Patient, honest, empathetic, and non-judgemental thoughts will have an incredibley profound impact on your career, your relationships and your overall well-being.

There is no single act or idea that can fix all of your problems. There are acts and ideas that can pivot you into new, and passion-filled life adventures however. This could very well be one of those ideas, if only you act.

Consider how becoming a better listener will help you become a better designer, instead of the designer who argues with everyone and is difficult to work with. Consider how the seemingly simple act of practicing patient, non-judgemental, and engaged listenting will help you become more well-liked, focused, and more aware of frivolous abstractions in an effort to find and move closer to your true self.

How can you do this? By practicing these four ideas:

Admit When You Are Wrong

To listen with patience and acceptance requires an inner strength to notice your fears and understand where they are coming from, while at the same time actively listening to and engaging, but not interrupting, the speaker. You need to practice and develop the courage to listen with an open mind to other people’s ideas, while also realizing your own ideas may be wrong. To achieve honesty with yourself you must begin by not criticizing, condemning, or complaining both externally and internally.

To listen without patience, acceptance, and an honest open mind, results in a tenacity and stubborn resistance to change, with an unwillingness to acknowledge defeat not only to the speaker, but to yourself. This fear is born from your unwillingness to practice courageous mental strength, honesty, and empathy, and prevents you from being flexible in many situations and unable to empathize and grow as a person both personally and professionally.

Practice Empathy & Patience

In order to cultivate an empathetic, patient, and fearless open mind, you must begin with empathy. In order to sound honest, patient, and sincere you must act honest, patient, and sincere. Fake it till you make it. Eventually it becomes an honest part of you. You will slowly find yourself not having to act, you will just be.

Only when you are able to become more aware and actively use and control your own emotions, will you be able to develop a deep sense of collaboration and respect for your speaker, even if you never fully accept their ideas as your own.

Be Honest With Yourself

Before you can become a better person you must practice patient listening. Before becoming a patient listener you must focus on actively accepting the speaker’s ideas, philosophies, and words by actively practicing empathy with everyone you can remember to practice it with.

What is empathy? You can only begin to understand and actively practice empathy with others by accepting their words, ideas, and ultimately their true being. To do this you must first acknowledge, understand, and then accept your own true being. You must believe in yourself before you are able to accept belief from others. You must believe in the value of your own words, ideas, and feelings before you can believe in another person’s feelings, ideas, and words.

You must begin to take ownership of your own actions and admit to your failings. Failures are how you learn.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” — Bill Gates

By admitting to your shortcomings and fully owning your actions you will begin to build the solid foundation that is the new you. The better you. The patient, accepting, and wise you.

When Two Become One

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I told you that you have the potential to become a better person by becoming a better listener, but I haven’t yet told you how. The answer to that isn’t one you will understand by the end of this article. It is an answer that will take a lifetime of practiced social interractions to truly make itself known to you. Interractions where you and your partner, even if just for a few fleeting moments, merge into a singular abstract personality where an almost complete understanding is shared between you.

This understanding takes place in almost every conversation we have. It is a fundamental process in love, patience, and a bettering of our very human nature. Sometimes we are just so intensely interested in our own thoughts that we fail to notice.

Try actively remembering to:

admit when you are wrong. practice patience, in all things. practice empathy, with everyone. be honest with yourself and then with others.

Tell me your thoughts, I’ll try to listen.