– treating other people with respect

Last month, I wrote about setting your own boundaries in my blog post “Setting boundaries – treating yourself with respect”. It is crucial to recognize your personal boundaries and not let others overstep them. When we speak about treating others with respect, it’s not only important to think about how we treat ourselves, but how we treat others as well.

Due to the fact that it’s normal to overstep boundaries, we often do this to others without realizing it. We need to be aware of the results this can bring. Sure, we often get what we want, but at what price? We should always keep the following in mind:

• Do we intentionally want to overstep other people’s boundaries? When you know how the overstepping of boundaries feels to you, do you really want to do this to others?
• Is the quality of a forced yes better than that of a sincere no?
• In such situations, there is often a loss of trust that affects the entire (business) relationship.

Based on these reasons alone, it makes sense to not overstep the boundaries of other people (e.g. employees, business partners, customers, family, friends).

To develop a sense of where other people’s boundaries are, you can do the following:

• Watch for hesitant behavior
• Does the other person seem and/or sound pleased with the situation?
• Do you get a clear and honest yes?
• Is the other person friendly or more reserved? (Have you often crossed a boundary here?)

Do you want to treat people with more respect? I am happy to help you. Simply contact me at julia@buhmann.consulting