How to Set the Right Boundaries for Success

Defining Success Within Your Life

The concept of success varies greatly and is individual to every person. Even the same person may change their definition of success at different points throughout their life. Things that used to be important at one time may no longer be a priority further down the road.

To figure out what success looks like for you, right now, in this present season of life, take some time to take stock of your life. What is working? What isn’t? What do you wish were different, and what can you do to change those things?

This will help you paint a mental picture of what success would look like for you right now. Maybe it’s having a certain amount of money. Maybe it’s optimizing your relationships. Maybe it’s fulfilling an artistic dream. Whatever your success looks like, make sure you have a clear picture of it in your head, so you can set yourself up for success.

From Goals to Habits to Success

Once you have a vibrant, vivid picture of personal success in your head, it’s time to create goals that will help you inch closer to that vision. Set specific, observable goals that have an established deadline. Do whatever it takes to stick to your goals. This could mean writing them out and posting them somewhere they’re easily seen, sharing them with a friend or accountability buddy, or even making checklists to keep yourself accountable.



Once you make achieving your goals a routine, they will soon become positive habits in your life. And over time, these daily habits will deliver to your end goal of success – whatever that looks like for you.

Establishing Effective Habits to Achieve Success

One of the most important tools you can give yourself on the road to success is the ability to set appropriate boundaries. Boundary setting helps to keep you focused on the task at hand, minimize extraneous distractions, and have clear parameters for other people in your life.

Identify Your Boundaries

Before you can set your boundaries, you have to figure out what they are. If you are trying to learn a new skill, one of your boundaries may be that Tuesday nights are reserved for practicing it, and everything else will be put on hold for a certain number of minutes or hours while you train. If success, to you, means becoming more financially stable, you may need to identify boundaries that limit unnecessary spending. If success means getting into better physical shape, you may need to set boundaries about what, where, and how much you choose to eat.

Communicate Your Boundaries

Boundaries are more or less useless unless you are able to effectively communicate them to the people around you. It’s one thing to decide, for example, that you will make your coffee at home to save money, rather than buying it at a coffee shop every day. It’s another thing entirely when a coworker asks if you’d like to go grab a coffee with them, and you have to tell them that you’re not buying coffee from coffee shops presently. This isn’t to say that you can’t still tag along and enjoy the social aspect of the outing; you just must make it clear to your coworker that you’re trying to save money by not frequenting coffee shops.

Learn to Say “No”

While our friends and loved ones are well-intentioned, it can be easy for them to peer pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do, if you don’t know how to say “no.” If you’re trying to lose weight, and your grandmother offers you a decadent dessert after dinner, for example, it can feel awkward at first to politely refuse. But most of the time, your friends and family will want what’s best for you, and will respect your wishes when it comes to saying “no.”