Your Happiness Factor

Getting to know people and making assumptions Most of us encounter lots of other people all the time in our everyday life.  We pass them in the street. We sit in the same cinema, or  work in the same building. And some among them, we actually start to acknowledge and get to know. We begin to recognise their faces, the shapes of their bodies and how they move. We start to make assumptions about them, usually based on our very first encounter with them. In fact most of us make up our minds in the first few seconds of the encounter. Based on the clothes they are wearing on that particular day and the expression of their face, we decide. Is this someone I am likely to trust and want to know better? And we act on what we think are the answers to those questions, based on our assumptions. What we are doing, of course, is taking a few stray facts and fitting them into our own patterns of belief. We base those beliefs; on what we were told by our parents and others when we are

  How To Grow And Deepen New Friendships I found a great site on how to make friends and develop your social skills.   SucceedSocially.com is a collection of articles related to improving social skill and making friendships. It deals with shyness, and working around the problems that come from feeling that you do not fit comfortably into the norm.   Here is an extract of the writing on that site; it is about deepening and strengthening new friendships. "Just spend more time together I'll break this down further soon, but simply spending more time with someone is the backbone of becoming better friends with them. A close relationship isn't something that happens in a few hours. You need time to get to know the other person, have fun together, and become more comfortable with each other. You need time for all the relationship-enhancing things I mention below to happen. Additionally, it usually takes a while before we start thinking of someone as a

  E motional intelligence (EQ) helps us interact with, and influence, others. The higher our emotional intelligence, the more like we are to be able to get on with others. In 1996 Daniel Goleman wrote his groundbreaking book " Emotional   Intelligence ". His exhaustive research had shown him that success in all parts of our lives is based more on our ability to handle   emotions   than on our intellectual capability or our physical strength. People with high Emotional Intelligence can understand emotions – their own and other people’s, They can make their emotions and their understanding help them to empathise with others, to understand them and to handle their emotions. For example, they are much less likely to be overwhelmed by someone bursting into tears, People with high EQ are generally open and pleasant to be around.  They tend to pick up and understand those little non-verbal messages we send with body language, posture and tone of voice. In