Navigating Soft Skills

During a dinner conversation with an acquaintance, she asked if I would attend a class she was giving on setting boundaries. After some dialogue about what the class outcomes would be, I agreed. I wasn’t interested in a therapy session, just the basics of setting and keeping boundaries with others. I do well setting them for myself and keeping them. However, I do get loosy goosy with others. But she assured me it wasn’t therapy; it was boundary setting 101.

What I experienced was far from the basics. In fact, it was clearly a class in perfecting anti-social and narcissistic behavior. It, too, quickly evolved into a therapy session. Instead of teaching the soft skills needed to set and keep good and healthy boundaries with family, friends, and coworkers it was a lesson in how to be self absorbed and antisocial.

One guy,it was a mixed group, complained that coworkers would occasionally hug him, not as a sexual advance, but in friendship and without his verbal permission to do so. He found this offensive. The leader instructed him to extend his arms fully in front of the boundary abuser to stop the hug before he was touched and just say no forcefully.

Another woman complained about coworkers dumping work on her against her will. She was instructed to pick up the work and dump it back on the offenders desk. Tell the offender, she was instructed, that it wasn’t her job. And she was reminded that her needs were most important. How she felt at any given moment, her feelings were her first priority. To feel good, moment by moment throughtout the day, was the goal. That would require us to focus solely on ourselves. How boring is that?

The list of I want and I need, me first, continued unabated throughout the evening. By the time two hours of this finally came to an end, I realized I had just been exposed to two hours of misguided and antisocial boundary setting.

Setting and keeping good boundaries is not an exercise in it’s all about me. It’s about a good and healthy balance in our lives. It’s like sharing a meal. Some for you and some for me.

It’s really about acquiring and using our soft skills proficiently in our relationships at home, at work, and in our social lives. The behavior suggested above could get both these people fired or dead ended in their jobs. It takes the use of many skills to skillfully navigate achieving a balance, having our needs met, and meeting the needs of others.

Typically, poor boundaries result from our behavior or attitudes. Conflict avoidance, fear of hurting someone’s feelings, inconsistency in imposing consequences, lack of healthy self worth or self respect, poor observation, and poor problem solving or decision making skills just to cite a few. If you have difficulty setting good boundaries change is in order, but do it skillfully.