“The ‘inside-out’ approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self with your paradigms (community shared values), your character, and your motives.  The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises we make to ourselves exceeds making and keeping promises to others.  It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.”
~Stephen R Covey (author of 7 habits of highly effective people) 

This quote helped me understand the tie between mindfulness and interpersonal effectiveness. Mindfulness skills help you do just that before you can improve relationships with others.

  1. Know yourself (wise mind)
  2. What you want
  3. What is important to you (priorities)

Before you can succeed in improving the relationship with others.

This week we are learning the “The Goals of Interpersonal Effectiveness”.

The “Goals of Interpersonal Effectiveness” are:

  • Objective Effectiveness
  • Relationship Effectiveness
  • Self-Respect Effectiveness

 

Interpersonal

The Objective is getting your wants or needs met <Essentially what this is saying is, that in most interactions you have a goal or an objective, which is the reason you are having the discussion with the person>

Relationship Effectiveness is getting your needs met with the relationship in mind… meaning how do you want them to feel about you and you about them at the end of this interaction…. And,

Self-Respect Effectiveness is getting your needs met while maintaining your self-respect <or how do you want to feel about yourself at the end of this interaction>.

As we get into teaching DEARMAN, GIVE, and FAST, you will see how depending on how you prioritize your objective, relationship or your self-respect <which is most important of the 3>, you will know which of the above skills to emphasize in that interaction.

This is a quick overview of the more detailed skill I teach in my 12-week DBT Course which after completion qualifies you to join my monthly DBT Advanced Group.  This community gives you a LIVE skills group each week (full membership participation on Zoom) AND access to the FB community. A live DBT skills group every week for only $40!  If you know anyone interested, please send them this link JOIN DBT COMMUNITY.

“Flying off the handle sometimes causes hammers and humans to lose their heads, as well as their effectiveness.” — William Arthur Ward