Improving our techniques for reading people will help us better interpret others and, consequently, improve our social relationships. Born to communicate
Humans are a social species. Literally, we need others to survive, so no matter how much we have occasional misanthropic attacks and want to settle in a lost cave in the mountains to avoid seeing anyone, the reality is that we couldn't live without other people around us. And since we have no choice but to tolerate others, we have learned to communicate with them. In fact, having good communication tools guarantees us a certain level of social success; speaking appropriately or writing correctly are essential skills for coexistence. We communicate in many ways: through spoken and written language, in other languages, in Braille or sign language, through our body position and facial expressions. We also communicate with onomatopoeias and noises and have a professional language, a language to demonstrate what we know, and another to speak to our loved ones and friends. We have a language to speak and another to be silent. Knowing the emotions of others is something that, generally, we know innately because they are emotions that we also feel and, unless we have some pathology, our brain has enough
mirror neurons to empathize with others. But like any innate skill, the ability to read people can be trained and perfected.
Benefits of reading people
Training the ability to read people can change ourselves and our social relationships in many ways. It depends on us and how we focus this learning. To begin with, almost everything we do in life (play, study, work, have fun, etc.) we do surrounded by other people. Knowing how to interpret their emotions correctly will give us the possibility of practicing all those facets of our life in harmony with those around us. In broad terms, reading people helps us get to know them better and know how to behave and what to expect from each of them. In class, it will allow us to make friends easily or make a good impression on teachers. On the way to the university
eTítulo, it is important to surround ourselves with good companions with whom we not only build friendship but also become over time a strong network of professional and personal contacts. At work, we will be able to get along well with our colleagues while also being liked by our bosses. Reading people well will allow us to improve our social position, prevent conflicts, or resolve them easily. If we are able to read the people around us, we will have stronger and healthier family and couple relationships and deeper and more lasting friendships. Obviously, it is not enough to just read people; to get the most out of this skill, we must also act accordingly using our empathy. If we read the emotions in others but only use that information for selfish purposes, people will get tired of us.
How do we improve our ability to read people?
Let's see now what 5 things we must learn, relearn, and improve to enhance this useful skill.
1. Get rid of prejudices and commonplaces
To become good readers of people, we must see each individual as what they are: a unique being with their own experiences and emotions. Stereotypes and basing what we think of others on our own experiences do not work.
2. Observe
If we want to learn to read people, logically, we will have to improve our observation skills. Take the trouble to really get to know those around us, observe their expressions, their way of facing problems, their reactions to different situations, etc. Knowing some nonverbal communication helps us a lot to interpret others correctly. For example, we must pay attention to their facial expressions, their habits (if the person bites their nails or lips when nervous, if they are restless and walk from one side to another when something upsets them or if their nature is calm even in stressful moments, if they touch their hair a lot, etc.), their body posture in different circumstances, how they move their hands when speaking, etc. Our body speaks, and a good observer has to study that language to know how to understand it not only unconsciously but also intentionally.
3. Listen
Sometimes we tend to listen to people superficially, as if they were background noise. If we want to read people, we have to actively listen to them. See what they say and how they say it. Leave aside our ego and preconceived ideas about the topic being discussed or the ideas about what we would like to hear from others, and receive the information with the vocation of understanding the other person, not judging them or finding a reaffirmation of our own ideas.
4. Direct questions
Asking questions is a great technique to demonstrate interest in others and engage in conversations, but also to learn what others think, feel, and how things affect them. Learning to read people requires making the effort to get to know a few of them.
5. Compare
Applying the previous four techniques, we will have gotten to know quite a few people very well, but in order to extrapolate what we have learned to the rest, we must create some kind of system based on comparing what we are learning from others and seeing how they are similar, how they differ, what are the most typical reactions to certain experiences, what facial expressions they usually use in each situation, what their body postures are, etc. Our interest in reading people will give us the possibility of learning a lot and improving quickly, while at the same time strengthening our relationships and creating new contacts and friendships.
