One of the keys to a successful and happy life is the ability to have great relationships - at home, at work, and in your social life.
When we look at the power of NLP we can build on an understanding that assists un in developing and maintaining wonderful relationships.
By using NLP to model people who have great relationships through the following steps:
As a good listener momentarily step into the other person's world (without being sucked into their negative states). Being in the other person's world requires that you listen with openness.
In other words, while you are listening you do that and only that - you listen. This prepares you to rehearse and prepare to respond in a meaningful way.
Empathy means understanding and having a feel for their difficulty without trying to get involved unless asked.
Sympathy, feeling sorry for them, is disrespectful and indicates that you believe that they, on their own, do not have the resources to handle their own difficulty.
There will be plenty of these and you have a choice in whether you pay more attention to their good points or their imperfections. The more you discover a person's good points and focus on these the more your respect for them increases.
You will have many of your own, make sure you recognise these, they will help remind you of your own value as you discover the values of the other person. This then helps you open to a sharing of ideas and you will notice it leads to discovering what you like about the other person. They will see your interest and match it.
This is an especially common failing in life partnerships. Remember you did not choose the person because of their potential to be the person you wanted them to become. You got together because you loved one another and in the first flush of love you focused only on the things you liked about them.
So how is it that when we start living together or marry that we switch and begin to crowd out the lists of 'good points' by increasingly becoming obsessed with listing, and reminding them of, the things that we do not like about them?
Try it out for yourself
Take a moment right now to consider how this must make them feel - about themselves and about you.
Value the differences in how you and the other person thinks - and seek to learn from the other person. This is similar to the previous item. Often, it's our differences that make for the stimulation and the learning opportunities in friendships and relationships. When we first meet it is often the similarities between us that enable us to bond and create rapport. As we get to know the other person better, we begin to recognize the deeper differences.
Potentially these produce the strength of the relationship - as Ken Blanchard stated 'none of us is as smart as all of us' - as a team, our combined strengths and weaknesses make the partnership much stronger than the total of our individual strengths.
Value what you have in the relationship or friendship. Accept the person as a 'package deal'. Yet, as we get to know the other person better, many of us have a tendency to want to change others into our view of their potential - and we then proceed on a relentless campaign to change them!
This, of course, results in arguments, resentment, and hurt feelings. Yet even if we could change them, we'd likely lose respect for them for allowing us to have done it and for not having the personal strength to be themselves!
It takes time to really get to know someone, to find commonalities that work for both of you, to build a natural comfort in communication and discussion. To really build feelings and know this is someone you want to spend more time with. Give yourself the time to do just that.
Finally, make sure you make time for yourself. It’s important to make time to enjoy your own interests as well as sharing interests and time with someone else. We often miss people more when we do and enjoy a more enriched life too.
