Building and Maintaining Positive Relationships

One place where your communication skills are tested more than any other is in your relationships. Your ability to maintain good relationships will be one of the most important factors in your success, whether those relationships are personal or business.
photo credit: Sydigill

Most of us can start a relationship off on the right foot. But the challenge is to maintain those relationships as they grow, evolve and become something different. Often the failure is our inability to be use our emotional intelligence effectively.

So what does it take to use your emotional intelligence and communication skills in relationships?

The various skills you’ll need include the ability to manage stress, being able to communicate non-verbally, being relaxed by using humor and play, recognizing your emotions and learning to solve conflicts.

If you’re stressed out, your ability to think clearly is compromised. Your active listening skills are dampened. Perhaps you won’t even trust what others are saying.

Non-verbal communication skills play a more important part in personal relationships than a business relationship, but being aware of your body language and reading others’ body language is important.

If you’re relaxed and laughing often in your relationship, chances are your relationship is fresh and engaging. When you and your partner are finding a healthy way to laugh about things, you’re creating a bond.

When your relationship faces a conflict or disagreement, your ability to resolve that conflict in a healthy way will pave the way towards an emotionally satisfying relationship. No two people can agree on everything, so conflicts of some sort are inevitable. By staying in the present, controlling your emotions and behavior and being respectful of the other person, you can often resolve conflicts and avoid arguments and fights.

In business relationships, the ability to resolve conflicts helps you maintain current clients and bring in new business.

Relationship success comes down to your communication skills and your emotional intelligence. How are doing in your relationships? What do you need to work on?

By being objective, and looking at your communication in a ‘third-person’ view, you can often spot areas that need work. Sometimes the hardest thing to do, though, is to try and resolve a conflict and stay ‘neutral’ in at least some part of your mind.

But by doing so, and working to actively hear what the other person is saying before you try and formulate your response, you’re giving the other person respect. And respect (to your partner and yourself) leads to better communication.

Which leads to improved relationships!