Helping others is one of the most rewarding things you can do. You may be helping friends, family members, loved ones, or even complete strangers. No matter who they’re or how they know you, you want to make their lives easier. But what makes you stand out when you help others?
Qualities That Make You Good at Helping Others
You’re probably good at helping others because you have a few traits that make you especially well-suited for the task. Not everyone has the right qualities to help. Some people can be a disaster despite their desire to do good.
You probably have soft skills that are essential to helping others. For example, you may be passionate about helping others, see things from their perspective and understand where they’re coming from.
You’re Good at Socializing
When you’re good with others, you know how to communicate with them, keep in touch with friends and family members, make new friends easily, and be a good listener. You also have the ability to get along well with most people – and if you don’t, that’s okay too. You enjoy meeting new people and learning about their lives.
If you have good social skills, you can build stronger friendships because you know how to communicate common interests in conversations and how to make the person you’re trying to help feel a higher sense of self-worth.
Your Leadership Qualities
Acting altruistically often requires some leadership skills, such as motivating others, especially if you’re volunteering for a charity. Great leaders have changed the course of history through altruism.
Your Happiness
Positivity is contagious and can help you become a successful person. When we feel happiness and life satisfaction in our lives, we often tend to do the right thing because we’ve positive vibes. It also helps us to have higher self-esteem.
You Regularly Self-Reflect
We all know that the best way to help others is to help yourself first. When you’re faced with challenges, it’ll be hard to find room to help someone else. Helping others sometimes means helping them in the process, and by helping them self-reflect, you can help them find the answers themselves.
Self-reflection helps you help others because it helps you understand how they feel and what they need to get what they want out of life.
When we look at our own lives and our own problems, we can see that other people may have similar problems. When we take the time to reflect on our lives and think about our past experiences, we can empathize with others who’re going through a similar situation as us or just need someone to understand where they’re coming from – especially if they’ve never experienced it themselves.
We can then use our past experiences as tools to help others overcome their problems.
Your Life Experience
Your life experience is an important part of what enables you to help others. You’ve been through many different situations, learned from them, and gained valuable experience. You’ve also learned from other people’s experiences and mistakes, as well as your own.
You know how to deal with challenges and how to overcome them. That’s something that doesn’t come as easily to many people as it does to you.
You can empathize with others because you’ve been in similar situations yourself. You know what it feels like to fail, and you also know what it feels like to succeed!
You understand that everyone goes through challenges in their lives. So when someone asks you for help, you know that he or she’s probably going through something difficult. You’re able to put yourself in their shoes and think about how they’re feeling without judging or criticizing them for their situation.
You’re a Good Problem Solver
You’re good at finding solutions to problems. You can find the root cause of a problem and know how to fix it. You can also find solutions that are easy to implement and are a long-term solutions (not just a quick band-aid). This is especially useful when you’re working with people who have limited resources or time – instead of giving them temporary solutions that only solve half of their problems, you can offer them permanent solutions that help them move forward in life!
Your Listening Skills
You’re a good listener. Being a good listener is an important part of any relationship and can be learned.
If you want to become a better listener, try these tips:
- Make eye contact with the person who’s speaking. This makes the person feel more connected to you and makes it easier for them to speak because they know you’re paying attention.
- Don’t intervene until the other person has finished speaking. This is one of the most common mistakes people make when trying to be a good listener, and it can make the other person feel that no matter what they say, they won’t get an honest answer from you.
- Don’t interrupt them or finish their sentences for them unless they ask you directly to do so or another person who knows both speakers well enough to interpret what they’re saying without confusion (for example, if one of your friends tells you about a problem with her boyfriend and then goes out of town for a week). Interrupting feels like being ignored or dismissed, and that can make you feel like you’re not being heard at all!
Your Life Is Balanced
You don’t feel like you’ve to do everything that’s asked of you. You recognize your limits and respect them – and those of others. You know when to say yes and when to say no. You agree to help only when it truly improves someone’s life (and not yours). It’s equally important that you can draw boundaries when needed – even with people who’re close friends or family members.
Balance is very important in your assessment of whether you can help someone and how you can help.
You’re Good at Recognizing When Other People Need Help
You’re good at recognizing when other people need help. In fact, you naturally know when someone needs help. Maybe it’s because you spend a lot of time helping others around you, or maybe it’s because you were raised to be empathetic and kind-hearted, but either way, this talent is one of the best qualities a person can have.
You can pick up on subtle cues from other people that indicate something is wrong before they themselves realize there’s a problem.
For example, if someone is upset or angry and looks at their computer screen and starts typing furiously, but then suddenly stops after a few seconds and types slowly with an expression on their face as if everything is fine (but it obviously is), you probably know right away that something needs to be fixed without them telling you yet!
If you’re good at recognizing when someone needs help, you’re good at helping others. That way you have an eye for what they need and can figure out how to help them. Your intuition tells you when someone is having problems or going through a hard time and how you can best help them through that difficult time.
You Have Compassion
Compassion is a combination of empathy and kindness. It’s the ability to see others’ problems and feel their pain, but also have enough perspective to help them find solutions instead of just feeling sorry for themselves. When you have compassion for others, you’re able to be there for them when they’re in need without being overwhelmed by it yourself.
You Practice Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and share another person’s feelings. Empathy can be learned and developed through practice and is something you already possess. Through your experiences, you’ve probably been able to develop a higher level of empathy for others than someone who’s not had as much exposure to the suffering or joys of others. You’re great at helping others because you inherently have this ability!
While empathy is invaluable in itself, it’s also an essential ingredient to being a good helper: If someone doesn’t feel seen by their helper, they won’t trust that person’s advice and won’t feel comfortable asking them for help again. But if someone feels seen by a helper and sees how much they care, they’ll want that relationship again and again.
Helping Others Is Something to Be Proud Of!
If you don’t have these traits yet, you can develop them in a few steps. Here are some quick tips to develop these traits:
- Talk to people – the more conversations you’ve with other people, the better your social skills will become.
- Use a journaling app so you can write down your thoughts and feelings regularly. Apps like Day One are great because they help you keep track of what matters most to you by creating an archive of significant moments in your life – a digital diary that can remind us of who we’re and what’s important to us.
- Practice active listening when talking with friends or colleagues by making eye contact and repeating what’s being said to help both parties understand each other better during difficult conversations (for example, “What I’m hearing from this conversation is…”). You’ll find that you can build relationships faster than ever with this technique!
- Don’t try to do too much, but solve one problem at a time. Altruism may feel right, but that doesn’t mean you should take on too much stress and burnout. It’s also good to know your limits.
- Take care of your own mental health. It’s great to be a helping hand, but you can’t make a positive impact if you can’t get rid of your own stress.
- Practice kindness. This skill seems simple, but practicing small altruistic acts in your daily life is something else because it’s not the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they wake up in the morning, except for social workers and people who do volunteer work in their daily life.
- Practice mindfulness. I find that mindfulness practices help me keep my positive vibes in my daily life, and they can also help with happiness.
- Try volunteering. Volunteering is a great way to practice kindness and improve our social skills. I’ve been volunteering for more than a decade. Not only are you doing something good in the process, but researchers have found that it’s good for our mental health and reduces stress. If you’re looking for a volunteer opportunity for a charity, just google “volunteer + name of your area” and I’m sure you’ll find something. And if there’s nothing in your area, you can also get involved with volunteering online.