healthy habits require healthy boundaries

Having good intentions is one thing, but making them an active part of our daily is a different ball game. We all struggle with forming new better habits that we know at our core can transform our lives and help us achieve greater success. 

We want to become an early riser and have a productive and positive day. Yet we stay up late binge-watching shows and movies, as a result waking up late and exhausted. We want to save money and cook healthy meals at home. Yet we go out with friends and spend our evenings bar hopping and eating out. We want to create more love and intimacy with our spouses or partners. Yet we stay late at work and prioritize other things over having deep and meaningful interactions at home.

You can choose to be the person you want, all you have to do is set clear and strong boundaries for yourself.

You need healthy boundaries if you want to build healthy habits. In order to develop new and effective habits, you must pick an identity and align your behaviors and actions to the ones that that identity necessitates. And the only way you can do that is by taking charge of your time, attention, energy and emotions. If you always succumb to external factors and let them influence your thoughts, feelings and actions, you’ll never achieve life mastery and advance forward to your most important goals. That’s why it’s crucial that you start setting boundaries in all areas of your life.

You must have a clear vision of what kind of a person you want to be and how you want to interact with the world around you. And let this vision determine what kind of limits are absolutely necessary to get closer to your goals. 

Determine what actions you will and won’t perform and what kind of treatment you will and won’t accept and tolerate from others. Also, it’s good to figure out what factors are in your control and which are not so that you respond in the best way possible. 

Many times, you’ll observe that the barriers that you might be already having aren’t as defined and concrete as they should be. For instance, if your aim is to stay away from alcohol, then it’s wise to not accept an invitation to an event at a bar. Or, if your goal is to sleep on time every night and become a morning person, then you should probably avoid going to parties and gatherings in the evening where you know you’ll be staying up late with friends.  

As you begin setting these new and rigid boundaries for yourself, you’ll find sustaining them incredibly challenging as you’ll be fighting against the currents and in opposition to your neural grooves. However, with time and patience, you’ll learn to dissociate from the herd and stop yourself from going with the flow. 

Start small by being firm in low-risk situations such as cutting conversations with pushy marketers and annoying co-workers and neighbors, and slowly build your “saying no” muscle. As you move forward, you’ll quickly learn that establishing boundaries is not only liberating but also way more fun and satisfying than you expected.

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