Do You Make These Common Mistakes When Talking to People?

Many moons ago. Talking to people was something I avoidednwhere possible.

At the time, I did not know I was unconsciously settingnmyself up for failure. I kept making the same mistakesnwithout even noticing what I was doing wrong.

You may be doing the same thing.

Here are three common mistakes together with tips on how tondeal with them:

1. Judging Your Performance Against Unrealistic Standards

Be honest with yourself.

Accept that where you are now in terms of you
communication skills is only your starting point - not you
finishing point.

And assess your performance and your progress against you
typical level of effectiveness. Not against some desirednstate of perfection or ultimate goal.

Goals are very important as a destination to aim for but donnot use long term goals as a standard to judge your currentnperformance against - that is a recipe for disillusionmentnand massive frustration.

I know. Because I tried it!

2. The Failure To Learn Each Day

As people we can be lazy. This means that a lack of follownthrough on our goals can go unnoticed. After all we cannalways catch up some other day.

This attitude will kill your dreams faster than you cannspell failure.

When I started to make massive improvements in how Inrelated to people I dedicated myself to becoming excellent.

Once I had proven strategies the rest was easy. I justnapplied the material each day. I improved each day because
I made it a priority and because I committed to applyingnthe material.

Now...

I also know people who learned the same peak performancenstrategies I learned. Today they are no farther ahead thannthey were years ago.

How did they pull that off?

By putting it off until another day and by neglecting tonuse what they had learned. Implementation is crucial.

If you do this your progress is a certainty.

3. Attempting To Be Original

Many years ago I put myself under huge pressure bynexpecting myself to be original with each person I met.

This is a sure-fire strategy for failure and a great way tonget stressed out for no reason.

Guess what I later discovered?

There is no need to be original. You can have the samenconversation all day long with different people and nobodynwill suspect a thing!

People are happy to talk about mundane topics because therenis no effort involved.

I have lived or worked in several countries including
Ireland, England, Germany, Holland, Spain and the U.S.

And everywhere I have been people are happy to talk all daynabout:nn- the weathe
- their childrenn- the new movien- the family petn- the bossn- the traffic

You get the idea!