Do you ever take time to slow down and make space to examine your choices around your behaviors, needs, desired goals and — don’t forget — the assumptions you are making about the situation in front of you? These all create an impact on those very relationships in which you are trying to successfully engage in order to move the conversation in a productive direction.

Here is a critical choice to consider: Are you more committed to the relationship at hand or more committed to the desired outcome in your head? Only one choice can take the lead here. This is a critical strategic question and will determine how you show up next for the other person in the conversational space.

As Dr. Kimble Greene writes in The Power To Thrive: When Surviving Is No Longer Enough, “Over 90% of who we are and choices we make are subconscious. It is like an ‘old tape running behind the scenes’ telling you how to behave and react — this means less than 10% of your thoughts, feelings, and actions are at the conscious of level from moment to moment.”

Do you want your relationships, personal or professional, to thrive? Are you looking for high-quality connections? Thriving and high-quality relationships are not proven by a few positive exchanges or even by shallow “not rocking the boat” exchanges. Instead, they require your ongoing focus to demonstrate your personal commitment to that relationship, which is measured by creating an emotional connection at almost every turn.

I call this holistic influencing. There is a difference between having a commitment to the topic or issue and having or being committed to the relationship. Those individuals you interact with will recognize the repeated emotional bonds you personally create with them as you work to understand their needs, wants and assumptions. They will remember the positive energy exchange and how you made them feel. It is easier for others to choose to be loyal to you when they recognize that you have become emotionally vested in them, as evident by how you showed up. When you consciously decide to demonstrate holistic influencing, as well as display vulnerability, trust is being knitted as a result.

Daniel Stillman, author of Good Talk: How to Design Conversations That Matter, says that “Our lives are defined by those conversations we can and cannot have.”

In the social exchange, moving from intent to action happens when you are purposefully self-aware of the choices you are making in the conversational space:

1. First, work to consciously prioritize putting relationships over the task at hand.

2. Next, get clear on understanding and bringing your “why” into focus and verbalize it for yourself as well as for other stakeholders. You must state your why to the other person even if it is obvious. But be careful about asking others about their “why” as it can sometimes be received as condescending versus just information-seeking.

3. In the conversational space, you must have the agility to get your desired alignment and balance between your heart-centered intent, desired impact and outcomes with your stakeholders.

4. In order to apply balance in the conversation, one necessary step is to slow down and explore each other’s goals and needs for that same outcome. What do they see differently? Ask.

5. Be sure to talk about how these tasks and goals could be achieved. What assumptions are you both making?

6. The end goal of your impact is to land on finding shared stakeholder goals. Cross the finish line on a high note, because it matters! Studies show that how we end interactions disproportionately influences how others judge the entire interaction.