Setting and enforcing healthy boundaries can be the thing that enhances or sabotages relationships in any area of your life, having a detrimental effect on your happiness, confidence, and sense of self-worth. Boundaries play a huge role in personal and professional empowerment.

As a child, you were (hopefully) taught by your parents and caregivers ways to behave appropriately and how to interact with others. When a young toddler hits another child, the parent explains that it’s not acceptable to hit another person. In the wonderful teenage years, when adolescents push back on authority, they are taught how and why that behavior won’t fly. Parenting is all about setting and enforcing boundaries through teaching.

A boundary is something that indicates bounds or limits. A fence around the yard of your childhood home is an example of a physical boundary. As kids, your parents may have said the fence is the limit to how far you could stray when playing outside.

Every boundary also has a threshold; a point at which, when crossed, is of sufficient intensity to produce an effect. If you went beyond the fence in the yard as a young kid, there were repercussions like being scolded or grounded from playing outside for a few days. This was how you learned that to cross the line would result in some form of fallout.

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