Listen and Enhance Communication!

I often wonder whether people are really truly understanding what I am communicating to them because it feels like they are there really only in body and not listening properly, to what I am communicating to them.

Our communication experiences are enhanced when we actively listen to each other. Active listening means putting everything else out of your mind and acknowledging the other person with eye contact, facial gestures, words that confirm you understand, and perhaps even touch so they have feedback that you are listening properly and valuing what they have to say. Here are some of the reasons that active listening improves communication.

• When people notice how well you listen to them, they usually reciprocate and try to understand you better. They feel valued and therefore value you more.

• Communication improves, Relationships improve. Friendships develop and deepen.

• You receive more accurate information because communication is more effective. People explaining problems are more inclined to give you the whole story.

• People encouraged by your active listening often discover solutions to their own problems. The opportunity to talk things over is all many people need to see the issue in its proper perspective.

• You get on better with people. Active listening combined with empathy makes it easier to solve problems or at least reach a compromise.

• You can discover not only what people are saying, but why they are saying it. You learn more about what is really going on ‘between the lines’ through more effective communication

They all seem pretty good reasons to take the time to improve active listening skills and a small investment for our prize of better communication.  What could you do to improve your listening and enhance your communication?

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Falling in Love

There’s plenty of advice and rules around for getting a girl to fall in love with you. This is not about those rules and advice. This little article focuses on the basics that can be used to strengthen a girl’s feeling of love for you. Love can’t be forced. It has to take it’s course.
Things You’ll Need:

• Patience
• Kindness
• Respect
• Sincerity
• Honesty

Step 1
If you want a girl to fall in love with you, just make her the center of your respect and admiration. Treat her well and do things that you know will make her happy. A girl will most likely fall in love with a guy when she knows she is important to him. Make her smile, make her laugh, and show her that she can be happy with you. She’ll fall in love with you because she feels happy when with you and when thinking about you.

Step 2
Offer her your support and friendship. Falling in love is about offering her a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to, and a friend to be there when she needs one most. A woman will find it hard to open herself up to a man who cannot be her friend. In order to fall in love, a woman needs someone who will listen to her fears and troubles and know that you’re being sincere. Remember, it’s not all about you. Letting go of your expectations will also help you relax, which will make you more appealing to a girl than if you are uptight and worried.

Step 3
Give her lots of attention and lavish her with love. If you want a woman to fall in love with you, you have to show her how much she means to you. Telling her how you feel is great, but showing her your love is the key. Kiss her often, cuddle her, and do sweet things for her like making dinner, giving her a massage, or buying flowers for no particular reason. When a woman knows how much she means to you, she feels secure and this increases the chance that she’ll fall in love with you.

Step 4
Show her that you’re a sincere and genuine man. A woman needs security to fall in love, just as anyone does, and if you show her that your feelings and intentions are real, she’ll be more likely to fall head over heels in love with you. A woman knows when someone is not being true…it’s called woman’s intuition. So, if she senses you’re not being genuine with her, she will not let you in. If you’re honest and real with the woman you care for, she’ll offer the same in return and love will blossom before you know it. Love is patient, kind, and honest…treat the woman you care about with respect and be true to her…she’ll love you for putting her feelings first and give you the same or more in return. Love thrives in the absence of pressure (in the form of neediness and clinginess).

Step 5
Give her space. This step can be looked at in many ways and can get distorted easily. It isn’t about playing hard-to-get. The point is to give the girl the control of what happens next. This step isn’t about ignoring her so SHE has to call you, or avoiding long conversations with her to torment her into loving you. Just allow her to live her life outside you. Allow her to see a movie without you. Allow her to be without you and she will then decide to love you on her own terms.
If you’re shy, you might end up giving her too much space. You still need to express your interest in her (flirt a little, and when the time is right, kiss her). Just don’t smother her. Give her some time to reflect on those moments and realise how awesome they were.

