Hi
Talking is not conversing. Many people enjoy talking, but very few people converse. People who talk a lot are nagging people, are boring people and intrusive people. There's a quote which says in much talking half mind is murdered.
People who talk to much most of the time are hated.
Conversing is an art that few people have been able to master, yet is a most needed art in our life, because talking is part of our daily life. And it is a neccesary one.
There few things we need to learn to be better at our conversations. Even though conversation appear to happen natural and spontaneous, conversation are a very powerful tool of change, bonding, healing and marketing.
People take conversation for granted because it's something we have been doing as far as we can remember. We grew up talking by imitation, the time when even our mind could not understand what we are talking we were already talking. So we kind of taking it casual.
The disciplines or rules we were taught at childhood, on how to talk to your friends and peers is different from how you talk to adults and your superior were too general. They were good, they helped us a lot but they are not the end, there's another level. We were taught which word are not good to use and which words were bad as children, but now we need to learn how to converse as adults not as children.
Now you need to learn the next level rules of conversation as an adult, business man, family man/woman, as a friend etc. Here are few general rules for adults who wants to improve their conversation.
- Be conscious about yourself It hard to converse without self being part of the conversation. There's way it finds it way out, no matter how much you may try to keep it in the background.
Because they say we see things the way we are not the way they are. Who we are affects our perception and judgment. So if your not conscious with who you are, your personality may be affecting your conversation in negative ways that you do not know. And because you do not know it would be hard to change. How do you change what you do not know you need to change?
People may be hurt by it, yet few will risk to tell you the truth. It is a beautiful gift we have as human, to be self conscious, but self conscious does not come natural like the need to easy ourselves. It requires intentionality and effort. You need to know how does your personality affect your conversation.
In conversation we discuss issues, situations and people sometimes. And we share our views and judgments on those things. So you need to know what you perceive to be true may be influenced by your personality or background. Once you know that you will become more cautious.
- You need to know not all people are like you. Different people have different personality, different background and the things that have influenced them or things that are influencing them. And thus they can have different perception, opinion and judgment from you on the same issues.
So learn to understand, remember and respect that in your conversation, it will help you be a good converser. You will value the opinion of others even when you do not agree with them.
And guess what! People want so much to see their opinion respected. When you respect them you earn a credibility to influence them. They will respect you back, trust you and seek to have more and more conversation with you.
- Be a good listener. Conversation is not a competition of who is better, who has the best ideas and who has the best judgment. It is neither who is the loudest and quickest.
It is not about dominating the conversation. Whoever seeks to dominate the conversation, stops conversing.
Listen to understand not to answer. When you understand the answer come naturally, the answer sometimes may be say nothing, or ask more questions. What you should remember is a conversation it is not an interrogation. Is not neccesary to have all the answers, so do not force to understand so that you may answer.
All you need is to be a good listener not a good responder. Show that you're there and you care about what the other person is saying.
- Manage I Control the use of I in your conversation. When there's too much I's in your conversation and especially when all the things speak of how much good you are, it makes the other person feel like he/she is dumb. The other person will feel left out of the conversation.
It's good to show ownership of certain things but be careful how you do it. Use I when it is neccesary.
- Do not bluff Do not claim to have of the things you do not know about. Be honest.
Do not exaggerate things in your conversation, always tell the actual story or facts. If their things you do not remember admit but do not, come up with your own facts.
- Mind the context and the capacity Be aware of the context of your conversation. Do not mix up things. But also do not initiate a certain conversation where the other person may not be comfortable to talk on the things that you want him to talk because of the location.
May be there people there he/she may be uncomfortable with for them to listen to your conversation.
You work so hard to begin a conversation, but he/she gives you a passive energy. Next time when that person sees you he may avoid you. Because you have a tendency of discussing right things in wrong places.
But also know whom are you talking to. In terms of age, gender, job and academic level. All these things have a big impact on how you converse with people. Different age may need different way of conversation, and different words.
Gender also is the same, how you converse with a woman cannot be the same as when you converse with a man.
The same goes to academic level, some people may have not been educated as you are, when you bring academic conversation to such a person they may feel embarrassed. Because they may not be able to converse with you at the same level. But even yourself, do not try to have an academic conversation if you do not have those credentials. You may embarrass yourself and the other person may very uncomfortable to continue with the conversation.
In conclusion;
There people who are born with natural traits that makes them good in conversation, but most of us we need to learn to develop these skills so that we may be good at having conversations.
With social media today being rampant most people cannot have good face to face conversation, they may be good at texting but not at conversing. We need these skills. I hope this post has helped you in some ways.
Thank you for taking time to read my post
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