“How was your day?” – such a polite and boring question to ask. Its great for small talk but if you really wanna get to know someone it doesn’t open many doors for deep meaningful conversations.
I mean where do you even begin? Do I start at the top and tell you a list of all that happened from brushing my teeth- to surviving boredom – to the crippling anxiety of answering this question? Probably not the best choice.
As a response to this question, you’ll often get. “Fine”, “Great”, “Okay, how about yours?”. Try this (rather do not try this) with your kids, or on a first date, or with your partners and you’ll see the conversation come to an end before it begins. These responses are counterproductive to conversing, since one-worded responses essentially are the death of a conversation. Or maybe you get a vague but specific example of my day: I had fried rice for lunch and it wasn’t very good, hoping dinner is better?
My parents, would ask me, “how was your day at school?” after I got back home, and it always felt interrogative, a one sided conversation. “Nice” was my default response to it all. And I could see they were not satisfied with it and wanted more. Not much has changed though. Now, when they ask me the same over phone, I usually respond with, “You know, the same. Busy with work and life.”
Yeah- you get the idea. Our end-of-the-day-dinner-chit-chat-conversation-opener needs a little help.
The problem isn’t with them or you. The problem is in the question. So what do you do? How do you build a healthier relationship with them? What’s the best question to ask, when you really actually wanna know more about them and their day? How do you have a heart-to-heart talk with someone?
Table Talk Dice
We made a little dice with prompts to inspire conversations from different perspectives. This dice is a combination of both the points above and we use it on a daily basis to help build a our relationship every stronger with more meaningful conversations which build our trust and love for each other.
The Dice incorporates 2 ideas that we use to share love
1. Share before asking
Remove the burden form the other person and start by sharing about your day first. If you want and expect others to be vulnerable with you, try being open and vulnerable first. See how that builds trust with them. The quality of what you share and how deep and detailed you are with your story, will decide how your get a response to your story.
Remember, don’t just make it about you. We all like to share. It’s a great feeling when in a trusted environment. So give them a chance too while you listen. Share a bit and include them into the conversation with open ended questions like below.
2. Use open ended questions
Try some of the below questions instead:
- What was the best part of your day today?
- What made you smile today?
- What did you learn today? (Something Raashi and I ask each other before every meal – our form of grace)
- What was the most attractive thing you saw today?
A dice has 6 sides, and you can essentially add any type of thought-provoking statement or question to them, my choice (inspired by the book Whole Brain Child) includes:
- Low Moment
- High Moment
- Act of Kindness
- What did you learn
- Something you’re proud of
- Make your own
At the end of the day, these questions all lead to the same idea that “How was your day?” is trying to get to, which is discussing the moments of significance- the moments that left a print on our memories and feelings. The major difference between asking how was your day versus what was your high moment is whether you take the scenic route or enter a culdesac with a dead end.
Switch from the distraughtful experience of asking someone (or being asked) “How was your day?” to something that can actually help you build a stronger bond.
LoVita 