Further Tips:-

• Be yourself and don’t try to be someone else to make a woman fall in love with you…she’ll see through this and know you’re not being sincere…if she’s going to love you, it will be for the person you already are.
• You can’t make someone fall in love with you…so if it’s not there, don’t force it…love comes naturally.
• Don’t get angry if your partner hasn’t said “I love you” yet…love takes time and needs kind encouragement to flourish.
• Don’t be afraid to fall in love yourself…you can’t have someone fall in love with you if you are not the falling in love kind. . Love often starts with friendship and often comes with time, and in that time you need to show the girl that you are worth being around. This is the fun part! The only way this will work, though, is if you believe, on some level, that you are lovable and worth being around. It’s very difficult to fall in love with someone who thinks badly of themselves.

Once in love, your relationship has to be nurtured and respected. Love is only one part of a healthy relationship–the rest depends on effort and patience.

Now that you have got to the end of the article you might be thinking I knew all of that.  But now go back, take your time and truly ask yourself the questions:

• When was the last time I bought flowers for no reason for someone I care for or love?
• When was the last time I was there for some one who needed support?
• When was the last time I cried with laughter with some one I love?

If you can’t remember when, look in the mirror, ask yourself  who you could show your love to first and how could you express that?

Remember: The more you give out the more you will receive and it is never to late to say “I love you”.

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How To Tell If A Guy’s Into You

Would you like to know if a guy likes you or is interested? Perhaps you noticed him when you were crossing at the lights, standing in a check-out queue or talking with a friend. Did he notice you? You think so, but maybe it was your imagination or just wishful thinking. Your eyes met for just a few seconds, and then you both looked away. When you looked back up, he was talking with someone. Was he watching you as you socialised? Or were you making that up? How can you tell if a guy likes you? Why is it so hard to read a guy?

We’ve put together five signs that he is interested in you too. If any of the following happen, he is on the verge of asking you out:

1. He tells someone he’s interested
Is he interested? He likes you if he tells a mutual friend that he wants to know more about you, or he asks other people who you are and where you’re from. He is trying to act like he’s “just asking” but his questions indicate more than a casual interest. And when he tells someone that he finds you attractive, he probably knows that it will get back to you. He’s hoping it does.

2. The gives you the look
Was that him giving you THE look? He gives you a look that betrays his calm exterior. Even from across the room, “that look” says it all. It sweeps from your head to your toes, and then his eyes linger on yours and then lock in. Was that the beginning of a tentative smile? You think so!

3. The conversation
Does he like you? When he manages to get close enough to ask you questions, he is interested. He appears to be listening and responds to what you say. He’s moving in to the ultimate question, which is: “Are you seeing anyone?” and he hopes the answer is “No.”  He would only ask this question if he wanted to go out with you. If he doesn’t ask you the question of whether or not you are attached, he may ask someone whom you both know.

4. He turns up unexpectedly
He likes you a lot if he shows up out of nowhere. He can only do that if he has been asking people about your schedule, or he has been paying attention to where you said you’d be  going and at what time. He may be embarrassed when he sees you. A sudden, “Oh, hi,” is his way of saying, “I don’t want to seem obvious, but I am very interested in you.” If you feel the same way, do not act shy. Stop and talk to him.

5. EVERYONE likes you. . . so why wouldn’t he?
Is he interested? Will he like you too? When you are well liked and a happy and positive person, why wouldn’t he like you? Of course he does. He wants to get to know everything about you. If you don’t have a great life, however, now is your time to start working on one. Take a look at your career possibilities, body image, future plans, areas of your life that are not working and resources. You may be naturally talented at something, but it won’t matter unless you work on your strengths. Misused or unused talents fade away. Training and coaching do not.

So what do you have to gain? Make it easy for him and be friendly. This is how relationships begin.

Confident Future Newsletter

Would you like to receive a short and sweet weekly success strategy sent to your inbox? These were made available due to popular demand, they are thought provoking and implementable in your life now. To receive your weekly dose of inspiration from us and begin benefiting from our information now, fill in the box below.

