How To Protect Your Personal Space With Healthy Boundaries

Do you ever get annoyed by a clingy colleague who sits next to your desk? Do you get tired of unlimited talks of an acquaintance Or Do you force yourself to parties with friends when you really don’t want to?  No matter if you’re a private person or a social and open person. Everyone needs space. So let’s know about how to protect your personal space by making healthy boundaries.

What is personal space?

Our brain creates a boundary around us where we feel comfortable with ourselves. It can be measured by a distance you want to keep between you and other people to feel okay and comfortable. Space psychologically we think belongs to us only. It can be physical as well as mental. This distance from you and other people depends upon the person to person and that’s how you protect your personal space accordingly.

For example

You like being around with your mom but you don’t like to be around your aunt or someone else.

You enjoy the company of your best friend or a particular friend but you don’t like to be close to other friends.

Why personal space is important?

As I told you above no matter if you’re an introvert or extrovert, your alone time, personal space is important. It is important for one’s mental health and peace of mind. There’s a need to protect your personal space to focus on yourself, your life, and your goals.

Your personal space protects you from stress and anxiety too. You see if you’re having a break from people, places, and things from time to time, you’ll be more relaxed. If you’re in your personal space you can do what you like to do without any interruption or distraction. So you should protect your personal space to protect yourself from unwanted things, reduce distractions, and to stay focused on what actually matters.

Ways to protect your personal space

Most of us have people or surroundings in our life who doesn’t respect our personal boundaries enough. Sometimes they do it intentionally and sometimes situations are like that. And they can be anyone like a good friend, family member, boss, colleague, classmate, acquaintance.

As a social being, you can’t just ignore people and walk away. So here are some ways to protect your personal space by creating healthy boundaries:

Accept the need for personal space

When you don’t respect your personal space yourself you’ll definitely get drained sooner or later.  So you should know first that you need to create boundaries around you to protect your personal space. Before you get drained. Don’t think about what others will think. Don’t think about what if other’s will feel bad. Just think about you. If you’ll allow people to enter your space they will without any hesitation and restriction. Because it’s about you, it’s not about them. Just accept that it’s important and it’s not wrong to have your personal space.

Use Humor

Humor is a good way to escape any situation easily without being rude and awkward. When you’ll use Humar to maintain a healthy boundary, you’ll not offend people. For example, when your coworker is clingy and irritating you can say the same thing to him or her in humor. Like “You like a lot to be with me or cling to me are you getting obsessed or what?”. This will make them realize that they’re doing something which is noticeable and they’ll be conscious about it next time. This way you can protect your personal space smartly without getting rude.

Be Polite with being firm

You can’t just shout at people to get away from you. Most of the people are not able to make boundaries around them because they don’t want to appear as rude and unfriendly. You can definitely be polite and protect your personal space. You can just make the other people understand calmly that he or she’s breaking your boundary.

For example

Suppose you’re doing some project work and your coworker is disturbing you or talking to you continuously you can’t just stand up and shout him to go away. Just be calm and make him understand calmly and politely that “I’ll listen to you and discuss everything with you but I need to finish my work first”. So that’s how you can protect your personal space without being rude.

Learn to say no

If you’re too concern about hurting others, being rude, and being guilty over setting your boundaries then you don’t actually understand –

The power of No

You need to say no if you really want to set boundaries and stick to your decisions. Try to say no to things that are not important. Cut off all the necessary things. If you don’t really need to go to a party then avoid it. When you don’t need to travel then don’t. If you’re with people who are gossiping and you’re not really liking it then move away or escape.

You need to say no to situations and people where you’re not comfortable. And don’t feel guilty about it. Because it’s your life and it’s about your well being. But parallelly you also need to know where you should say. Well, this is one of the best ways where you can set boundaries and protect your personal space.

If you’re protecting your space your way I’ll like to know your ways in the comments below. Or you can join our Facebook page to share and discuss more life.