Have you been setting new boundaries? That’s great, but there’s something you need to know.
Have you been setting new boundaries? That’s great, but there’s something you need to know.
Firstly, let me say well done. It’s not always easy to implement new rules which protect your time, energy and peace. When we do the difficult work of deepening self-awareness and building self-belief, we uncover patterns and behaviours that may have served us well in the past, but now drain us. Noticing when these patterns or behaviours are playing out is the first step. The next challenge is to intervene, to pause and avoid those instinctive responses from kicking in. And then we might make a promise to ourselves, or set a boundary, to give us a new playbook to guide our responses.
💛For example, people pleasers might notice when their instinct is to immediately say yes to a request and offer their time or energy to someone in a bid to be liked. Their new boundary might be around saying no more often.
💛Perfectionists might try to hold back their instinctive desire to deliver everything to the highest possible standard and instead create a new promise to themselves, that they’ll save their energy and time by stopping when something’s ‘good enough’.
💛Overworkers might pull themselves back from the brink of burnout by implementing stricter start and finish times, and taking regular breaks.
These new boundaries can be difficult to implement at first, but once you’re underway the results feel good. Over time, those dozens of micro moments of making different choices, protecting our time, our energy, our integrity, can all add up to create something significant. It’s in the accumulation of all these micro moments that transformation happens.
However... it’s not always plain sailing, and sometimes new boundaries can do more harm than good. When you’re growing and developing in this way you should be aware of the possibility of boundary overshoot.
Implementing new boundaries can make you feel uncertain, or nervous. You’re not quite sure what’s going to happen. It feels uncomfortable. You’re not sure how far to go. In the Paseda360 method (that I’m trained in) we call this the ‘messy middle’. We can feel pulled towards creating a feeling of control or certainty. And sometimes, in this drive for certainty, we can take things too far and overshoot our boundaries.
💛For example, the people pleaser might say no to everything without explanation and damage important relationships
💛The perfectionist might put less energy into their most important tasks, leading to mistakes or the need for others to step in
💛The overworker might take so many breaks their business suffers
(I've done all these things by the way)
These are all examples of overshooting your boundaries. You've noticed the behaviour patterns you are moving away from. You’re pulled towards your new ways of behaving. As a Paseda360 coach, I call this the ‘push me, pull me’ effect. And when we’re in this zone, there is often a lot of learning to do at first about where exactly to draw that boundary line.
If this resonates with you, then here’s a few things to be aware of.
💛Firstly, this is a completely normal part of growth. Perhaps you’ve gone too far in an effort to protect your time, energy, integrity or peace and there have been unintended consequences to that. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
💛Experimenting with your boundaries is an important part of exploring where they should be drawn. Be curious and reflect on where you initially drew those boundaries, and whether an adjustment may be needed.
💛Consider whether you communicated them properly to people that might be affected. It’s very common to create new promises to yourself about how you’ll behave, and then forget to share that with anyone else. That can be confusing to other people and result in damaged relationships.
To illustrate all this, let me tell you a little bit more about how the ‘push me, pull me’ effect showed up for me…
When I created my coaching practice after decades of corporate stress, exhaustion and burnout, I made some clear promises to myself. I set firm working hours that I promised myself I’d never breach. I vowed to notice and stop myself before I got so absorbed in a task that I’d risk losing track of time. And it felt good. I had found a new way of working which felt balanced and healthy. As the months progressed, I faced many little decisions about whether to keep working or stop, many micro moments where those boundaries were challenged. And I almost always stayed firm to my promises. I said no to events outside my working days. I took my breaks even when I was excited and fully absorbed in my work.
And whilst these decisions undoubtedly protected my time and energy, they were also holding back the growth of my business. I instinctively declined invitations to events that would have been useful for business development. I pulled myself back countless times from fully engaging in tasks that energised and excited me for fear of losing track of time.
But I’d overshot my boundaries. The penny only fully dropped when I sought out coaching to boost my business and realised it was me, and my firm boundaries, that were stopping me taking my business to the next level. Noticing my old patterns, and implementing new promises to myself had been an absolutely critical part of my personal growth, but I’d been setting my boundaries too far, and overshooting in a bid for certainty. Adjusting the position of my boundaries, and allowing some scenarios and possibilities for flexibility, was the key to me unlocking further opportunities and success.
Here’s something to help you reflect if you’ve been implementing new boundaries recently.
💛Draw a line on a piece of paper. On the left hand side write out the pattern of behaviour you’re trying to move away from. For example, “Saying yes to everything because I’m afraid of upsetting people”
💛Underneath this write down the benefit of moving away from this behaviour. For example, “I’ll have more time to focus on my most important relationships and feel less resentful”.
💛Now, on the other end of your line, write out the boundary you’ve set for yourself around this area. For example, “I say no to requests from everyone apart from my most important relationships”.
💛Now consider, are there any unintended consequences of this boundary?
💛Reflect on where you’ve drawn your boundary. Is it at the right level or might you have overshot? Consider whether there are people, situations or locations where the boundary might need flexing. Do you need to communicate your boundary more clearly to anyone?
Let me know if this exercise was useful.
Does the concept of the ‘push me, pull me’ zone resonate for you? Could you be in that ‘messy middle’ phase right now?
From Liv 💛
P.S. If you’ve found this useful, then please join my weekly email community for regular doses of wisdom like this, straight to your inbox. If you’re interested in working with me, then check out my 121 coaching packages and use this link to arrange an initial chat with me. And if you’d like me to talk to your team, organisation or community about this, or any of my other articles, then please reach out via email to enquire about speaking/workshop engagements.
