How to Set Relationship Boundaries and Be Self-Loving: 5 Ways
Setting boundaries with friends and family is always tricky! I’ll be sharing 5 habits of women who set healthy boundaries in this blog post. I hope you will feel more empowered and confident about your relationship boundaries after reading this!
These are 5 habits of women who set healthy boundaries to feel empowered and confident.
Setting boundaries is always tricky for us.
If we are too rigid, we will be seen as ‘selfish’.
If we have weak boundaries, we will be very frustrated with ourselves.
Some people will be happy with us, though. Because they get us to do what they want.
Self-love is needed in times like these. You can learn the 5 habits of self-love from this blog post.
If you learn better with videos, you can watch my video on setting boundaries below:
The trick about boundaries is to know when to give and take.
Being flexible takes some pressure off our shoulders.
It’s a matter of personal choice, but we decide where our boundaries are clearly drawn and where our boundaries can be a little more…fluid.
If you need a shortcut to help kick start your boundaries, you can download my Set Healthy Boundaries action sheet below.
I’ll be sharing 5 basic habits which can help us set basic boundaries so that we feel more empowered.
Habit #1: Get Rid of our Excuses
This needs us to be self-aware.
How many times have we made excuses for other people and allow them to overstep our boundaries?
Below are some examples:
”I don’t like my sister coming to my house 4 times a week. But she is lonely and has no family, so I…”
“I don’t want to lend my cousin $5000, but she is crying and begging me. She has a tough family background and comes from a financially-strapped family. Meanwhile, I have $20,000 sitting in my account. So I will…”
”I don’t want to answer my friend’s call at 11pm as I am sleepy and it’s not urgent. But she wants my input now and it will only take 10 minutes. So I…”
The first step to healing is always awareness.
Once we can pinpoint when we are making excuses for other people to crash our boundaries, we can take the next action. And implement some boundary rules.
Habit #2: how to Set Your Boundary Rules
When we set boundaries for the first time, our loved ones will react.
They may admire us and respect our boundaries or attack us for it.
If you set your boundaries politely and that cousin attacks you, you may want to cut back on the time you spend with her.
It’s good to be aware that conflict may happen when we set boundaries in our relationships. Just brace yourself.
You can choose to tell your loved one about your boundary face-to-face or in written form.
For example:
”Hi Sarah! It’s great that you came over to my house today. In future, is it okay if you call me first before coming over? I have some projects to take care of.”
”Hi Natasha! I’m sorry to hear about your money problems. I can’t give you $5000 as I need the cash myself. Is there any other way I can help you?”
”Hi Laura! I’m afraid I am very tired right now. Can I talk to you tomorrow instead?”
(Sometimes, a white lie or two is needed to preserve our sanity…oops!)
You can also text the above scripts to the person who flouts your boundaries.
Texting is good if you don’t like confrontation.
Or if the other person is aggressive and may attack you back.
We don’t want to be bullied into submission!
Habit #3: Be around SUPPORTIVE people
It is crucial to spend time with positive and uplifting people.
Check your feelings after meeting up with someone.
Do you feel drained, exhausted and uninspired?
Or do you feel joyful, motivated and in high spirits?
Don’t spend too much time with people who don’t care for your privacy or those who don’t respect you when you say ”Not now.”
It doesn’t matter if you have been friends for 20 years. If a friend does not respect a simple “No”, it’s time to relax the friendship a bit.
Habit #4: Be Comfortable with Not Explaining Yourself
This requires massive self-esteem.
You don’t have to explain yourself if you don’t want to. Please don’t!
If the person is pushy and keeps asking “Why don’t you want to tell me?”, you can laugh it off and say “I’ll tell you next time.” And then change the subject.
If you are gutsy, you can say something along the lines of: “I don’t think I want to share personal matters right now.”
You have the right not to answer questions you don’t want to.
You don’t owe anyone an explanation.
Again, a white lie may be needed if the other party is extremely pushy.
Or if you have to answer an unwanted question in front of an audience (I feel sorry for you).
Habit #5: Accept that Some People will STILL be Offended and Disappear
When we put our foot down or show our authentic self, some people will flee from our lives.
That is okay, because they are the ones we don’t have a genuine friendship with, in the first place.
We want to be with friends and family who love us for our true selves. And respect our likes and dislikes.
Your true friends will understand your boundaries.
Selfish friends and family will test your boundaries all the time.
You will lose friends by setting boundaries but that is when you find out who your true friends are.
My last thoughts on setting boundaries
If you need to kick start your boundary-setting, you can download my Set Healthy Boundaries printable below.
If you want to know 5 habits of self-loving women, read this blog post.
Meanwhile, have a good week.
