Your wife thinks you drink too much and should quit. Your parents think you screw off too much and need to pull better grades. Your boss thinks you're a slacker and you need to be more professional. If people in your life are hammering you to change, then it may be time to take a long hard look in mirror. To some extent you have to be open to idea that they may be right. However, they aren't you. They can't walk in your shoes. Nobody can completely totally understand another person. Only you really know what is right for you. Only you can pick your path in life, who you choose to walk with along way, and what kind of person you are while traveling. Some people are misunderstood visionary geniuses. Others are simply rebellious and lazy. Most of us fall somewhere in between. You cannot let others dictate who or what you are to become. The choice to recreate yourself must come from within.

If I give you tips for listening more effectively and you rush off to practice tips you may not get very far no matter how hard you try. Why? Because you are likely to be self conscious when you need to be other conscious. Standing in front of new people you want to meet you freeze and you feel so unsure of yourself that you cannot remember even one of listening tips.

You need ability to switch off self consciousness whenever you choose to do so. Sounds obvious only how can you do this? By switching your attention off of yourself and onto other person.

When you are feeling self conscious you will tend to pay too much attention to thoughts inside your head, how you are feeling and how you look.

Ironically, to develop great rapport you need to pay close attention to other person. How is she feeling? How does she look today? Is she relaxed or tense?

The Three Elements To Ridding Yourself Of Self Consciousness

1 Turn off inner dialogue that makes you feel self conscious

One way to do this is to touch roof of your mouth with your tongue when you are not talking. We tend to move our tongues when we engage in inner talk even if only very slightly. When you put tip of your tongue to roof of your mouth you interrupt negative inner talk pattern.