Why Set Healthy Boundaries?

Healthy Boundaries: ‘No’ Is Your Friend

Learning how to say ‘no’ is key to unlocking both your personal resilience, and your resilience in the workplace. Setting boundaries in all aspects of your life is important, but it can be difficult to do if you are in the habit of always saying ‘yes’. Understanding why you always say yes and beginning to work on establishing healthy boundaries is the foundation for a more resilient life.

Why Saying ‘No’ Is Good For Your Resilience And Wellbeing

Setting healthy boundaries and learning how to say ‘no’ can lead to you paying specific attention to your energy, being able to pace yourself and have more perspective in life. This results in your Adaptive Capacity increasing. Adaptive Capacity is the fuel in the tank of your Resilience Engine®; it helps you to stay resilient in all types of situations, both at work and at home. This means that your capacity for change increases by setting healthy boundaries – as well as your wellbeing and performance. Learning to say ‘no’ appropriately and often is the key to unlocking your resilience. 

5 Reasons Why You Always Say ‘Yes’

The first step is understanding why you always say ‘yes’. Have a look at these 5 potential reasons – do any of them resonate with you?

If you find yourself always saying ‘yes’ for any of these reasons, consider the negative impacts it may be having on your resilience and wellbeing.

• Saying yes because you love to feel busy will eventually lead to you crashing, therefore affecting your energy to perform. 
• Saying yes to please others might be because you need to figure out why you are worthy of pleasing yourself. 
• Saying yes to rescue others or stop them from becoming overwhelmed means you need to consider whose boundaries need strengthening – whether it be yours, theirs or both.
• Saying yes to avoid saying no because you think it will create a conflict which you can’t handle will eventually lead to tiredness and resentment, which could then explode into a real conflict. 
• Saying yes because you don’t have time to figure out what you should be doing will lead to a slippery, fast slope towards mediocre performance. So stop! Take some rest, and take the time to think about the criteria behind what you actually want and need to do. 

Learn How To Set Healthy Boundaries

Do you know what you need to improve your energy and resilience? If you do, do you ask for it? If you ask for it and it’s disregarded, do you assert your needs? Learn how to say no, and it will improve your resilience both at home and at work.  

“No”. It’s such a little word. But a powerful word, and a brilliant word for your resilience!

Do get in touch if this article has prompted a query: [email protected]. We’d be delighted to help.

Author: Jenny Campbell Founder and CEO of the Resilience Dynamic

Follow Jenny on LinkedIn for more of her thoughts, resilience research, and ideas.