Are you tired of mundane chit-chat and conversations that leave you feeling disconnected? Good news! You’ve arrived at the perfect place to sharpen your skills. Today, we’re diving into 7 tips to improve your conversations, so you can connect with people on a deeper level.
Let’s jump right in and start with the basics.
The Art of Not Interrupting
We’ve all been there – getting cut off mid-sentence, feeling like our conversation partner couldn’t care less about what we have to say. Sure, sometimes we just can’t help ourselves. Or sometimes, we need to interrupt to say we didn’t hear the person who has the floor. Most of the time, you can save your comment for the end, though. If it happens, there’s always room for redemption with an “Oops, sorry I interrupted, keep going!”
Escaping the One-Upmanship Trap
Imagine this: your friend shared their holiday misadventure of getting lost in a foreign city, and you just can’t resist chiming in with your epic saga of being stranded on a deserted island for days. You’ve entered the realm of one-upping, where you’re the protagonist, and everyone else is just an extra.
Whether it’s a catastrophe or a charming anecdote, one-upping turns your conversation partner into a background character in their own narrative. Trust us, nobody wants to feel like they’re merely a prop for your grand performance.
But here’s the real plot twist: if your mind is racing to craft your one-upping tale while someone’s telling their story, you’re not truly listening. You’re planning. Instead, focus on what the other person is saying and save your story for another time. If you’re still yearning to share your experience, at least acknowledge their story first, empathizing with how they felt before jumping into your own riveting tale.
Knowing When to Advise and When to Listen
It’s very automatic to want to offer advice to someone who is opening up to you and telling you about what they’re facing. But not everyone wants your unsolicited nuggets of wisdom. Sometimes, people just need to vent and want someone to lend an empathetic ear. So, before you start dishing out what you would do, ask if they’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter. And if they say no, respect their decision.
Dodging the Pitfalls of Bright-washing
Constantly pushing others to see the bright side? Tone it down, sunshine. Don’t get me wrong, a positive attitude has a lot of power. Here at Micro Matters, we try to see the silver lining in most things. However, it’s important to remember that toxic optimism is real. While maintaining positivity is great, it’s equally essential to acknowledge a situation’s difficult reality and sit with those feelings for a bit. Let them process as is. It’s also important to recognize those difficulties in someone else’s life before shuffling them along to the fields of Zen. Otherwise, even though that nudge to look on the bright side comes from a place of support, it can come across as invalidating. Remember, you can rarely go wrong with simply lending an empathetic ear. This small change can substantially improve your conversations because people like to be heard and validated for their experiences.
Conversation, Not Conquest
Ah, the irresistible urge to be the victor in every conversation–it’s quite the rush of joy! Except…when we’re gripped by the need to be right, we often forget that we’re in a dialogue, not a duel. Instead of genuinely listening to our fellow combatants—I mean conversationalists—we morph into cunning debaters. We’re not listening; we are seeking out chinks in their armor and strategizing how to advance our opinion. In doing so, we lose an opportunity for meaningful connection.
Authentic connections blossom when we discover common ground or empathize with differing perspectives. Don’t get me wrong, not all viewpoints are created equal. And I’m not asking you to become a centrist in your outlook. I’m simply asking that you first find what connects you to the person you’re talking to instead of vaulting to conversational victory. Finding common ground and embracing our differences is the secret ingredient to genuinely unforgettable exchanges. For more information on how to handle any argument, see this video from Harvard’s former debate coach.
Pivoting Out of Small Talk and Into Deep Connection
Small talk: some people are great at it, and some can drone on for far too long about the weather. Charisma on Command has a great video on the art of small talk. Now, let’s throw convention out the window and embrace the beauty of deeper conversations. Research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that people who dive into seemingly too-personal questions with strangers actually feel less awkward and more engaged. Instead of asking about the weather, try “What’s something you’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t had the chance to yet?” or “What is something that you’re passionate about that others might not know?”
You might have to lean into some initial awkwardness because it’s an unconventional approach to improve your conversations. And always remember to respect another person’s communication boundaries. But, in general, people enjoy moving beyond superficialities and have reported feeling more connected and happier with a more profound conversation. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty with people and watch our conversations morph into meaningful and fulfilling connections, simply by asking the right questions. For more information, I left the study at the bottom of the page.
Be an Intellectual Explorer
Simple: assume the person you’re talking to knows something you don’t. Everyone has something to offer because we speak to our vantage point. That means our knowledge will have unique insight because of our specialized experience in life, but it also means that it will be limited. The best way to enter any conversation is to do it with a deep sense of humility, ready to learn something new. That redesigns a conversation into a space where you can fill in your knowledge gaps, uncover fresh ideas, or understand a new perspective. When you leave a conversation feeling great, it’s usually because you’ve discovered something new.
Bonus Tips
Now that we’ve covered our seven tips to transform you into a master of the conversational arts, let’s throw in a couple of bonus pointers to elevate your chat game even further.
Pause before replying
Not a long, dramatic one, unless that’s your style. I’m talking about a classy 3-5 second silence. Those brief interludes provide a couple of benefits:
- You ace tip #1 by avoiding the risk of interrupting, especially if someone is simply catching their breath.
- You give the speaker’s words time to soak in deeper. Furthermore, from your conversation partner’s perspective, it shows you’re giving careful consideration before jumping in with your own comments. Win-win.
Sprinkle in self-deprecation
Let’s be honest; conversations aren’t always the witty banter you hear on TV shows. Real life is peppered with filler words, pauses, awkward timings, and cringe-worthy statements. Self-deprecation goes a long way in powering through those rough patches. For example, call yourself out if you ask a bad question or find yourself on a tirade, taking too long of a talking turn.
I live in a very international city that’s chock full of ex-pats. And one thing I’ve been doing lately is calling out myself whenever I get stuck in this highly boring series of questions that is too easy to fall back on when meeting someone new in this transient city: What do you do for work? Where are you from? How long have you lived here? What. A. Snoozefest. I call myself out when that happens so I can break free from that boring template, and all parties involved can have a chuckle about it. This lighthearted approach allows us all to step back, laugh at being human, and navigate through those conversational blunders to get to the better territory.
There you have it, folks. The secret sauce to leveling up your conversation game with 7 nifty tips. And a couple of bonus rubies! Just remember, slipping up and interrupting or doling out unsolicited advice doesn’t make us terrible friends or partners. What matters is that those are all opportunities to navigate through those misaligned moments and get back on track. So, get out there, improve your conversations, and make some genuine connections.
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Extra Resources
Just wanted to let you know that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and I will receive a small commission if you purchase that item. It’s a way for me to keep this blog running, so I appreciate your support. Oh, and don’t worry, I promise the commission won’t be enough to make me rich. Unless, of course, you all buy lots of stuff and tell all of your friends too. In that case, I’m happy to accept the generosity while creating more helpful content!
- Books
- Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
- Study
- Overly shallow?: Miscalibrated expectations create a barrier to deeper conversation
- Videos
- Charisma on Command
- Big Think