Personal Development Author

Good listening is all about the other person. It requires us to give full attention to what they are saying, not only to the actual words but also to their body language and tone of voice. We need to be sensitive to the personal and physical context of the conversation; we need to be alert to shifts and nuances as the talk develops.

Whether you’re listening to a friend or family member, a student, a client, a social acquaintance, your boss, a colleague, they need to feel they have been given the appropriate degree of attention and a satisfying level of response.

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My, how we love our acronyms, or — to be more precise — how we love our acronyms and initialisms. An acronym is an abbreviation formed from a series of initial letters which can be pronounced as a word, like NASA, for example. An initialism is when the initials don’t make a pronounceable word, as in DNA.

No need to be picky, though. Acronym will do just fine as we explore some of the delights and pitfalls of using this oh-so-handy communicative tool.

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Apparently, there are six levels of friendship which describe the closeness of our relationships. We have pre-acquaintances, a term which does bring to mind those motivational posters which tell you that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, and we have higher-level acquaintances, and then there are pre-friends, and… that’s enough. You get the idea.

If you like this system you could adopt it wholesale, or even add your own calibrations. Many happy hours await you, drawing a pyramid diagram, perhaps, with colour coding, or how about a spreadsheet? What better way to acknowledge and celebrate the people in our lives than to rank them in order according to their importance?

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Who would have thought that a concept which is generally applied to enable successful international business situations would be equally helpful to communicating successfully with our friends and families? We’re talking about an idea developed by anthropologist Edward T Hall in 1976 to describe cultural differences in communication styles.

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We love success stories, particularly when success is hard won. Tales of triumph over adversity warm our hearts. Stories which confirm or strengthen our belief in the capacity of the human spirit to overcome setbacks can bring comfort and hope. This is particularly so when the adverse circumstances are undeniably severe. In less intense contexts, we are pleased to celebrate others’ achievements and successes in their personal and professional lives. Everyone loves a winner, right?

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My, don’t we love alliterative phrases. The pleasing power of alliteration has been harnessed, for good or for ill, by poets, dramatists, novelists, politicians, marketing and advertising industries and the rest since the year dot.

When it comes to the words we use to frame and communicate our own personal and internal world, the catchy resonance of an expression which has entered into general usage can lead to an automatic assumption that it has some kind of truth and authority. But it can be a bad idea to let a cute alliterative phrase become a guiding principle just because it trips off the tongue.

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Boundaries — well now, hasn’t that become a fashionable word? Who would have thought that a word that references separation and lines of demarcation would so handily describe our efforts to define and communicate to others the whole range of our needs and wishes?

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We’ve all experienced them at some point, probably — people whose company leaves us feeling emotionally depleted and drained of energy. You might be familiar with the term ‘drains and radiators’, which contrasts the effect this behaviour has on us with the lovely warmth we experience from the company of those whose presence is uplifting and delightful. We can use the expression with a light touch. Its meaning is clear, and the plumbing reference acts as a buffer against hurtfulness.

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Most of us are probably not aware that we use poetic language as a matter of course. Similes, metaphors, images, all that stuff is what playwrights and literary types come up with to convey and illuminate meaning and emotion. Nothing to do with the way ordinary people talk, right?

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Easter doesn’t get much of a look-in when it comes to making resolutions. January is, of course, the top time for vowing to put ourselves through agony as we determine to do the things we believe we should, and beat ourselves up when we have broken every resolution by Burns Night.
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(With apologies to Joy Division)

Well, who would have thought that full stops and exclamation marks would ever play a significant part in our relationships?

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‘Sorry for your loss’. In recent times, this sad phrase has resonated with many, far too many, of us. The expression encompasses what is so hard to express, our sympathy, our awareness of the devastation of death, our inadequacy in the face of grief and loss.

The words are a bridge, forming a connection between the bereaved and the person offering condolence. Sometimes there is a feeling of relief once they are spoken — there, I managed to say something, I did the right thing, I expressed sympathy.

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