We all know it’s important to have good boundaries—whether it’s with your in-laws, your kids, or your colleagues at work.
The problem is boundaries are hard! And one of the biggest reasons why is the feeling of guilt that so often goes along with them.
In the rest of today’s episode, I’m going to share 4 specific ideas you can use to set good boundaries without feeling guilty.
NOTE: You can watch or listen to the video version of this article here →
1. Avoid Fake Guilt
Fake guilt is the term I use to describe what happens when you think you’re feeling guilt, but really you’re feeling something else.
For example:
- Let’s say you want to set a boundary with a colleague at work. Specifically, this colleague has a habit of asking you for help on projects last minute, so that when you say yes, you end up having to do extra work on the evenings or weekends.
- But when you imagine yourself saying no to their request, you immediately feel guilty—at least that’s what you tell yourself.
- As a result, you put off the whole boundary thing. And the next time they ask you for last-minute help, you cave and say yes even though it means getting home late and not being able to, let’s say, enjoy movie night with your kids.
In this example, I’d argue that you’re actually feeling fear, not guilt. Specifically, you’re afraid of them feeling disappointed or angry with you for saying no. And to avoid having to feel that fear of how they (hypothetically) will feel, you give up on your boundary.
See, guilt is a very narrow emotion. It’s what you feel when you knowingly do something that’s morally wrong. And for most of us, that just doesn’t happen all that often.
But if the story you’re telling yourself about your difficulty setting boundaries is that guilt gets in the way, you’re going to feel like setting boundaries is morally wrong. And then, understandably, have a hard time doing it!
So remember:
Just because someone gets upset with your boundaries doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong.
Very practically speaking, if you want to have less fake guilt, practice paying closer attention to what you feel emotionally when you imagine setting boundaries.
Because the better you get at accurately labeling those emotions, the less likely it will be for your boundaries to get hijacked by fake guilt.
2. Find the Yes Behind the No
Even though we know intellectually that boundaries are good, they often feel bad because we seem them as inherently negative.
After all, a boundary is basically telling someone what you don’t want and what the consequence will be if they violate that boundary.
But despite how it feels, it’s important to remind yourself that boundaries are fundamentally positive things.
For example:
- If I asked you why you want to set a boundary on your kids leaving dirty clothes on the floor, you probably wouldn’t say because you’re trying to be a nagging parent. No, you’re setting the boundary because it’s important that you have a home that feels clean and tidy. Or maybe because it’s important to you that your children learn to be responsible for themselves.
- Or let’s say I asked you why you want to set a boundary with your boss about working on the weekends… it’s probably not because you’re trying to be difficult. No, you’re setting the boundary because being able to truly unwind and relax on the weekends is important to you.
In other words…
We set boundaries and say no so that we can say yes to something good on the other side.
That’s why boundaries are fundamentally positive, not negative.
So, when you’re getting ready to set a boundary—or trying to enforce a boundary you’ve already set—take a second to remind yourself of the value behind your boundary.
What’s the positive ideal or principle motivating your boundary in the first place?
If you get in the habit of doing this, I guarantee you will start to feel much less guilty about saying no and setting good boundaries.
And if you want a little extra help or support identifying the values behind your boundaries, check out my free Values Discovery Toolkit which gives you a handful of simple exercises to identify what your most important personal values are.
3. Clarify Your Responsibility
One of the biggest reasons people struggle with boundaries is that they get confused about what they are and aren’t responsible for.
Specifically, we tend to make two big responsibility mistakes with boundaries:
- Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions. If you set a boundary and the other person gets sad, for example, are you responsible for them being sad? I would argue no. And here’s why: I can’t think of any ethical system in the world that would say a person is responsible for something they can’t control. And because you can’t directly control how another person feels, it doesn’t make any sense to hold yourself accountable for those emotions. You are, of course, responsible for your behavior—what you do and say. But that’s a very different thing than being responsible for another person’s emotions.
- Putting responsibility for your boundaries on other people. Boundaries are fundamentally about you and your behavior. Specifically, they’re about what you will do if your requests are not respected. You can’t control other people and whether they respect your boundaries or not. So at the end of the day, you and you alone are responsible for your boundaries. You can hope that they will be respected, but it’s a major mistake to expect that they will be because you’ll frequently end up frustrated and disappointed—neither of which make boundaries any easier.
Setting and enforcing boundaries is difficult. Don’t make it more difficult by taking on responsibility for things you can’t control or giving up responsibility for things you should.
4. Anticipate Boundary Violations
If you haven’t been very good about setting or enforcing boundaries with people in your life, you’ve essentially been training people to see you as passive and overly-accommodating.
And if that’s the case, it would be naive to expect that just because you’ve had a huge change of heart and are ready to start taking boundaries more seriously, other people are ready to instantly change the way they interact with you.
In fact, other people are very likely to resist your boundaries initially if for no other reason that it’s unusual and different from what they’re used to.
All of this is normal and to be expected.
But if you mistakenly expect the opposite—that everyone should accept and respect your new boundaries immediately—you’re setting yourself up for frustration, disappointment, resentment, and yes, guilt. And like I mentioned earlier, all of these will only make the process that much harder.
The smarter strategy is to deliberately anticipate and plan for your boundaries to not be taken seriously, including how you will respond when that’s the case.
To give this a little more structure, I’d recommend asking yourself and reflecting on the following questions any time you’re going to set or enforce a boundary:
- What emotions am I likely to feel when I set or enforce my boundary? What emotions are they likely to feel in response to my boundaries?
- How are they likely to respond—verbally or behaviorally—to my boundaries? In other words, what do I expect they might do?
- Ideally, how do I want to respond—verbally and/or behaviorally—to my boundaries being violated or not respected?
If you’ve genuinely thought through these possibilities you will be much calmer and less reactive in the moment of a boundary violation. This means that not only will you be far more likely to follow through on or enforce your boundary, but you’re also less likely to feel guilty because you’re been intentional about thinking through the process ahead of time.
Next Steps
If you’ve found these tips helpful but want a little more structure and guidance on setting boundaries, I teach a short course on assertive communication—which includes a section on setting healthy boundaries—that’s worth checking out: Assertiveness Unlocked: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence →