Learning How To Be the Person My Dog Thinks I Am
If you have a dog, you know that they look up at you with the sweetest looks that basically say, “There’s nothing in the world that matters more to me than you do.” But there are times when I feel like I don’t live up to the expectations my dog has for me. Of course, all I really have to do in order for him to love me is to remember to feed him and take him outside, but seriously, this is a forever unattainable life purpose to attain. If we were half the people our dogs think we are, this world would be a better place. So I’m starting big projects like I start most intimidating things… one bite at a time.
So I’m choosing 5 things that will make me a bit closer to living up to Tucker’s wildly high standards for me.
1. Being an Active Listener
For the longest time, I thought I already was an active listener. I thought that simply because I knew in my head that I cared about the person I was talking to, that made me a great conversationalist. But 2 hours later when I didn’t even remember that conversation I’d had, I really started realizing what was happening… To put it bluntly, I was watching that person’s mouth move and thinking about what I’m going to say next. Or how their story relates to me. I think this is something we can all be better at.
Instead of listening to a story with our relating stories in mind, we should genuinely listen and care – follow up with questions, react to the story instead of those vague comments like, “That’s crazy.” or “What a story.” Where the other person has no idea whether or not you were even listening.
When someone comes to me for advice, or even just a listening ear about a troubling circumstance, I sift through the “Life Experiences” folder in my brain and try to make their story fit inside the walls of mine. The problem with that is, well for one, you’re not really listening, and another thing, everyone’s story is different. You don’t get the full story, you don’t know what happens behind closed doors, and there could be parts they’re leaving out. It’s important to listen and hear the other person with unbiased opinions and without preconceived notions.
2. Communicating with others how they prefer to be communicated with
This is something personally near and dear to my heart. Ever since I read Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (which, by the way, CHANGED MY LIFE) and took several sales classes that taught a lot about how to communicate with people who communicate differently than we do, I realized how little I actually attempt to put myself in others’ shoes. “Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes” is much more than a cliché thing we tell kids to do whenever they’re mean to the smelly kid in their class.
I had heard of the “love languages” and at first, I really only applied that to romantic relationships, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. All friendships, professional relationships, and family relationships work best when both parties attempt to communicate with the other person in mind.
For example, I work really well with task lists and due dates. I had several different jobs in college, and a few bosses learned this quickly and started to communicate my responsibilities in that format. I had others who verbally gave me tasks (which I would just assume was conversation, not a real task at all) and they’d expect me to get it done myself and figure out when it should be done by. Mind you, I didn’t even know it was a task for me to begin with. You can imagine their frustration with me.
I realize that I won’t always be put in circumstances where people communicate with me how I prefer to be communicated, but what I can take away from these findings is the benefit of paying close attention to others’ preferred method of communication. If I tell someone that I need Task A done by 3:00PM on Tuesday Task B done by 9:00PM on Wednesday, and Task C done by 10:00AM on Monday morning, that might completely render them helpless and destroy their task-completing process. Just because a list of due dates is how I work best, doesn’t mean that it’s how everyone else increases their productivity. It’s mutually beneficial for both parties to be on the same page. All goals are accomplished: the task is complete, the task-doer feels like they did a job well done, and nobody is disappointed or in a bind.
Of course this applies to other relationships. I’m a “words of affirmation” person. I guarantee my memory is perfectly fine, but I need a reminder that you’re still my friend on a daily basis. For all I know, you’ve changed your mind. I often think my wedding vows will contain the question, “Are you sure you still like me?”
For other people, if they’ve said it once, they’ve said it for good, because to them, their word means everything, and saying it more times is simply redundant.
No communication style is right or wrong. They are all different. And we are all very different people. Learning to relate to people who are different from us make us rich in love and experiences far beyond being stuck in our own ways of doing things.
3. Harnessing The Power of Positive Thinking
This is a constant battle for me. Seriously. I’m a very “happy” person. But being a “happy person” doesn’t necessarily make you a positive person. There are times I have not a nice word at all to say in response to, “How was your day?” And it’s not because that day was particularly horrible (most of the time), but instead because maybe one bad thing happened and I got in the “This is going to be a bad day” mindset. We all know the one.
I seriously could brush my teeth in the morning, get a tiny dot of toothpaste on my black shirt, and call it quits on the rest of the day. While I’m incredibly dramatic, and often times facetious about my misery and self-loathing, the longer you tell yourself something, it quickly starts to become a reality.
In the same sense, you could get a free coffee from a kind person in line behind you at the Starbucks drive through and it’s suddenly the best day you’ve had in months.
I let the little things get me down too often, and let them infiltrate the bigger things, thus giving me a negative outlook as a whole on circumstances and situations that really are good for me, and good for growing and learning. I didn’t realize how often I complained until I was called out on it. And (now that time has passed between now and then…) I’m very grateful for it. I sarcastically started telling myself that “This is a great day. The best day of my life.” And what do you know… it ends up being a good day.
