Relationships are the hardest most challenging things to master. Whether it’s a family member, friend, intimate partner or work colleague, we all struggle with our relationships.
Why is that?
Why do you struggle with something you practice every day of your life?
Well because you haven’t mastered the art of listening. Even those of us who think we are good listeners are not that great in reality.
The main thing that distracts us from the art of listening is the voice in our heads.
Yes, that’s right.
Already, Always Listening
The one that has an opinion or something to say about everything! You know, the one that says things like….
“What did they mean by that?”
“Does he even know what he’s talking about?”
“She doesn’t know how I feel and doesn’t even care?”
“Why are they so dumb, this is the easiest thing in the world to understand”
The voice is constantly making assessments, judgments, assumptions and coming to its own conclusions.
The people you are speaking to have the same voice in their head doing exactly the same thing so you are not ever truly speaking to someone or genuinely hearing what they have to say.
Conflict Resolution
The way we are and interact as humans make it difficult to resolve conflict for this reason. When we think we are under threat, all of our defenses come up and we need to battle until we are right.
Your relationships stand no chance when this is the case.
So what can you do about it…..
Remind yourself of what you want
It’s easy to get caught up in your internal reactions and sometimes the pay off of being right is the only thing that matters. To interrupt this, take a moment and think about what you want from that relationship
• It could be that you want to have a harmonious environment at work and having conflict with a colleague will not achieve that
• It may be you want to create a space of understanding and communication in your friendships and interrupting and making the other wrong won’t achieve that
• It may just be you want love to be present in your family relationships
Whatever it is, remind yourself of the bigger picture.
Get into the other person’s world
Create empathy within yourself for the other person by getting into their world. Ask them to explain what is going on for them, how it makes them feel. This allows you to genuinely listen to what they want to say.
Confirm and acknowledge what you heard
Let them know you’ve heard them and reiterate what they’ve told you. Doing this helps put their defenses down because if they have been heard there’s nothing else to fight about.
Share what’s going on for you
You have now created the space to share what is going on for you. Be open and vulnerable in your share. Let them understand what is going on in your world and how you are interpreting things.
Compromise
Now you have genuinely heard both sides, you can come to a solution that satisfies everyone concerned.
This process has helped me mend a number of relationships that were broken for years. It’s simple but effective.
If you try it out, I’d love you to tell me what you noticed and the results you were able to achieve.
Have a great day.
Linda
Evolve for Executive and Entrepreneurial Women
I am holding an event for executive and entrepreneurial women on the 21st March in partnership with Eight Member’s club in London. This will be one of the topics of conversation.
The details can be found here:
Please rsvp to linda@lindambagwu.com if you are interested in attending.