Shikah
(Free Printable) How to be Intentional and Feel Calm if you are very busy
I’m sharing 5 habits so you can practice intentional living even if you are very busy. Intentional living takes effort. To make it easier for you to practise intentional living everyday, you can adopt these 5 habits as soon as possible. You can feel relaxed and calm even if you have a busy lifestyle!
How to practice intentional living with these 5 habits even if you are very busy.
I love being intentional everyday. I make better choices, I am calmer and I am happier with my life in general.
But when we are busy, being intentional takes too much mental energy.
I am sharing 5 habits to help you practise intentional living as much as possible. Even if you are busy as heck.
If you are new-ish to intentional living, you can get a clearer idea with this Intro to Intentional Living blog post from SimplyFiercely.com.
If you like a more hands-on approach, you can check out my Top 7 intentional living worksheets you can download for free!
Let’s start learning the 5 habits of intentional living for busy babes like you.
Habit #1: Start with a clear mind in the mornings
This is so important.
“Yeah Shikah, but how do I keep a clear mind in the morning?” you ask.
Step 1: Ensure you have at least 7 hours of sleep at night.
Sorry, this sounds boring, I know. But when your mind is well-rested, your day becomes almost magical.
You are in a good mood, you take on work challenges like a pro and you even eat better food.
Step 2: Wake up 30 minutes earlier. And do any activity which calms your mind.
Some examples are:
Meditation (Jason Stephenson’s guided meditations on YouTube are good)
Listening to binaural beats on Spotify
Yoga (Yoga with Adrienne on YouTube is a good start)
Journaling
Going for a run
Sipping on a cup of coffee slowly and mindfully (with no gadgets around)
A clear mind is what stands in between having a mouth-watering, wholesome meal in the morning and grabbing a sugar-laden frappuccino for breakfast.
If you need 25 small ways to start intentional living, you can download my printable below:
Habit #2: Shake up your routine everyday
Some ideas are:
Try a new style of outfit. Wear a colour you’ve never worn before. (Pore over ‘best-dressed celebs’ lists for some ideas)
Try a new makeup technique. (Go to YouTube for inspiration!)
Run along a different route or take a different route to work.
Get coffee from a coffee place you’ve never tried before.
Have a meal at a cafe you’ve never been to before.
Listen to a genre of music you’ve never tried.
I think you get the drift.
If you are quite new to intentional living, you can get advice on 5 intentional habits for beginners in this blog post.
Habit #3: Journal 15 minutes before sleeping
I will admit that I am bad with this habit.
On some nights, it takes too much effort to reflect on my day (I just want to sleep!).
But…on the days that I journal before sleeping, I feel so good and in control of my life.
Habit #4: Do a tech detox 60 minutes before bedtime
I know many of us will struggle with this. But it’s life-changing, girls.
The first time I did a 60-minute tech detox at 930pm (I sleep around 1030pm each night), I was struggling to find things to do!
I will list down what you can do for 60 minutes without your phone or laptop:
Take a long, elaborate shower. With essential oils, scrubs, body masks and all.
Journal!
Read something. A newspaper, a book, a magazine, an Ikea catalogue (no joke).
Talk to your partner in person
Go exercise! Yoga or some stretching.
Visualisation. I have read that visualising for 10 minutes a day can manifest what you desire faster.
Lie down in bed and rest
Before you realise it, 60 minutes is up. This is when you tuck your phone away and go to bed.
(Warning: Don’t give in to the temptation to quickly scroll through your emails or messages! Leave that for tomorrow morning)
Habit #5: Plan every single day!
This habit sounds really obvious isn’t it?
But sometimes, days have gone by without me planning anything.
No elaborate planning is needed: just list 3 things you want to accomplish the following day.
I will advise you to plan your days the night before, not on the day itself.
Once we’ve listed the 3 priorities to accomplish the following day, we will sleep better.
And wake up all geared-up with a sense of purpose.
My last thoughts on intentional living if you are busy
Intentional living needs some effort.
In this blog post, I share 5 intentional living advice for beginners to help you kick start your intentional living journey.
If you want to take action immediately, you can download 25 simple ideas for intentional living which you can start today.
I believe that if we practise the 5 habits I shared in this blog post, we can be intentional on most days!
Share with me below: What are your challenges with intentional living?
Shikah
(Free Printable) How to Start Intentional Living and Feel In Control of Your Life : 5 Easy Ways
I’ve discovered 5 daily actions to kick-start your intentional living journey. You can also download the 25 Days of Intentional Living printable to challenge yourself to live with intention.
Intentional living is not always easy to me.
It requires energy. Time. Being present.
So why does everyone talk about intentional living these days?
