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| Human relation |
One of the keys to an effective and productive living is the mastery of human relationships. If you can't handle human relationships well, you cannot handle any other thing in life. You may master inventory/stock management, but not until you master human resource management, you cannot reach the peak.
To master human relationships, you must acknowledge the fact that every human is created with a sense of uniqueness, self-worth, and self-pride. These we seek and strive to protect in every one of our dealings with people.
Our soul ends up resenting and repelling anybody that seems to predate, eat up or vandalized our feeling of importance and the craving to be appreciated. Because of how much we cherish our own opinion and views about a particular thing, we often desire the other party to listen to us, understand us, affirm us and possibly, subscribe to our own paradigm and ideologies.
We want people to just wear our own eye lenses at times and begin to see things the way we see them. And when they seem not to listen, understand and affirm us in our opinion we become resentful, repulsive and may consequently withdraw from such relationships.
If you don't acknowledge and appropriate this reality in your dealings with people, you can't really maximize relationships to fulfill your dreams.
For you to make the most out of relationships, you must be empathetic. You have to put yourself in their shoes to understand how they feel and see a particular issue, and not just imposing your opinions on them either directly or indirectly.
Read also: Before you judge!
You should not be too quick to conclude or assume that they are wrong and you are right. Don't make people feel guilty unnecessarily. You must seek to understand the circumstances surrounding people's action and dispositions in order to place things where they belong.
Not until you understand the factors responsible for people's actions judgment and opinions, you wouldn't know how best to respond and relate appropriately. You may end up hurting who you are supposed to help and heal.
On the contrary, however, most times, we seek to be listened to and understood. In an attempt to solve or resolve a situation of concern, we tend to be very quick in assuming and appropriating, proferring or prescribing solutions to issues before us without taking the pain to first understand or diagnose the problem to find out what caused it and how it progressed to where it is at that moment.
We expect the other party to put on our own lenses and see what we see, the way we see it. And if this is not the case, we tend to be frustrated. We just begin to wonder why people can't listen to us, understand and agree with what we are saying. We often wonder most times in frustrations why people can't understand the reason behind our actions.
The foundation of an effective relationship, however, is effective communication. And in turn, the foundation of effective communication is emphatic listening.
EMPATHIC LISTENING
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| Empathic listening |
Psychologists have shown from research that only 10% of the message being conveyed is communicated by the spoken words, 30% is communicated by the tone and the remaining 60% by the body language - gesticulations.
So, to practice empathic listening, you must listen with your ears, eyes, and heart concurrently. You should pay attention to the:
∆ spoken words with your ears
∆ the body language with your eyes and
∆ the tone with your ears why you process all these in your heart.
Not until you understand these three components of the message conveyed, you may misjudge the person.
To be understood most times, you must first seek to understand. This would require you to look at both the context, content, and intent of the action as well as the circumstances responsible for such. Please note that people will only listen to and seek to understand you the extent you do same for them.
Read also: Managing your emotions
EMPATHIC LISTENING AND ARGUMENT/CRISES
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| Empathic listening |
Unnecessary arguments come up when both/either party addictively desire to be listened to without the readiness to listen or shift ground.
Please note that when your opinions sound so superior to you on a particular issue, you may find it difficult to hear the other sides of the story. And until you see a thing from all the sides as applicable, you can't really tell much about it. You become limited in your field of view.
Don't be too glued to your opinions about a thing. Always strive to have a broader spectrum of views about a thing. This is how to learn and grow.
Please note that most of the ideas that have made life more meaningful for mankind today once sounded foolish in time past.
Read also: Handling disappointments in Relationship!
EMPATHIC LISTENING AND PROBLEM SOLVING
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| Empathic listening |
roblem actually is, what caused it and how it progressed to what it is at that moment.
You must be able to separate the person involved in a situation from the circumstances surrounding such a situation and see what makes the difference.
There are times circumstances may push people into doing what they never intended to do. And if you are not patriotic enough to understand what really happened and what led to it, you may get it wrong in an attempt to address the situation.
According to the law of cause and effect, you must understand why a person acts or think the way he or she does. You must endeavor to see things in his own perspective as well as yours in order to extract, crystallize and quantify every substance of truth therein.
However trying to see things from the perspective of the other party at times may put your own paradigm, belief system and your ego at stake. It is this fear of losing one's ego and pride that makes some people hold on to their opinion without minding whether they are right or wrong and how the other party feels.
It takes absolute courage, the maturity of mind and emotional intelligence to practice empathic listening. It requires you to give maximum regard to your own opinion as well as the opinion of others.
When people come to us with issues to handle, the most important thing to do first is to listen attentively to understand what the person really need at that moment.
It may not necessarily be that the person needs your advice. He could just need emotional support - maybe he just needs somebody to talk to, just to vent.
There are times somebody that is looking so emotionally distressed may just need to pour his heart and that ends the emotional trauma.
It is fruitless most times to be too quick in trying to fix a problem by offering a solution when all the person needs is just somebody to listen attentively and identify with his or her concerns.
Don't assume you understand what the person is going through because you may not. Even if you have gone through the same set of experiences, remember, you are two different persons who may react or respond to the same circumstances in different ways. To maximize relationships in the pursuit of your dreams, you must not be too fond of your self. You must be sensitive enough to give people a fair hearing. You must value their emotions to make them feel safe around you.
Remember that no matter how good your opinion sound or seem to you, there is always something more to it than you think. And not until you give it a second thought to be open to other people's opinion, you may not learn and learn well.
To learn in life, you must be open to people's ideas to broaden your field of view.
In life, nobody is born extraordinary. Left with what you know, you are at the ordinary rating. But there is something somebody somewhere knows that you don't know yet. When you humble yourself to learn that extra knowledge added to the one you know, it becomes EXTRA-ORDINARY.
So, extraordinary men are ordinary men who strive daily to learn something EXTRA.
Read also: Be humble to learn!
EMPATHIC LISTENING AND DECEPTION
Empathic listening can also be a tool to avoid being deceived.If you can really master the act of listening with both your eyes, ears and your heart, you will be able to know the motive of anybody you are dealing with at any moment.
There are times we trust who we are supposed to thrust out of our lives, and at other times, we thrust out of our lives who we are supposed to trust all because of one sentiment or the other.
Remain blessed!
#eyafimoniemmauel
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