Language is a mess.
Speaking, writing, listening, and reading are essential for communication. But despite being the best tool for this, exchanging complex thoughts and feelings and reaching a shared understanding is still pretty hard.
Whether in a professional or a personal situation, understanding each other is crucial. This isn't only about thoughts, events, or goals. It's also about:
- desires
- fears
- positive feelings
- negative feelings
- thought processes
Make sure you not only focus on the end results of your individual thoughts, but explain how your desires, fears, and previous experiences drove you there.
So, how do we get better at understanding others and making ourselves understood?
Here are three things you can do to improve understanding:
- Meta-communicate. Comment on your thoughts and feelings while talking with others. This meta-information can really help foster a deeper understanding.
- Repeat what you understood from the other person in your own words.
- Be present with others when you interact. That's where mindfulness is helpful.
Doing all of this shows that you care about the other person and the topic you are talking about.
“I think for any relationship to be successful, there needs to be loving communication, appreciation, and understanding.” – Miranda Kerr
Reading Recommendations
Use Mindful Communication to Improve Relationships
“The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” — Mark Twain
Feeling Understood — Even More Important Than Feeling Loved?
“Manal Ghosain writes about our wanting to be accepted, appreciated, approved, attended to, liked, loved, cared for — and understood. But what she doesn’t consider is that if we don’t, or can’t, experience others as understanding us — who we are and what we’re about — then all of these other wants can end up feeling relatively meaningless.”
Is REST better than SOAP? Yes, in some use-cases
“Both of these approaches to building Web services were created to address different needs, so making a comparison is a challenge. Here we introduce you to some use cases where using REST is a better choice.”
Weekly Mindfulness Practice
This week, we'll focus on mindful communication. When someone talks to you, try to observe every time you want to respond with a story or thought of your own.
End Note
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Have a great week
Simon
PS: What do you think about this? Please hit reply and let me know. I’m curious!