Over the holiday season, I had a chance to meet many new people on different occasions. Also, I rekindled some people who I have not seen/spoken for more than a decade – It was like meeting people for the first time.
I am not anti-social but it is somewhat stressful to meet new people. I am excited about the new encountering but cannot deny angst associated with it. I used to be good at remembering people’s names but these days I can easily forget about someone’s name whom I just met several minutes ago.
To make my meeting less stressful, I deployed a new strategy this holiday season: Focus on listening and let the other person talk! It is a simple strategy but I can rarely enforce it because I’m not too fond of dead silence. With a slight pause in the conversation, I feel too awkward and start bubbling anything to keep the conversation rolling. But this time, I decided to become a total listener and only speak when I was questioned.
To my surprise, this strategy worked wonders for me. I was more relaxed and just listening to what they say. Sometimes there were some pauses. But, without my intervention, someone in the conversation broke them and the conversation went on. And I enjoyed learning about the people I encountered. That was a big plus.
With this realization, I am looking forward to meeting more people and learn about them this year. The more I practice meeting people, the better I am at it. More learning to do…
Learn to Live 