How to set boundaries from negativity and protect your peace.
Whether it’s people at work, your family, or your personal life, it’s important to realize your happiness comes first. And when that happiness becomes threatened, it’s time to snip-snip their access to you.

I can’t even tell you where I heard this before, but I started using this phrase whenever Ryan asked me to do something.

It grew from there to include everything in life I didn’t want to do, deal with, or give energy to. And now it’s essentially how I decide to set boundaries. The boundaries are to protect my inner peace, preserve my time, and put myself first. Usually, my boundaries are to place a barrier against negativity and monitor how often I allow others to have access to me. 

Now, to be fair, we all have our moments or our days where we are just straight up not having a good time on our journey.

But there are people who just don’t know how to be happy no matter what. They exist in a perpetual state of negativity and continually dump it onto you. It’s not necessarily because you are willing, but you are making yourself available by giving them access to you. Think about that coworker that is always bringing everyone down with the Eeyoreesque vibe. Or the relative who only contacts you to complain instead of ever listening to anything you have to say for a change. It doesn’t matter if you have some magical happy pill to share, they just ain’t having it. 

They are looking for comfort, not solutions. 

You are not a warm blanket for them to wrap around themselves when they’re in need. You are not their mother, their therapist, their dog. You are not there to give them comfort in any form. That is not your job. Sure, you can try at first to be that warm and fuzzy representation for them. But no matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter how much energy you give, you won’t change their mind or mood. 

They want you to validate their feelings, to agree even if you don’t.

They don’t want you to tell them about resources they can use to fix their issue at work, they don’t want to hear about how you got out of a similar situation, they don’t want any actual advice or solution that you have to offer. They simply want your attention, your concern, your agreement. And you just continue to give them free access. But it isn’t really free, is it? This access comes at your own expense. If it’s day in and day out, it’s going to affect you. You gotta put up those boundaries. You have to take back your time. You have to tell them it’s not in your journey today.  

Don’t make yourself readily available to this person.

Move your desk or wear earbuds if you’re still in the office. Set aside time to dedicate to addressing their work-related needs if want. If you’re on a project together, designate separate times to work on your own portions. If the conversation takes a turn and threatens to lead you away from productivity, find a way to direct it back. You have to remember that it’s okay to say “no”. It’s okay to cut off a conversation. It’s okay to remove yourself from a situation that you find is not adding value to your day. It doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t make you selfish. It’s you putting YOU first for a change and adding a value to your time.

Be firm and clear in your declaration that you need to focus.

Be direct that you do not want to engage in negativity and would prefer to concentrate on more positive aspects. Find other positive coworkers to surround yourself with and to aid you with setting and keeping boundaries for negative coworkers. If that fails, kill them with positivity. Be the biggest ray of sunshine, carry a blinding smile, have a positive contradiction for everything they say. Just pepper it into as many interactions as you can. Hopefully, they aren’t so consumed with themselves that they take the hint and move on.

This same concept applies to family members, to friends.

Why should you dedicate any of your precious time to someone who only keeps in touch for their benefit and never for yours? You are their shoulder to cry on, their ear to bend, someone to brag to. But they don’t return the favor. They are too busy for you, they talk more than they listen, and they never cheer for you. That shit is exhausting. By the time you are done with everyone else’s problems, you are too tired, too empty to take care of YOU. When do you get to destress, when do you get to unload, when do you get to find peace? Start telling those negative Nancies, those ignoring boundaries, that it’s not in your journey today. 

I’ve adapted this phrase to be more of a process I go through when dealing with people and situations.

It helps me decide if it’s worth my energy and how to handle it. It’s time that you start doing the same. It’s time you start putting yourself first. Your happiness and your well-being require it. We don’t get another journey in life. We have just this one. But this journey has so many paths to take. Each one has its own experiences, its own risks, its own rewards. Remind yourself that everyone has the ability to choose whatever paths they want on their journey. And you are not responsible for those choices. You are not responsible to direct them to another path, to guide them on any part of their journey, to adjust your boundaries for them. Especially when they choose to continue to walk the paths that make their journey difficult, to continue to put themselves in a negative frame of mind. When they are not willing or receptive to change. Their path, their choices, their negativity is not in your journey today, tomorrow, or ever.

But YOUR happiness, YOUR well-being, and YOUR peace are. 

Until next week,