh my gosh, be careful in your city. What you just say to her is, listen, I love you, but I'm trying to start looking at the bright side of things in life. I love you, but I don't want to hear you complain all the time. I don't want to hear about this stuff. I don't want to hear about these things. I don't want you to call me and tell me about all of the negativity that you saw on the news. And so you start to actually communicate this with them. Now, I know most of you are out there and you're afraid to have these conversations and you're afraid of making the other person mad. And so one of the things that was taught to me by a mentor of mine a few years ago is the act of disarming somebody before you tell them something that's difficult. And so disarming means that I'll just explain how it works. Right? So you're gonna say, hey, listen, can I talk to you about something? And they're like, yeah, of course. Okay, before I do, listen, I'm gonna be honest. I. I'm really afraid to tell you this. And I'm just curious. Do I have permission just to speak from my heart and not be judged? And they're like, yeah, of course you can. And so that is the act of disarming is to tell if you're nervous. Tell them you're nervous. Tell them you're afraid of how you're going to react. Is it okay if I. And then what you do is you ask the permission from them. Is it okay if I just. Do I have permission to just speak from my heart and speak honestly and just not be judged? Yes, of course you can. And then you can lay down the hammer and tell people what you want. Listen, mom, can I talk to you about something? Yeah, of course, honey. Okay, before I do, I'm gonna be honest. I actually kind of feel really nervous and afraid to tell you this. But is it okay? Like, do I have permission just to be honest with you, to speak from my heart and just not be judged? Oh, yes, of course, honey. Okay. Well, I'm trying to work on myself, and I found that there's a lot of negativity in the world. I'm trying to not pay attention to all the negativity. I'm trying to pay attention to the positive things in life. I noticed when he sent me his text messages about someone being murdered five hours from me, it makes me start to be really fearful. It triggers me, and I start to feel very unsafe. Would you please stop sending me these things? Because I don't want to see this negativity? Do you see how that's a lot better than, mom, stop sending me this shit? And so you start to. You disarm, and then you clearly communicate. You disarm, and you clearly communicate. So that's step number two. And then step number three, which is one of the most. I would say that all of the. I was gonna say this might be the most important part, but I guess all of them are the most important. Number three is you have to stay firm. Build awareness. Notice when you fall back into old habits, because you will fall back into old habits over and over and over again. What you want to do is you want to build awareness of when somebody is overstepping their boundaries. And then you don't yell at them. You don't scream at them. You say, hey, Mom. You know, maybe she calls you and she's like, oh, my God, did you hear about what happened on the news? And you're like, mom, I didn't. Do you remember the conversation that we had two weeks ago about me trying to be more positive and not pay attention to it? Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you helping me in trying to be more positive. And what you do is you stay firm if they start to overstep your boundaries, which they will, because, you know, if you're 40 years old and you're now having this conversation with your mom, you have 40 years of patterns built up with your mom, of 40 years of her being used to sending this stuff to you, of her acting this way. You're been married for seven years. Your husband, your wife has seven years of working with you. And Even before you got married. You know, so it's like before you got married, engaged, you have years, all of this stuff, patterns built up. And it's about being very kind but firm, not being triggered, not yelling, not getting angry, but being kind but firm. Hey, do you remember that conversation that we had about the way I want to be communicated with? Remember that conversation we had about, you know, talking to me that way? Do you remember that conversation about I said that? There's times that you say things that make me feel inferior, and you start to bring them up in a very kind and loving way. And so the first thing is to be very, very clear on what it is that you want. The second thing is communicate it clearly, disarm the person. And third thing is to stay firm. It's not really a difficult thing to do. It's not hard, let's put it that way. It's not hard to do this stuff, but it is challenging because there is some patterns, some years, of things that need to be changed over time. But if you're going to build the life that you want, you're going to have to start getting really clear about what is it you want, how you want other people to interact with you, how you want to feel around them, how you want to interact with them, and how you want them to feel in a relationship with you as well. And if you do this and you stay firm, I promise you, all of your relationships are going to get 10 times better than they currently are. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories and tag me at robdial Junior. R O B D I A L J R Or if you got a friend who needs to get better with boundaries, take this, send it to them, say, hey, was thinking of you when I heard this. Thought that you would love it. And see if this episode can help somebody else who you love in their life as well. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way, leave you every single episode. Make it your mission. Make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.