4 Skills To Improve Your Relationships
If you want your relationships to get better, start by getting better at listening. Plenty of people assume they already do this well. They might. There's still room to grow. Carl Rogers and his person-centered therapy give us a handful of usable habits, and with them you can start to understand the people around you as they actually are, rather than as the version of them that lives in your own head.
The first habit is unconditional positive regard, and it's the hard one. Nobody promised this would be effortless. The idea is to stay on the other person's side whether or not you share their view. You don't have to agree with every word they say. You do have to shelve your own opinions long enough to make room for theirs. So when someone across from you announces, 'I can't stand cats,' you hold back from leaping to the defense of your own impossibly adorable fluffball. You nod. You wait for the rest.
Why bother? Because a person who feels less judged loosens up. The guard drops once they sense they can hand you their feelings without being made to feel small or embarrassed. Trust grows from there, and as it grows they'll let you in on more of what's actually going on with them. That can be genuinely healing for them, and it draws the two of you closer.
Second: repeat things back and rephrase them. The person talking needs to feel that you've caught their meaning. A reliable way to show it is to say what they said in your own words and check whether you got it right.
Take a statement like, 'I'm so annoyed with him because he should have known I wanted him to invite my brother to the baseball game too.' A good listener might answer, 'So you figured he understood you wanted your brother asked along, he went without him, and now you're annoyed. Did I get that?' This proves you were tracking what they said. And if you misread it, you've handed them an easy, non-awkward way to set you straight, because you invited the correction. Echoing someone back in fresh words, instead of elbowing in with your own stories and takes, can feel surprisingly freeing for the one who's opening up.
Third are the small signals, sometimes called minimal encouragers. We scatter them through ordinary conversation without thinking, but using them on purpose nudges people to keep going. Nodding counts. So do the little sounds dropped in at the right beats: 'hm,' 'okay,' 'yes,' 'uh-huh.' They tell the speaker you're actually there and actually interested.
Fourth, and this one stings: no advice. The second someone brings up a problem, most of us charge in with the fix. 'Have you tried rubbing some lotion on it?' 'Maybe tell him how much the lobster really meant to you?' 'Same thing happened to me, I changed all my locks, worked out great.' It's reflex. We want to help, we want the trouble solved, and sometimes we really do have relevant experience or a clear sense of what we'd do.
The catch is that the other person may not have the nerve to do what you'd do, and what counts as a good outcome for you might not be their idea of one at all. They have to arrive at their own next move. Which leaves us to lean back, lean on those minimal encouragers, and sit on our pearls of wisdom. The pull to offer a suggestion can be almost physically painful. Then you watch their own thoughts take shape, their own sense of agency surface, and it lands: your plain acceptance does far more for them than any advice would have.
Put the four together, unconditional positive regard, repeating and rephrasing, minimal encouragers, and holding back advice, and people walk away from talking with you feeling heard. That strengthens communication, and communication is what every relationship rests on. Trying this out with friends, coworkers, and family can pay off in ways that feel good on both ends.
There's a limit to all this, though, and the limit matters. A counselor working in a therapy room has structures the rest of us don't. Time is fixed; the session runs a set length. There's distance; the counselor isn't friends with the client. There's confidentiality; what's said in the room stays there. On top of that, counselors have peers to confide in about whatever's weighing on them from their cases, plus a contract with the client that spells out what each owes the other and shields them both.
Use these techniques sparingly, then, and inside the relationships you already have. Therapy can get rough for everyone involved. If someone you're talking with is carrying something truly serious, or you feel yourself getting out of your depth, the right call is to point them toward a trained counselor.
And if it turns out you love listening to people this way, think about getting proper training. Local colleges often run evening or weekend courses built around people who work during the day. It might be the beginning of a new line of work you find worth doing.
Written by Iman Mohiki