Have you ever tried to set a boundary? (Key word: tried.)

And have you ever had your boundary trampled upon like a herd of caffeinated elephants escaping from the circus?

You and me both, eh?

Here’s the thing:

When you read books about setting boundaries, and they give you that pep talk about how it will completely change your life when you learn to set healthy boundaries, they sometimes neglect to mention how totally frickin’ hard it is to actually do.

In this post, I want to share a little trick I discovered when I was first learning to set healthy boundaries.

It’s very simple, and it goes like this.

When you first learn to set a boundary, you think you have two choices:

Choice #1 is setting the boundary and popping into a state of elevated consciousness because you just set the Best Boundary Ever.

Choice #2 is not setting the boundary at all.

But that’s not how it works!

Okay, maybe it works like that if you’re a reincarnated master who’s been here a million times and can already do everything perfectly.

But for the rest of us, the two choices look more like this:

Choice #1 is setting the boundary and feeling totally conflicted about it.

Choice #2 is not setting the boundary at all.

The process of early boundary setting looks something like this:

You pick Choice #1. You think that Choice #1 is going to pop you into an automatic state of enlightenment. When it doesn’t, because that’s not how Choice #1 actually works, you think you did something horribly wrong because you feel so horribly bad/confused/conflicted. Then you waver on the boundary you set, either giving in right away or after hours/weeks/months of agonizing.

Good times!

But when you understand how Choice #1 actually works, and you know that feeling bad/confused/conflicted actually goes with the territory, then things get a little easier.

Yes, you still have to feel bad/confused/conflicted, but you also get to realize that your alternative is Choice #2: Getting trampled by elephants

All you have to do to inspire yourself not to pick Choice #2 is to remember why you got into this boundary business in the first place:

Because not having healthy boundaries is a lose-lose situation.

Not having healthy boundaries allowed one (or more) elephants to trample through your circus of a life.

Here’s another super cool thing about this Choice #1 business.

After several rounds of choosing the real Choice #1, something magical happens.

Choice #1 morphs into something that kinda sorta resembles the earlier mythical Choice #1:

You set a boundary and you feel only a tiny bit bad/confused/conflicted.

Mostly you just feel good.

It’s an amazing sensation, and it’s totally worth all the agony and effort it took to slog through feeling bad/confused/conflicted.

Your life is calm.

Collected.

Stampede-free!

To inspire you in choosing the real Choice #1, I’ve compiled a list of 6 things you need to know about boundaries, plus the best demonstration of boundaries ever. You can check it out HERE.

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