How I Set Healthy Boundaries

Let’s talk about boundaries. Just as fences are meant to protect your property, time has taught me that healthy boundaries are like fences that protect your peace. But as a professional athlete, setting boundaries can be tough because the lines between my personal life and professional life are constantly blurred.

I have a mom, an agent and an entire team of people who help me manage my schedule and my brand. My career can easily take over my life and my relationships. And as a professional athlete everyone knows your business! But this is exactly why it’s crucial for me to set boundaries.

Setting boundaries is about speaking up for yourself and I’ve learned that voicing what you need and want can change everything. For me, it can mean the difference between winning a tournament and not winning. For you, it could determine something like whether or not you buy the house you really want.

Boundaries can help you be the best version of yourself. They help you to perform better, to have a better attitude, to feel better and ultimately can help you to be a good wife, a good mom, a good daughter, a good friend – or whatever roles you play in the story of your life.

What Are Boundaries?

Healthy boundaries are clear yet flexible guidelines, and they can help your relationships flourish at home and at work. We all need to establish boundaries with our family and friends, with our colleagues, and even with ourselves.

Healthy boundaries allow people in a relationship to communicate their wants and needs, while also respecting the wants and needs of others. If your relationship has healthy boundaries, you feel safe saying “No” and you also accept when others tell you “No.”

In healthy relationships you set clear expectations, but you feel comfortable being flexible when needed because you know you won’t need to compromise your values. When a relationship has healthy boundaries, you can agree to disagree. You can respect a person’s opinions even if they differ from your own.

My Top Tips for Setting Boundaries

Simply put, setting boundaries is about setting expectations. You must clearly convey what you want and need from your relationships and draw lines in the sand about what you’re willing and not willing to do or to sacrifice. Boundaries take the guesswork out of relationships.

I’ve had to do a lot of boundary setting with my mom. Obviously, I want my mom to be involved in everything that I do, but I don’t necessarily need our relationship to be all business all the time. Sometimes I just need my mom to be my mom and when I clearly convey this, she knows how to support me in that moment. Also, I’ve had to set boundaries with my team to make clear when I want to spend quality time alone with my husband.

Having these kinds of conversations can be intimidating, especially when you’re trying to set boundaries with your parents or with an authority figure at work. But remember that most things worth doing aren’t easy.

Here are some of my top tips for setting boundaries:

Keep calm and carry on. Sometimes conversations about boundaries can get heated. So, it’s important to be calm, cool, and collected when you’re discussing boundaries with loved ones or colleagues. Your attitude can set the tone for the conversation and help keep the other person calm too.

Use “I” statements. Instead of playing the blame game and starting every sentence with “You do” or “You did,” use “I” statements and focus on how you feel. That way, the person you’re talking to won’t feel as if they’re being accused of doing something wrong and they’ll be able to actually listen to you instead of simply defending themselves.

Be respectful. When discussing boundaries with parents or with your boss, don’t use this as an opportunity to talk to down to them. Approach the topic with confidence but be respectful.

Avoid gossiping and ghosting. Because talking about boundaries can be so tough, you may want to avoid the conversation altogether. So instead of confronting that co-worker or supervisor who’s always taking advantage of your work ethic, you just complain about them to anyone who will listen. Instead of talking to that friend who’s always asking for money, you just stop returning their phone calls. Gossiping and ghosting won’t fix anything. But setting boundaries will.

Prioritize self-care. One of the best ways to set boundaries is to prioritize self-care. Your self-care practice helps you establish limits on how much of your time, resources, and energy you will give to a personal or professional relationship. But self-care also helps you establish boundaries with yourself! When you have a demanding career or when you do something for a living that you absolutely love like I do, you may want to work ALL THE TIME. But rest is just as important as work. Set clear rules for yourself around when you will take a break and stick to them.

Everybody Wins

Don’t feel guilty or selfish for establishing boundaries. Clear and healthy boundaries are good for everyone involved.

When it comes to my team, at the end of the day, everyone’s goal is for Sloane to win. If Sloane wins then the agent wins, the manager wins, and mom wins because everyone’s happy.

When you have healthy boundaries, you can perform better at work, which in the long run helps everyone at your company. When you’re getting what you need from a friendship or relationship, you have the bandwidth and motivation to give the other person what they need too.

When you set healthy boundaries in your professional and personal relationships, everybody wins.

If you want to learn more about setting boundaries, check out this article from Verywell Health, an award-winning online health and wellness resource. The information on this site is based on peer reviewed research and has been vetted by medical experts.

What lessons have you learned about the importance of setting boundaries? If you’ve got tips for setting boundaries, share them in the comments!