Flowers’ Meanings
A list of flowers and their meanings.
Read more
A list of flowers and their meanings.
Read more
Even the most beautiful home, in the most serene town can become a nightmare if you live next door to the wrong kind of people. And dealing with nasty neighbors can be enough to drive even the most peaceable person to distraction. If you find yourself in this situation or would like to do your very best to avoid it, here are the five big offenders in the world of nasty neighbors and tips on how to deal with them:
Read more
My headline might sound overreaching. Clearly a rule can’t define something as complex as human behavior. But despite this, I’ve found most people tend to make the same mistakes. These mistakes are frequent enough that they create conflicts later. Remembering these seven rules will help you avoid these mistakes.
Read more
1. Remain calm. Be still and say nothing. Let the storm run its course. Often times the angry person wants to provoke you. Arguing is ineffective because it raises barriers.
2. Let the other person do the talking. He or she will soon grow tired of it. Sometimes that’s all they want. To be heard. To feel important. Everyone wants to feel important. Some people just express it in ways that are counterproductive.
Read more
There are 3 reasons you might stay in a conversation that you want to leave:
You’re too polite – Many of us feel like it’s rude to leave someone alone after talking to them for a few minutes. It isn’t. People have things to do, and talking is just talking. As long as you excuse yourself politely, your exit will be comfortable.
You’re afraid or lazy – Being in a conversation can be comforting and you might stick it out just because it’s easier than heading out on your own into the ‘unknown’. This isn’t true and you might be selling your time short if you settle.
You don’t know what else to do – Similar to the previous, this is counting on your lack of imagination. There is always something else to do and someone else to talk to. Grab a drink or hit the toilet and then find a friend or another contact.
There are plenty of situations that call for different kinds of exits. The only real rule I can think of is to stay polite. No matter where you are or who you’re talking to, maintaining a civil attitude goes a long way – even when you’re talking with a complete bastard.
At times it can be somewhat enjoyable giving someone the short end and letting them know how little you think of them. However, this is never productive or beneficial. You might just cause more trouble than it’s worth.
Here is a method to give more effective criticism. After some Googling I’ve discovered that in English it’s called the Sandwich-technique. It’s divided into three steps.
But before you use it to criticise it might be useful to stop and think for a few minutes. Ask yourself:
Think about those questions. Often when you slow down and think about if for a few minutes you discover that there may not really be a need to criticize.
Read more
“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”
Dorothy Nevill
Social skills and relationships are probably two of the most important things in life.
So it always strikes me as a bit odd that while we learn so much when we grow up there is often somewhat of a lack of advice on how to improve our communication skills.
If there is something that we should learn more about in school, then this is one of those things since it can improve lives and society in a big way.
Of course, if you do some digging and browsing and looking you can find solid and time-tested information from throughout the ages on this topic. And since communication and relationships is a pretty intuitive and free flowing process, advice that applies in all situations is pretty hard to find. Much of these things you have to learn from experience.
But there are some good pointers. Here are five of them. And I think that if you avoid these five mistakes at least most of the time then you can really improve your relationships, your communication skills and your life.
Read more