A Communication Strategy that Creates Positive Relationships

One winning communication strategy is to always develop positive relationships with people. Most of us want to do well in life and work, and we want to look forward to our day, not get out of bed with a feeling dreadful or apprehensive.

If you add these ten tips to your toolkit, you will build stronger, positive relationships.

1. Speak to people: There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.
2. Smile at people: It takes 72 muscles to frown, but only 14 to smile.
3. Call people by name: The sweetest music to anyone’s ears is the sound of their own name used properly and positively.
4. Be friendly and helpful: To make a friend, you have to be a friend.
5. Be cordial: Speak and act as if everything you do is a genuine pleasure.
6. Be genuinely interested in people: You can find things to like in almost anybody if you try.
7. Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.
8. Be considerate with the feelings of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy: yours, the other person’s, and the truth.
9. Be alert to give service: What counts most in life is what we do for others.
10. Practice your positive sense of humor: The kind that is about telling funny stories about yourself, not other people.

None of these techniques are rocket science, but our ability to apply them sometimes slips away from us.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your present ability to carry out these 10 strategies on a daily basis?
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Words are the building blocks of good communication, but from them, we still have to build meaning. Throughout our lives, we can challenge ourselves with learning new and better ways and words with which to enhance our communication with others.

Words are very important in our efforts to communicate with others. Make a list of words that you may be currently using as: Self-Defeating Talk or Uplifting Talk. Being aware of how you use these words (positively or negatively) in your everyday conversations will help you improve your relationships –personally and professionally.

If this post caught your interest, you should take a look at what our Trained By Pros course, Communication Strategies, has to offer.