If you are in a situation where several people need to decide something or come up with a plan, there’s a strategy that can help things flow smoothly while giving everyone a voice. It works like this: Use a notebook to record the details and …
Relationship Skills
Relationships can be enjoyable and helpful, or stressful, and are almost always some combination of both. Relationships take work. Being more skillful is like sharpening a cutting edge – the work is easier, and we are not working as hard to get the results we want. Being skillful in our …
Personal Dialogue and PACE
Many people have an active monologue or dialogue going on in their thoughts – a monologue or dialogue with themselves. It can be a conversation that is well worth paying more attention to. Often, we don’t realize that changing what we say to ourselves, or how we say it can have a big impact on our …
Better Ways of Thinking
We’ve talked about several ways of thinking that are not helpful—and even harmful, along with suggestions about how to counter each one. Let’s do a round-up of these: Black-and-white thinkingAsk questions to arrive at a more balanced viewpoint: “Really?” “What do you mean by…?”Use more nuanced …
Mind Reading
Mind reading and taking the blame are two skewed thinking patterns that often go together. We think we know what the other person is thinking, and it’s probably our fault. That can bring on a lot of stress! “The boss looks upset. She’s probably unhappy with me again.” “Jack looked a little …
Stop, Look, and Listen!
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw Children are encouraged to “Stop, look and listen” before crossing railroad tracks or streets. Why? Because being unaware can be life-threatening. Have you ever considered the consequences …
Feelings and Emotions
Feeling is one of the basic physical senses—perceiving by touch. It has also been generalized to mean perception of events within the body. A feeling is also an emotion, or an emotional perception. Feelings as emotions can be initiated by bodily responses—the interaction between physiological events …
Emotional Intelligence
The term “Emotional Intelligence” was coined in 1990 by two researchers who described it as “a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and …
Self-Awareness
One valuable life skill is self-awareness. It is very useful to know ourselves. Maybe somewhat un-intuitively, knowing ourselves also helps us to communicate with others more effectively, and to be more empathetic of others. One aspect of self-awareness is to be able to find out more about …
Setting Goals
Why goals? Goals give us direction – they’re like a roadmap. Goals help us focus our efforts on what matters to us, and avoid wasting time with “side roads” that don’t help us get to the desired result. Setting goals enables us to positively affect our future. There are many different areas …