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Tag: empathy

Journal prompts for clarity

The people I work with know how much I love questions. If you’re looking for answers, ask more questions.

Journaling is a priceless tool. And it doesn’t need to be a lengthy process; five minute in the morning is enough to inspire, reveal, clarify, and create. Here are 12 questions to get you started:

  • What does success mean?
  • What does failing look like?
  • Where in your life do you practice “all or nothing” thinking?
  • In what areas might you benefit from a less rigid perspective?
  • Do any of your boundaries stop you from exploring or evolving?
  • How do boundaries serve you?
  • What does it mean to show up imperfectly?
  • During uncertain moments, what do you rely on as you allow experiences to unfold?
  • What are the risks you take when sharing with others?
  • How do you show grace to yourself?
  • When you are tempted to turn inward, how can you challenge yourself to collaborate and create?
  • Who can you show appreciation to today?

Let me know what these questions bring up for you. Tweet me or send a note. We often know the answers we are seeking.

woman in blue suit jacket

7 steps to better questions

Better questions deepen relationships, build trust, and increase confidence. With intention and practice, your questions can become tools that strengthen your business and enhance personal relationships. Here are seven ways you can start:

1. Begin with an informed approach.

Before asking any questions, do your research. Learn more about the company, read up on the open position, see what you can find about the person you are interviewing. The best questions are grounded in knowledge. When you understand more about the person you’re speaking with, you can shape questions to be more engaging, thought-provoking, and relevant.

2. Get curious.

The best questions come from a genuine place of curiosity. Asking questions with sincere interest provides the platform for questions to serve as welcome invitations, not invasive challenges. Remember: Curiosity fosters excitement, and excitement is contagious. Your interest conveys positive intention.

3. Mirror spoken and unspoken language.

Notice the language used by the person you’re speaking with. Are they communicating in a formal tone or comfortable with casual phrases? How about their body language; are their hands folded in their lap or are their arms crossed over their chest? Just as you can mirror someone’s body language, you can also copy their speech. Observe patterns in pitch, vocabulary, and physical posture. You don’t need to imitate someone, but reflecting their physical and verbal communication styles can establish rapport and create a sense of familiarity.

4. Lead with empathy.

While asking questions, seek to understand that person’s worldview. What contributes to the way they see the world? How do they interpret events around them? Maintaining eye contact, using appropriate physical markers (nodding, facing your body towards the person you’re speaking to, and uncrossing your arms), and asking clarifying questions are ways to display empathy. Respect encourages openness and honesty.

5. Stay present.

If a difficult topic or answer arises, remain focused and grounded on the present moment. Do your best to avoid unnecessary distractions from your phone and the environment around you. If you’re struggling to hear the other person, make adjustments, and if the circumstance is too distracting, kindly ask to schedule another time to meet.

6. Open a door.

Open questions usher meaningful conversations. A question that can be answered by a “Yes” or “No” or a simple phrase won’t invite reflection or engagement. While open questions may be more challenging to ask (you’ll have to think carefully), these kinds of questions are more valuable for relationship-building. Here are a few examples of open and closed questions:

Closed: Did you have a good day?

Open: What was the best part of your day?

Closed: Did you like that product?

Open: Which feature was most valuable for you?

Closed: Do you like to travel?

Open: What’s your favorite travel memory?

Closed: Are you happy with our meeting?

Open: How are you feeling after our meeting?

The point of a good question is to open doors for conversation to take place.

7. Listen with intention.

After you ask a question, pay attention. Listening carefully after you’ve asked a question shows willingness to understand and learn. Instead of viewing silence as a rebuff, reframe it as a breath: You’re opening the bottle and giving ideas room to expand. Pause provides space for reflection and thought. Let the person fully explore your question and their answer.

How do you ask questions? Tell me on twitter @redheadlefthand.

Who are you making this for?

It’s fun to think about what you’re creating. Sometimes it can be difficult to pause and consider who you’re really designing for.

Before you get too involved, too excited, too invested in your project, take time to think about your intended audience:

What do they want?

What do they need?

Where do they go?

You’ll save yourself a lot of headache by planning accordingly.

(What’s important to you might not be important to them.)

Become the student

As systems and communities continue to evolve and change, the need to learn and listen is paramount.

Where is the line between advocacy and appropriation, and how can you appreciate groups you’re not a part of?

Appreciation is grounded in honor and respect, a genuine curiosity for a group and its people. This rides on the wings of earnestness; a desire to explore and understand.

Appropriation, however, has personal gain buried into action. Attention-seeking behavior has the power to hurt and harm both individuals and groups. More often than not, a negative stereotype is reinforced.

The divide between cultural appreciation and appropriation is a delicate perimeter outlined by intention.

Failing to identify intention can turn any well-meaning action into a divisive mechanism. If your intention isn’t clear, chances are high that you may unintentionally play into harmful stereotypes.

Revisit the reasons behind what you’re doing and why — and who your behavior might reach. The more you understand yourself and the factors that contribute to the way in which you see the world, the better you’ll be at developing empathy and authentic respect. Once you’ve assessed the role of your actions and your relationship to the culture or group of people you’re interested in, set out to learn.

Bring curiosity and kindness into your interactions. Let others guide conversations. It’s important to remember that having an experience does not equal true understanding. Questions open doors. 

Genuine curiosity and kindness are roots from which appreciation and reverence can blossom. From intention, humility and respect grow.

You can teach one thing. What is it?

This question is a favorite at dinners. My answer is always the same: Empathy.

“Empathic connection is an understanding of the heart in which we see the beauty in the other person, the divine energy in the other person, the life that’s alive in them.” —Marshall Rosenberg

What is empathy?

Now, more than ever, empathy is an essential teaching. Empathy is:

  • The capacity to consider another’s perspective
  • Learning about another’s worldview to better understand their behavior and intentions
  • Recognizing perspectives and experiences different from your own
  • Trying to minimize the distance between self and other
  • Choosing to “put yourself in their shoes”
  • A prelude to compassion
  • Essential for collaboration, understanding, effective discussions, and conflict resolution

It is our duty to find ways to listen, to converse, and to respond in ways that are respectful of the person sitting across from us. Trouble begins when we are unable to see us in them.

What do you need to practice empathy?

Empathy is NOT sympathy or pity.

We need empathy. We need it in our schools, our relationships, our governments, our businesses. The ability to connect reminds us of our shared humanity. Empathy requires:

  • Self awareness
  • Confidence
  • Openness
  • The ability to listen
  • Communication skills
  • Patience

When empathy is involved, relationships can flourish. Conversations become more meaningful, and solutions focus on what really matters.

Empathic intention influences those around us.

How can you bring empathy into your daily interactions?

Modified from original post Empathy 101.

Assigning meaning

Perspective keeps coming up in Positive Talk sessions. From media articles to family conversations, the meanings we assign to situations, reactions, and words can weigh significantly on our perception and interpretation of the world around us.

This is important for three reasons.

One, we get to choose how we want to interpret a given situation.

Two, we get to decide how important any situation will become.

Three, our choices dramatically impact the way we feel.

Now, more than ever, the definitions we use to understand ourselves, our communities, our cultures, and our world are open to interpretation. Though many of us are “stuck” physically, our minds are free to roam.

Perspective can be the flashlight needed to navigate uncertain, challenging circumstances.

It’s worth taking time to review your own assigned meanings. (And yes, it is possible to edit the meanings we have assigned to ourselves, to others, and to the ways in which we perceive what is happening around — and to — us.)

Each day, we make a series of decisions.

Decisions of worry or freedom. Creation or inaction. Calm or frenzy. Patience or frustration.

Take time to reconsider the meanings you assign.