Why Modern Relationships Aren’t Working

What was good enough for our parents doesn’t seem to be good enough for us.  We are no longer willing to make such enormous personal sacrifices.  We demand and deserve lasting happiness, intimacy and passion with a single partner.  If we don’t get it we are prepared to sacrifice the marriage; personal fulfilment is now more important than the family unit.

What’s the solution?  It’s not in divorce or self-sacrifice.  The answer lies in learning to create relationships that support our personal fulfilment.  There is nothing wrong with wanting more than our parents did.  The truth is, times have changed, and our values have changed with them.  The new problems we face are not symptoms of failure, rather the result of the evolution of our society.

Over and over we have witnessed couples on the verge of divorce miraculously fall in love again.  Through discovering and recognising their mistakes, they do not feel so powerless and hopeless.  Their hearts open up again. Understanding our parts of the problem lets us release our blame and begin practicing new skills, which transform our relationships.

Why Many Modern Women are Unhappy
They are overworked, overstressed, and commonly feel unsupported and overwhelmed with good reason.  At no other time in history has so much been expected of them.  At least 5 days a week, they put on a uniform and march into an 8-12 hour battle.  When they come home, they need to clean the house, make the dinner, do laundry, love and nurture the kids, and also be pleasing and happy as well as romantically receptive to their mates.  It’s just too much to ask of themselves, and it’s making them feel split inside.  At work, women are required to think, talk, react, dress and behave according to the traditional masculine rules of conduct.  At home, they have to switch to being warm, giving and feminine.

Why Many Modern Men are Dissatisfied
Modern men feel underpaid, defeated and unappreciated.  Like women, they are experiencing the toll that a two-career marriage takes.  Years ago, when a man returned to a stay-at-home wife she could easily show him how much she appreciated his efforts and sacrifices.  Happy to care for him because she wasn’t stressed out, she asked for very little in return.  Now, abruptly, the home as a male comfort base is under siege.  Many men work just as hard, if not harder than their forefathers, but still can’t manage to be their family’s sole support.  Deprived of the strong sense of self that being a sole provider would bring him, on a deep emotional level he easily feels defeated when his partner seems unhappy and unfulfilled.

The work world does nothing to nourish the female spirit and is dramatically affecting the quality of man/woman relationships.  Men are wired to give all to their work, then come home and receive.  To a great extent women are built to give and receive at the same time.  Women love to give but need to be fuelled simultaneously: when they give without receiving, they tend to give more and eventually feel overwhelmed, empty, and resentful. In some cases, just as the woman feels responsible for doing it all at home, a man is socially programmed to also feel that it is all her responsibility.  Just as it is difficult for her to relax and do less, it is equally difficult for him to find the energy to help out.  His programming is saying that his job is done when he returns home, while hers is saying she needs to do more.

The difference between female burn out and fulfilment is determined not by how much a woman does at work but by the quality of the support she receives.  A woman can forget the problems of the day by remembering them and talking about them.  She does this in a non-linear, unedited, emotional way.  Men banish the problems of the day by not talking about them.  By bringing them up in conversation, a man would have to address himself to solving them.

While it is important for men not to talk, it is equally important for woman to talk – but it is not necessary for him to talk back to her, he only needs to listen.  A man can be stressed out from a day at work, but if his partner is happy with him he feels fulfilled – when he senses her appreciation of his labour, his stress level dissipates.  But when an exhausted woman returns home to a happy man, he doesn’t make her day.  She needs to communicate and feel some nurturing support before she can begin to appreciate him.

A man thrives on appreciation because it directly nurtures his male side.
A woman thrives on communication because it directly nurtures her female side.
By understanding and honouring these differences we can create mutually fulfilling relationships.

How can you use this information in your relationship?Are you dissatisfied or unhappy with how things have been lately? A coach may be able to help! Confident Future has 11 units that specifically focus around creating the relationship of your dreams! So what are you waiting for? Get in touch if you want more information by providing your email address below!