Q: If a person rushes to respond or share their own opinions, they stand in the way of empathy. Hold mock conversations in which one person talks while the other person hears them out completely.  Encourage the listener to turn to face the speaker and make eye contact. The listener should be trying their best to understand what the other person is saying, not simply listening to reply. Those learning empathy need feedback to determine if they understand others' messages during communication. Saying what the person said back to them in a different way helps them double-check that they got the right message.  Paraphrasing may sound like, “From what I'm hearing, you seem very shocked and upset about the results of your doctor's exam. Is that right?” If the message was not received correctly, the speaker can try to relay it again so that the listener understands. Paraphrasing can also be taught in practice situations to help them feel confident doing it in real-life conversations. Identifying what someone is feeling can be challenging in the moment. To build the skill, start at the end: with the emotion you think the person felt. Then, reflect back and analyze other details, like facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and the actual words that were said.  For instance, if a wife guessed that her husband was angry, she might work backwards and recall that his arms were crossed, he was pacing, he had a sneer on his face, and his speech was overly sarcastic. Noting these details can help her read future nonverbal and verbal cues more easily. Help adults learn empathy by breaking down different scenarios and reflecting on the experiences of the people involved. This may work best by using scenes from popular movies or TV shows. For instance, a scene from a movie may portray two friends fighting. Have two people role-play the scene and discuss what each character may have been thinking and feeling, and what cues help you figure that out. Have everyone start by spending 5 or 10 minutes  breathing deeply and generating good vibes about themselves. This might include silently repeating affirmations, like “I am worthy," or simply envisioning giving oneself a warm hug.  In subsequent meditation sessions, they can start focusing on a friend or family member. Radiate positive thoughts towards that one person for the full exercise—just for about 10 minutes. After focusing on loved ones for a few sessions, they can then progress to radiating good vibes to a virtual stranger, such as the nice barista at Starbucks or someone they heard about on the news. Loving-kindness helps connect with the deeper human side of oneself and others, increasing a person's ability to feel empathy.
A: Practice  listening without interrupting. Paraphrase what others say to verify understanding. Work backwards to read others' nonverbal and verbal cues. Imagine stepping into the shoes of others. Practice loving-kindness  meditation.

Q: Occasional rewards will sweeten the tasks and help keep you on track. If you manage to do something that you didn't the day before or that you were absolutely dreading, you deserve a nice treat. By rewarding yourself after completion of small milestones along the way to the big one, you build in automatic reinforcement that you're doing the right thing. Keep most rewards simple but effective, such as extended breaks, catching a movie, splurging on a calorie-laden snack (once in a while!) or similar things. Leave really large rewards for the overall achievement or endpoint. By using self-rewards, you'll train your mind to actively seek working before the reward.  Breaks are rewards and necessities. Don't confuse the need to take regular short breaks to restore creativity and freshness with laziness. Clearly, the flip side to rewards is punishment. People respond best to positive reinforcement and it's best to stick to the rewards. Punishing yourself for not achieving things will simply backfire, confirming your worst-held beliefs about yourself that you're lazy and good-for-nothing. That's a pointless exercise if ever there was one. A list of weekly goals will help you stay focused and motivated. As you go, it's inevitable that your goals will change. You'll also pinpoint the ways that are most effective for achieving them. As they morph, so should your list. Post the list everywhere and anywhere. Try making it your lock screen on your device or phone. To do this, simply write them in your notes, take a screenshot and make it your background. Create daily goals, monthly goals, and even yearly goals to keep looking at every day differently. To enjoy any benefit, there is usually a cost to be suffered. The pain/suffering cost is usually emotional, often physical and sometimes psychic. Often that pain involves a feeling of being left out or going without while others don't seem to be putting up with the same challenges (usually they have their own challenges which you don't see though). And that pain can cause you to avoid, distract and seek safety in a comfort zone. To push past your comfort zone, you'll need to face the pain before you can reach the possibilities. Assess whether a potential benefit is worth the cost to you. If it is  worth it (and most times, it will be), draw on your ever-evolving maturity to generate the required courage, endurance and discipline that will give you the strength to achieve brilliant outcomes. Nobody achieves anything without effort and pain. Most experts, professionals and geniuses will readily admit that most of their achievements are 99 percent sweat and one percent talent. Undisciplined talent gets few people anywhere –– excellence in academics, financial autonomy, sports, the performing arts and relationships demands steady and consistent thoughtfulness and work that strains even the best of us emotionally and physically. Your will to survive and flourish needs to translate to your will to work and suffer when to do so is both necessary and useful. You won't be a great businessman, a great runner, a great cook, or even great at your job overnight. You'll fail and fail and fail and fail. This is normal. This is good. This means you're still going. Having too many activities or distractions in your daily life can make it easy to avoid the things you need to do. Try to declutter your schedule by delegating important tasks and removing non-necessary ones. Turn off distractions, and focus on your goals. For example, if you are trying to write 1,000 words every weekend but find you keep falling short because of your extracurricular activities, consider getting rid of one of them. By cutting out even one one-hour meeting a week, you'll have more time to reach your goal. There will be times when it gets harder and post-reward you can sometimes feel a bit flat about returning to the task at hand. In such times, you'll need to draw on inner reserves to remind yourself of the goal or solution sought to stay focused. Make the most of feeling that you're on a roll –– when you're in that state (often termed "the flow state"), use it to leap to another task or goal as soon as you're done rewarding yourself.  The longer that you delay restarting after finishing one element in your tasks or goals, the harder it becomes to restart. Remember the feelings of being deeply involved in getting things done, and how good it feels to achieve things. And the sooner you restart, the more confident you'll feel and the sooner these good feelings will be restored. Consider asking someone to be your accountability partner. If, for example, you have a goal of going to the gym every day, ask a friend to hold you accountable. Text them every day after you go. If you don't go, have them text you to remind you of your goal. It's one thing to find your motivation. But it's quite something else to keep it going when the going gets tough, especially in the face of unforeseen problems. Realize that interruptions happen, often for no reason, and they'll upend your efforts. Rather than letting setbacks demotivate you, see them for what they are and refuse to be flattened by them. You're not alone and staying focused on working through challenges is one of the best ways of coping and bouncing back. Remind yourself how much you want to achieve your goal or task, seek help where needed, take stock of what you have already achieved and then refuse to give up. You got this.
A:
Learn to reward yourself for the very small things you complete or try. Write down your goals each week. Realize that life is about trading costs and benefits. Know that the work is worth it. Declutter your schedule. Stay on track. Don't give up.