Often times, in conversations, some people tend to wait until one person in the conversation stops talking in order to interject with something that they want to say. They may not even be actively listening to what the other person is saying because their mind is pressing a sense of urgency to hurriedly speak what is on the mind so they don’t forget. Don’t wait for someone to stop talking just to talk for the sake of talking.
This Thoughtful Thursday is more of a lesson in patience and active listening. While you’re waiting “for your turn” to speak sometimes what you intended to say becomes less important as a conversation progresses. You become more needed as emotional support rather than someone to provide an opinion that is not asked for.
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I know we all think that we give the best advice when it comes to life. We draw on our past experiences in order to try to help someone else but ultimately regardless of the feedback you provide, each person will make his own decision about the situation and quite possibly disregard the advice that you provided which you thought would help the situation. Keep that in mind! Each person will make his own decisions in life. We can help guide other people but when the decision has to be made, that one person will ultimately have to decide regardless of your opinion.
Remember that sometimes not providing your opinion can save you and the other person time. Some people just need to talk out loud or to another person in order to organize their own thoughts. It’s like an out loud form of brainstorming.
So the challenge is to listen without verbally responding right away. In other words, hold your tongue. This may be a very hard challenge for some people who are normally very vocal but the more you listen to other people speaking their mind the easier it becomes to analyze information and form a more cohesive and coherent response if one is required.
The speaker gets to release his pent up thought process and organize his thoughts and you get to support the speaker in whatever capacity they need you to be there but all the while learning the art of analysis and response. You’ll soon be able to get to the root cause of a problem not only in other people’s lives but your own a lot quicker because you’ll be able to weed out excess data and stimuli that are not relevant to solving the problem. You will also be able to formulate more precise questions if follow up within a conversation is needed in order to fully understand the overall semblance of the conversation.
Another thing to remember when providing a response is to not try to force your opinion on someone. Be able to discuss your reason as to why you believe that person needs to do or not do a certain thing but not specifically try to persuade someone to do something because it may not be what they need to hear.
Take a step back and just listen and that way it might keep you from taking on someone else’s problem as your own. Active listening is something that develops over time, so don’t expect that you’ll be an expert right away. It’s a constant challenge, so keep up the good work!
Please share your comments on how active listening is or has challenged you. I’d be really interested in hearing what your thoughts are.
