Boundaries = dignity

On Thursday, I was interviewed by Olly and Darrell from HUM4NS.

We talked about my background, lessons learned the hard way, and advice for others in leadership.

A repeating theme was the necessity of boundaries.

It’s one of those topics that everyone agrees is important yet frequently gets overlooked.

Most people think boundaries are a line you draw between yourself and others. That’s true, but it’s only half the story.

Your primary relationship is with yourself. You talk to yourself more than you talk to any other person. Some research says that we spend, on average, 25% of our conscious lives in internal dialogue.

That’s a huge amount of self-talk.

If the flavour of that self-talk is consistently pushing you beyond your boundaries, a gap opens up between what I know and what I do anyway.

The inner trust that I will listen to myself when it matters starts to erode. You stop believing yourself when it matters most.

Respecting your boundaries is how you rebuild trust. Trust grows the way it does in any good relationship: through responsiveness, empathy, and forgiveness when you go too far.

Boundaries help you push back against the world’s demands. But their deeper purpose is personal: they cultivate self-respect, inner alignment and the belief that you will not abandon yourself under pressure.

Another word for this is dignity.