Have conversations like your life depends on it

Because it does

The quality of our relationships equals the quality of our life.

How we interact and connect with others largely drives how we feel, how healthy we are, and what we are capable of in life.

Dr. Waldinger, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, says it like this: 

“The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”

But we don’t need studies to tell us this, we know on a gut level how important relationships are in our life.

I’ve always subconsciously known that I wanted strong friendships, to find a loving partner, and have a close relationship with my family.

But wanting it and knowing how to make it happen are two entirely different things.

I wasn’t taught in school how to do any of this, were you?

‘Principles of Friendship Creation’, ‘Romantic Partnership Fundamentals’, ‘Family Dynamics 101’. I would have taken all of those, but sadly, they weren’t part of the curriculum when I was in school (and still aren’t to my knowledge).

Only later in life did I discover the key to consciously, actively, and purposefully building relationships.

It’s personal

For a long time after high school, I basically had the same group of friends. It was a great bunch of guys but when we got older and naturally started drifting apart, I didn’t really know how to make new ones. How do you do that? Make friends.

I’ve always had an ‘okay’ relationship with my dad. Nothing bad or problematic, but maybe just a little distant and stiff. Always a handshake, never a hug. Although I wanted to be closer, I had no clue how to go about it.

And when, after a couple of short lived romantic relationships, I met my current life partner, although there was a spark and an immediate connection, I can’t say that inter-relational communication was our strong suit. To the point where, at a particular moment in the relationship, we almost broke up indefinitely.

In all of these, I couldn’t put my finger on why the relationship wasn’t doing well. Maybe I just wasn’t good at them?

But then I got trained as a professional, certified coach.

I’m not saying it like that to brag, I just want to point out that the reason I got trained was to become a professional coach. To be a working professional.

But, to my surprise, the biggest impact the training had was on my personal life.

What I did not know before getting trained is that becoming a coach means becoming a better, more effective, and more supportive communicator.

It’s basically a superpower that is 1:1 related to having better conversations and building better relationships.

I started making new friends (from scratch!), I grew closer to my dad, and my relationship with my partner grew stronger and closer.

Relationships are built in conversations, and conversations can be trained and practiced I discovered.

Turns out ‘quality time’ is a skill.

Opportunity

“Your legacy is every life you’ve touched.” — Maya Angelou

A job interview, a first date, a sincere apology. Milestone-conversations like this have a clear weight and importance to them. We mentally prepare for them, we take an extra couple of breaths before we step into the room.

But it’s not only about the ‘important’ conversations in our life. The ones that are on our calendar. All of our conversations will impact our futures in some way. Even the seemingly insignificant ones.

Every conversation is an opportunity.

To touch someone’s life. To connect with another human being. To practice.

If you want to cultivate, grow, and nurture new and existing relationships you can use this to your advantage.

By focusing on having one good conversation at a time.

Practice time

Are you up for some informal coach training practice?

Here are three suggestions to help you engage in some high-quality, relationship-deepening conversations right away.

It starts with lots of silence from your side.

This might be the hardest one, but it’s a worthwhile practice. When you provide the space for your conversation partner to talk, they will feel invited to talk.

Welcome the awkward silence and resist jumping in.

Lowering the percentage of you speaking even a little bit will make a radical difference in how a conversation feels. Let alone when you get really good at this and have the ability to bite your tongue on a regular basis ;)

Up next, listening to understand.

Instead of coming up with your own interesting idea as a response, first, double-check with them if you’ve understood what they meant. By reflecting back to them what they’ve just said in your own words.

You can paraphrase, summarize, or pick out one thing from their ramblings, as long as you refer to something they’ve just expressed.

We all know people like this. You have just shared something deeply personal and immediately they have to one-up you with something that happened to them (that was somehow way more interesting it seems). Annoying right? It feels like they haven’t heard at all what you’ve just said.

As you might have guessed, I was one of those people before I got trained. And reflecting has become my antidote.

To close out this list: start asking questions that serve them (instead of satisfying your own curiosity).

You can still be curious, I would even strongly recommend it, just make sure the question that leaves your lips helps them explore, clarify, or expand on something they were just talking about.

For example, something like: ‘What did you mean by [fill in the blank]?’

Maybe these three pointers seem awkward and unnatural at first, but the good news is you can start practicing right now. Why not ambush the next person you talk to? Try out one of these in your next conversation and feel how the connection deepens instantly.

The quality of your conversations determines the quality of your relationships, which in turn determines the quality of your life.

One conversation at a time.