We all talk about standards and boundaries, but sometimes I hear people talk about them as though they are one and the same. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin.

A standard is behavior you hold yourself to. A boundary is behavior you allow (or don’t allow) other people to perform around or to you. A standard is governing self; a boundary is governing others (at least in your presence!)

For most of us, these standards and boundaries reflect our core values. For example, my top 3 values are compassion, respect and wholeness. Most of my standards and boundaries line up with one of these values, and you usually have a standard AND a boundary around the same item. These are the ones that are so important I needed to put standards and boundaries in place regarding them.

As an example of this, I have a standard that says: “I recognize God in everyone.” Yes, sometimes it’s a challenge, and sometimes you have to look hard, but with practice it becomes easy to find the God-like quality. Sometimes it’s a perfect eyelash, but it’s there.

The boundary I have around this: “I don’t allow others to disparage people in my presence.” Not if I can help it, anyway and I find I am in control of whether I spend time with people more than once. I feel so strongly about this that I have only watched commercials for American Idol and know that it’s not a show for me. Those few moments of seeing someone trashed make me nauseous, perhaps more so because I know the intent is to amuse and entertain. How sad is that?

OK, I’m off my soapbox. However, it helps make my point. We only have standards and boundaries around the values we hold most dear. This makes sense to me or otherwise we’d be walking rulebooks and that would not be fun at all.

If you want an exercise to help you define your standards and boundaries, you’ll find one in Issue 67 of the 3 Minute Coach

• Distinction of the Day: Adjusted to vs Tolerated Because the world is constantly changing, humans need to adjust to new situations, problems and opportunities, some of which may be uncomfortable because they call...
• Class Act: OPEN-NESS One of the highest compliments an individual can receive is to be called a person of character -- a class act! Thomas Leonard's Class Act...

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 8:40 am and is filed under Strong Sense of Self. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.