I believe the first step in becoming a master at connecting with others is having a clear and deep understanding of yourself. Today’s world makes it difficult for people to have self-confidence. This is particularly true for teenagers who are more sensitive than most adults. Sources of low self-confidence stem from many directions such as how you were raised as a child, classmates in school, social media, advertising, television, movies, magazines, etc. We tend to place a great deal of pressure on ourselves to live up to what we perceive or others tell us is a desirable self-standard. Self-awareness can be achieved through a variety of activities such as spending time alone meditating or taking a walk allowing your mind to process a day or previous week’s activities. Consciously reflecting on you unconscious principles (your specific attributes) allowing no one else but you to form an opinion is a good practice to develop as a way to gain better self-awareness.
Gaining this awareness is not an overnight process. It can take years, even decades but the more you do it is rewarding and will be recognized by others as you connect with them. Tip: There may be moments when you get stuck and are unable to help yourself form an opinion or are not satisfied with the opinion you’ve helped yourself to form. In that case carefully select someone (not necessarily someone you’re close with) to engage into this discussion to help you out of your rut. Make sense? Hope this helps!
Browsing Tag
social media
Let’s dig a little deeper into connect and interacting with others, particularly strangers.
Obviously, most of us gravitate towards people with a similar style of communicating or towards people with whom we share something in common. But its important to learn how to positively and productively interact with people outside of our comfort zone. It’s all about learning how to nimbly shift your normal every-day interests in order to adapt and make interesting conversation with others.
Just remember (and we’ve talked about this in previous blogs) DON’T BE FAKE. You’ve got to learn to show genuine interest with another person is talking. Even if there seems to be no genuine interest in what the other person chooses to discuss, you need to somehow meet them half-way. Embracing one another’s differences will help you grow as an individual. After all, how dull would life be if we were all the same?
Here are some connecting tips:
#1 Try and look at the conversation through their lens
#2 Find out what motivates them to enjoy their chosen topic of discussion
#3 Find out what their personal history is behind that motivation
Inquiring may uncover a commonality that could be used to bridge a single-sided conversation into a mutually enjoyed one.
Next time you encounter a group of people, challenge yourself to gravitate towards a stranger (or even more challenging a group of strangers). Explore ways to adapt and expand your interests to build new relationships. Our world is communicating more and more via social media and instant messaging and less and less via face-to-face. Learning how to connect with different people will help give you a competitive edge in social environments as the generations to come moving less and less towards face-to-face interactions at a rapid pace.
Your ability to effectively connect with individuals and/or groups will leave an inspirational impression on them. You will be more remembered by those individuals or groups versus those parties who failed to find a way to connect.