How to have better conversations
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Everyone can have a good conversation and the trick is to do more listening than talking. What often happens is while the other person is talking you are already thinking about how you want to reply or formulating some sort of answer.
How to have better conversations
Everyone can have a good conversation and the trick is to do more listening than talking. What often happens is while the other person is talking you are already thinking about how you want to reply or formulating some sort of answer. Which means that you are not really present with what the other person is saying. We just want to tell our story.
You must have noticed that there are certain people you just love to talk to, because they give you space to do that and also ask questions. Pay attention next time and see what those people do that makes you feel so comfortable with them.
Where we have more trouble is with difficult conversations.
I used to avoid these like the plague. While I still find myself avoiding on occasion, I am more open to having these conversations. You will find that where there is tension in a relationship, there is a missing conversation which will be difficult.
I will take you through a few steps in how to have better conversations. Firstly, ask yourself if the conversation is about you or the other person. If it is about you, you have perhaps been triggered or you are possibly making some assumptions about the other person. You may want to tell the other person why you are feeling the way you do.
Just ask yourself, by having this conversation, what outcome are you hoping to get from it.
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How to have better conversations
Be clear on what that outcome may be. Do you want to give them feedback, set a boundary, request something of them, create intimacy or let someone go? It is never a good idea to have the conversation to make the other person feel bad, get them to do something or change them. You also cannot expect to get an apology from them or to get whatever it is, off your chest. This will just result in the other person shutting down.
Decide ahead of time who you want to be during this conversation. It will be in no one’s interest if you are angry or confrontational. More useful states to be in are curiosity, love, compassion, open, being calm and respectful. Also figure out what your thoughts are about this conversation. Perhaps you could be thinking that you would like to understand what is going on or perhaps that you want to find out more.
You need to be thinking that difficult conversations are going to come up in your life and by having them, it grows you. You get better at communication and connecting to the other person.
Another good tip
Another good tip is to actually plan this conversation, because you will have something structured to work with. If you don’t plan, you may lose your good thoughts and get overwhelmed by all the emotion and say things you don’t mean to. Open your conversation by saying, you need to talk to them about something. Then discuss the facts of what you want to convey and then how to resolve the problem. Be in the conversation as the person you have decided to be eg calm, respectful, loving, compassionate.
After saying your piece, it is your turn to listen to what the other person has to say. Replace the need to be right with the need to understand where they are coming from. They may give you a good explanation of what the situation is, here is also an opportunity to ask more questions to get a better idea of what is going on.
How did it go?
After you have had the conversation, analyse it a bit. How did it go? Where you the person you said you were going to be? Was there anything you could have changed? Did you get the outcome you visualized? What did you learn from this conversation?
These points may seem hard to do or even to remember, but the more often you do them, the easier it will be. I do find that I am not nearly as nervous about having a difficult conversation because I am more prepared and put more thought into them. By using these tips, I know that the conversation will not get out of control and I have a positive outcome planned always. Sometimes, the other person is not in this space, but I know that I handled it in the best way possible.
Till next week.
A
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If you are potentially having to face difficult conversations and you want them to have a good outcome or not sure how to do this, email me on he***@ll*******.net, and I will help you.
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