Keeping a welcoming mindset is a necessary step to connecting successfully, whether it is natural to you or was developed deliberately. However, it needs to be followed up by actions to successfully reach out to others. These are five types of actions recommended by Claire Raines and Lara Ewing in The Art of Connecting that serve as pathways to connection.
Clarify Your Intention
This doesn’t mean putting it into words to another, but you should try to do so to yourself. Then you can deliberately focus on it before you begin, and during if necessary. If you keep your good intent in mind, you’ll be less prone to distraction and more able to curb any negative reactions.
Notice Your Own Reactions
These negative reactions are emotions such as fear or disgust or self-righteousness that may pop up, particularly when something is happening (or you imagine it may be happening) around a point of difference. If you realize that an emotion or expectation is based on an internal stereotype, then you can work around it.
Search for Similarities
Somewhere there is a similarity between you and the other person. It might be geography or a hobby or having been the youngest child or having kids or not having kids yet or wanting to learn about something the other is passionate about or any number of other things.
It may take a number of conversational attempts, or offers, on your part to find it. Or you may need to pick up and answer a conversation that’s not your first choice because it is where the common ground lies. But, unless you’re very lucky, you have to believe the bridge will be there in order to find it.
Use Cues
Pay attention to body language and expressed preferences. Study these topics separately, if necessary. They can let you know if your search for similarities is going in the wrong direction or if your expression of your differences is working against your intent to connect.
Experiment and Adjust
Keep trying different things when you notice one approach is not working and keep improving on those that do work. This is common advice, but one that can require deliberate persistance. If you stop trying then you only guarantee that you will not achieve the connection you are trying for.
