It is important to be able to note the differences in how you act and communicate with the different people in your life to recognize how your actions and mannerisms affect those people.
Some notable people in your life may be any of those of the following:
Your significant other
If applicable, your children
Your boss
A teacher that you maybe struggled with the most
Your parents
A person that you may not click with
Your closest friends
You should notice and contemplate how the varying behavior of all of these
different people affects how you make yourself appear to them through your own actions. A good way to practice this is to think about how others may consider you in their lives and how that causes them to behave around you, perhaps in a different way than around other people.
People You Don’t Know Versus
Those That You Do
It is probably obvious that how well you know someone (or how well you want
to get to know them) greatly affects how you see and behave towards them. Your
distance from or closeness with someone relationship-wise will define what you
have to consider when observing both their and your behaviour when interacting with them. This will also eventually help you determine how you will use these insights to better interpret what they are communicating to you.
To better elaborate on this concept, four examples are explained below :
1.) Upon initially meeting someone, you wonder if they are attracted to you. You are interested in them, but wish to get to know them better before you express this to them. Your interpersonal relationship with them at this time is recent and superficial. Additionally, you want to be sure that you are correctly interpreting their signals before you express your feelings in the case that the feeling is not mutual.
With your first encounters with this
person, you’ll be paying attention to how they carry themselves around you, their body language, how they speak, and even their preferences. You probably won’t get information at first such as their previous history with relationships, but it is possible to be able to subtly acquire details in your first few conversations that you can use later on to determine if and how you’ll act.
2.) You have an innovation for a business idea and are thinking about
expressing this to a coworker. Your relationship with this person is
medium-term and relatively superficial.
Your reason for wanting to observe their behavior prior to expressing your idea is to see if they would be a suitable business partner and if you two are compatible to work together, and you want to use this information to determine how you should come to them to evoke the best response. Things you need to observe about them are their body language, preferences, impulses, how they verbally communicate, and some minor insight to their personal life
and past experiences. Also, defining their drive and points of concentration is very useful information in this case.
3.) You and your significant other have been in a relationship for a year. It
is getting serious and you are thinking about asking them to move in together.
Learn Yourself to Learn About Others
Start from the beginning
