James Jared - How to Analyze People

When you learn to read people, youll find that its a vital skill in your personal and business life. Whether you are focusing on friendship, career, parenting or romance, learning to read people gives you a chance to develop valuable insights and make sound decisions.

Some would say there is no quick way to learn about reading people. This is true. The learning may take a bit of time, but after practice, you may be able to quickly look at someone and get a good feel of who they are and what they want.

Gain an Understanding of Others

When you spend time learning to understand others, you will understand yourself better. You must first understand the walls that people build up, and the barriers that you have placed in your way, too.

When people reveal themselves to others, the truth only comes to light in layers.

The first layer is the layer people show to you when you are a stranger. They may be sitting with you at a bus stop, or in some other environment. Topics include current events and the weather innocent topics like that. Most people are comfortable talking about them.

The second layer is the one people show when they feel comfortable with you. Co-workers may speak with you about themselves more if they know you a bit. They may talk about their thoughts about emotions about other broad subjects.

The third personal layer is kept in reserve for those who have intimate relationships with you. This includes spouses and close friends. These take more time to develop, and trust is earned as that time passes. The depth of what is revealed is greater than the other two layers. Your fears, goals and personal problems fall in this layer.

The innermost, fourth layer is the part of people that they dont share with anyone. It contains their darkest, deepest secrets and thoughts, and some of these they would prefer not to acknowledge. They may not have even come to terms yet with some topics in this layer. This is why they are uncomfortable sharing these things with anyone.

To read others, you need to get through their layers. You dont have to go all the way to the intimate level, of course, but the farther in your access is, the more reliable your reading will be.

Remove your Barriers First

To read people, you must also remove the barriers you place between you and others. These barriers are your projections and your prejudices.

Projections are your tendency (and that of everyone else) to close your mind and eyes to anything disturbing or uncomfortable. You may project your view onto situations because it makes them easier with which to deal.

Prejudices do not directly refer to only racial prejudice. This is a small part of it; it is not the entire part. Every time you make a personal opinion, negative or positive, without examining the facts, you are prejudiced.

Harboring ideas based on political alignment, color, race or even what people wear, clouds your reading ability. Your prejudices may be based on your upbringing, your fears or a number of other things.

Wait with Empty Hands

To read people effectively, you must be totally objective, which means having empty hands. You will need to overcome your projections and prejudices too, in order to be objective.

Be patient. Fill your hands slowly with information, so that your conclusions are not rushed. Dont be so impatient that you miss the big picture. Allow pictures to fully develop, so that you dont become embarrassed or disappointed.

This is what reading people is like. Learning the proper techniques to interpret people will help you resist the urge to jump to hasty conclusions. Hold off before you make a final decision about people.