Do not overpromise, hear people out, react to what they say and keep track of your loose ends — four practical tips for talking with other people.
How do you improve your communication skills?
Here are a few practical tips that can help when you talk with other people:
- Do not promise people more than you can deliver.
The fastest way to kill any desire to deal with us is to start promising things we are not actually going to do.
The height of a promise is the height of the fall. When we promise something and do not deliver it, we fall from the height of the promise we made.
So the smartest thing is to take on only the commitments we are genuinely ready to fulfil ourselves, without anyone reminding us or checking up on us.
- Hear the person out to the end, even if you understood their point before they finished.
I know this is not easy. When someone spends 90 seconds asking a question and I got the gist of it at second 8, it is hard for me to hold back and not cut in. But it is better not to do that.
- React to what the person said. This is when we somehow respond to the words of the person in front of us.
A good example:
— What are you doing tonight?
— Going to a football game with a friend.
— Nice. And I’m having dinner at home with the family.
A bad example:
— What are you doing tonight?
— Going to a football game with a friend.
— And I’m having dinner at home with the family.
In the first example we “anchored” our conversation partner’s answer with our reaction and the word “nice”. In the second one the hidden message was “I don’t care what you’re doing, what matters is that I get to talk about my plans”.
- It is worth going back through your direct messages and the notes in your app or notebook from time to time. It helps you remember and refresh all the commitments and loose ends you have not started dealing with yet.
If the situation has changed, or we are short on time, it is better to write to the person ourselves, apologise and say when we will be able to do what we agreed on.
Even if the matter is more important to the other person than to us, if we took responsibility for it, the right thing is to warn them about any change of plans and deadlines ourselves.
Do you know how to reach agreements with people? What annoys you most when you talk with others?
It is rarely a lack of knowledge
Income runs into thinking and habits, not information. In a session we work out what is actually holding you back and what to do about it in the coming weeks.
Talk through your situation
