TOP 3 THINGS TO KNOW: HOW TO MAKE MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS AT WORK

We spend a lot of time at work with our colleagues.

One of the most important keys to being successful in the workplace and the business world is having trusted and dependable relationships.

Here are three keys to establishing meaningful and fruitful connections in the workplace.

1. Know thyself.

Personality is everything in business.

To create and develop the relationships we crave, we need to know how to work with and manage our own emotions. We must take time to analyse ourselves and identify the vulnerabilities and insecurities that may be holding us back.

Understanding and identifying these emotions is key to understanding what we need to change and work on to connect with others better.

2. Practice mindfulness.

Mindfulness essentially means awareness.

If you are not aware of yourself and the impact you have on others it will be difficult for you to establish a meaningful and supportive network.

To be mindful we need to observe how others respond to us, especially in the face of conflict.

What we have to realize is that even the most rational people when in conflict lose their capacity to think straight. The best way to do this is listening.

Listening allows us to think and to find solutions. Listening allows us to take our time because listening is about the other.

It puts us in a proactive rather than a reactive state of mind.

3. Understand emotion.

Emotional management is the ability to realize, readily accept, as well as successfully control feelings in oneself (and sometimes others) is known as the emotion management skill.

Emotions follow a logical pattern if we know how to look at them. Emotions rise and emotions fall. You must have complete authority over changing your thoughts and feelings that are generated whenever your values are touched by the actions of a person or an event.

We cannot reach the success we desire without first being the greatest manager of our own internal world. Once we are clear on how our own emotions operate we are more equipped to predict, work with and connect to the emotions of others.