That’s because…it makes us feel more in control of our lives and creates a life worth living.
A life made of well thought-out actions will shortcut the way to reaching our aims and goals.
Our journey to achieving our goals - be it big or small goals - becomes more enjoyable.
Some of us are not sure how to start intentional living.
I’ve compiled 5 simple ways for you to start your journey towards intentional living.
If you want a shortcut, you can download the 25 Days of Intentional Living printable below.
1. How to make meditation easy in the mornings
I’ll admit that meditating in the morning is hard work.
That’s because it means I’ll have to wake up earlier. And fight the drowsiness whilst I sit cross-legged and calm my mind.
Not very appealing.
Meditation is so important to intentional living, in my opinion. I will usually have a clear mind after that - which means I make better, intentional choices.
I’ve found 4 ways to make meditation easier in the mornings:
Use guided meditation. I personally like Jason Stephenson’s meditations on YouTube. I stick to a 15-30 minute meditation because I usually have a ton of things to settle in the morning!
Plan your morning the night before. (Yes - every blogger says this. Haha.) We can start by writing 3 things we will do once we wake up. So, mine is typically: Shower, coffee, meditation time. In any order depending on my mood.
‘Warm up’ to your meditation time. Have your tea or coffee first, read, stretch, shower, do your chores etc. Make sure you are fully awake before meditation starts. If not, you’ll end up dozing off in the middle of it (been there done that!).
Choose guided meditations which you enjoy! Please don’t torture yourself by meditating to something you don’t like even if the guided meditation is wildly popular. What works for others, may not work for you. YouTube is a GREAT source of guided meditations!
2. Choose joyful decisions
Sometimes when making decisions, we are not sure which option brings us ‘joy’.
Especially when we have grown up in a family where we are not allowed to have what we want. (this topic needs another blog post on its own ;) )
If you don’t know which option brings you ‘joy’, choose the option which gives you feelings of relief.
Intentional living applies even when we are ordering tea or coffee at Starbucks. Choose a drink which brings up feelings of joy or relief.
Some of you who are more in tune with your feelings will be bewildered and ask “But…how can anyone not know which option makes him or her happy?”
It’s more normal than we think. From young,we’ve been trained to follow our logic and downplay what we truly want.
So sometimes, we get confused between what we want and what we have been taught is ‘good for us’.
But I digress. For intentional living, choose options which make us happy - even when we are picking the blouse we want to wear to work the next day.
It makes us feel more in control of our lives.
3. Have a reason behind every main action we take
This is a tough one.
It takes a lot of mental energy to have a reason behind the actions we take.
But this is the basis of intentional living. Every choice we make has to have a reason…because it makes life more enjoyable!
For example, when we pick up our phones to look through Instagram, intentionally choose whose profiles we are going to view.
I’ll admit that I am particularly intentional when doing my makeup almost every day.
It makes the whole process more enjoyable instead of a chore. The best way to do this is to watch YouTube videos and get inspired by new makeup looks and techniques to try for the day.
You can use this tactic for any of your chores or un-enjoyable activity.
There are even cleaning motivation videos on YouTube to motivate us to do household chores!
Try a new way of doing your daily tasks. Even if your reason for doing something is: ‘I want to see if this new technique works!’ - it’s enough as long as you have a reason for doing that activity!
4. Unplug as much as possible!
When I was a member of a yoga studio, I relished yoga classes because of how fresh, clear-minded and calmer I felt after every class.
It hit me that a large part of this was because I was away from my phone for at least an hour.
I’ve realised that I have a clearer mind, am calmer and make more intentional decisions when I’ve put my phone and laptop away for about 45 minutes or so.
If we want to surf the Net, write down what we are surfing for. And stick to that list.
It saves your time and precious energy.
Also, unplug for 1 hour before going to bed at night. It helps you have a restful sleep…which brings us to the next point.
5. Lastly, please be well rested
I’m sure many of us have made terrible decisions when we were feeling sleepy, grumpy and irritated.
Having good sleep and resting especially when we feel burnt out is crucial to intentional living. Crucial!
That’s because not having enough sleep and rest will lead to us making bad decisions.
You’ll notice that you start craving for chocolate biscuits and frappuccinos on autopilot on the days when you feel exhausted and did not sleep well.
In fact, it’s scientifically-proven that we crave for sweet treats when we are sleep-deprived! That’s one bad decision for the day.
I felt burnt out recently. Part of me wanted to push through and complete 1 blog entry. But as much as I pushed myself, the write-up felt stiff and was such a chore to do.
Hence, I decided to practise intentional living and did what felt good at that time - which was to lie down in bed watching videos and letting my mind rest. My burnout faded pretty quickly.
Have a good week.
Shikah