Spirituality and Self Help

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost — Charles Caleb Colton

I’ve really struggled with relationships when I was growing up. Only after high school I started to understand what people like, what works and who I wanted to become. In this post I want to share some of the key principles I believe are important to maintain your friendships and to make new friends.

1Be honest. There is only one reason to lie when you meet people and that is the fear that they won’t like you the way you’re. of course lying won’t help you because even if they like the character you created it’s not you and sooner or later they’ll know it. Furthermore there is no such thing as brutally honest there is only brutal or honest.

2Don’t judge. When you judge someone you instantly change your relationship, it’s as if he can feel it. Moreover if something really bothers you then it’s a sign of an unresolved issue. Maybe you acted the way he did in the past or maybe you believe that you’re not allowed to act the way he did. Whatever it is it’s not related to the other person.

3Don’t gossip. There is only one exception to this rule, you can only gossip if it’s funny. If it’s not funny then it’s probably mean. You probably think that the people you’re telling are enjoying it, well maybe they do but they also think that if you gossip about other people you probably gossip about them too and they’ll be reluctant to open up to you.

4Don’t criticize. If something bothers you it’s best to talk about it instead of keeping it inside until you explode, but unless you’re someones boss criticizing won’t help. People tend to remember compliments because it makes them feel good. For instance if your wife has made you an omelet with onion and you don’t like onion instead of telling her how much you hate onion try telling her how much you love her omelets and that you prefer them without onion. It’s simple and it works.

5Make people feel good. Half the time people aren’t going to remember your words but they’ll always remember how you make them feel. With time they will associate your face with the feelings you make them feel, In NLP it’s called an anchor. This is the reason you smile when you see someone you like, you remember the feelings.

6Be genuinely interested in other people. Can you guess what interest people the most? That’s right themselves. If you’ll ask people about themselves they will be happy to answer and they will become interested in you, after all you must be interesting if you’re interested in them right? There is something you can learn from everyone you meet, often it’s things that you can’t learn from books.

7The world doesn’t revolve around you. Unless they want revenge for something you did, people usually don’t try to hurt you on purpose. Most of the time people just act the way they do because of their childhood programing. Remember that It’s not personal and they probably act this way to everyone they meet.

8You teach people how to treat you. When people first meet you they don’t know what to expect, so they assume that everything they’ll do is ok. They assume that until you tell them differently. It’s your job to tell people how you want to be treated.

9Learn to be a good listener. We all want to feel important and by really listening to someone you can help them feel it. A good technique to show people that you listened is to wait until they’ve finished talking and then repeat their general idea with your own words. For example they say something and then you say: ” so you mean that…”

10Relationships are a two way street. Think about relationships like a bank account, if you want to withdraw you have to deposit. In other words if you want to ask for favors you have to invest in the relationship first. The investment doesn’t have to be a favor, it can be a compliment or anything that makes the other feel good about himself.

The following video explains about rapport and the next video explains how to establish it.

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