Harnessing positivity and having the ability (more like choosing to have the ability – it’s there, we just have to want to find it) to look at the big picture. I truly believe if we choose to look at the big picture rather than the up close magnified mirror version of your life, it can make a difference on how it actually plays out. I mean, I’m a fairly confident gal, but I can get really self conscious after looking at a well-lit magnified mirror for too long.
And another thing, I’m more productive when I feel like I’m having a good day. I’m nicer to strangers (and even more importantly, people I know and care about) when I feel like I’m having a good day. I give second chances. I let grudges go. Slowly my magnified mirror becomes a full length mirror that looks past the “too big pores” and the “crooked nose” and it becomes a full girl with a big smile.
(Gross, that was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever said, I’m so sorry.)
4. Speaking more slowly and clearly
I still am learning this one. It’s a hard lesson to learn. As a person in a leadership position, it’s important to be clear, concise, and simple in my language. But I feel like there are times when I make things more complicated than they should be.
When you look at someone incredibly successful, someone who is wise beyond their years, or someone who is a natural leader, you notice many distinguishable characteristics that separate them from the herd. One of those characteristics is communication.
These people tend to speak on behalf of knowledge and personal experience. Not pontificating, not daydreaming, not getting caught up in their own vanity. There’s something intentional about the way they speak and communicate with others. Directions given are clear and simple, and they are prepared and an expert on the subject matter at hand.
For me, I get nervous, stop taking deep breaths, and start to babble. That babbling turns into instructions somewhere along the way, and nobody knows where the babbling ends and the information that actually pertains to them begins. Being deliberate in communications is a skill I desperately want to acquire. It’s not that I lack preparation, it’s that I am uncomfortable with silence and rush through important things. I’m intelligent and I’m prepared, but I become insecure, so I don’t do as well as I could.
Hey Sophie, it’s important to pause and let yourself think and be okay with silence. It’s better than trying to explain something 45 times because the first 44 times were nonsensical psychobabble.
5. Remembering that I don’t have to be the star of the show
HERE’S THE BIG ONE FOLKS. I saved the best for last. Now, I don’t know if I’m the only person in this world who needs this reminder, but even still, nobody reads this so I’m writing it for me.
If I come back to this one day and need to be reminded, let me say it for all to hear:
If you are telling a story and people drift off in the middle of it and begin to tell their own stories, DO NOT TRY TO FINISH YOUR STORY. I assure you, they do not care. You are only embarrassing yourself. The only reason they started this conversation was to be polite. They drifted off because they were bored. You are ONLY, and I repeat ONLY ALLOWED to finish your story if the stars perfectly align and they remember that they cut you off, and ASK YOU TO FINISH IT.
Now that that’s over with…
You don’t have to be first. You don’t have to tell everyone everything. You don’t have to brag (or humble brag because we all know that’s even worse). You don’t have to share everything with everyone. They. Do. Not. Care. You’re only embarrassing yourself. If and ONLY IF they ask for you to share any “experience” on the matter at hand, and honestly maybe not even then, are you allowed to include personal information when they are talking about themselves. Let’s practice.
BAD EXAMPLE:
Sophie: Hey friend! How was your weekend?
Friend: Gosh it was great. My friends and I white water rafted on the Nantahala and went —
Sophie: OH MY GOSH NO WAY I’VE BEEN TO THAT SAME PLACE! I had so much fun. We went with the church on a youth retreat a few weeks ago. Good Lord our raft guide was hilarious. He kept making all of these movie references we all were picking up on and it was my favorite. He actually did a REALLY great impression of Old Greg. Ha! Did you ever watch any of those YouTube videos back in the day? Me and my friends were just obsessed with them…. We also watched a lot of the liamkylesullivan videos with the Shoes and the Let Me Borrow That Top. Were you ever into those? Also that hilarious chipmunk that did the thing… what did the chipmunk do? Something with dramatic music. What was that….
………6 hours later, I promise you I could still go on.
GOOD EXAMPLE:
Sophie: Hey friend! How was your weekend?
Friend: Gosh it was great. My friends and I white water rafted on the Nantahala and went hiking in the mountains. I really needed to get away, so it was great for me to have some R & R.
Sophie: Wow how fun! Did you guys stay at the retreat center they have over there or did you get a cabin?
(Note: You still got to slyly tell them that you’ve been there before without being an idiot. They have an option to ask you if you’ve ever been. You didn’t even have to offer the information first. Look at that. They might even ask you about your trip. You didn’t have to be a sleaze ball after all.)
I believe the moral of my story here is this: Hey, Sophie, put others before yourself.
If I want to be half the woman my dog thinks I am…. I’ve got some work to do, so I better get going.
