5 Personal Strengthsthat Support Effective Listening

Here they are, in no particular order...

1. Compassion. There's a lot more to effective
listening than paying attention. In order
to really understand what someone is
saying, you have to show you care about
what the person is trying to tell you, stick
with the conversation to hear the whole
message, and verify your understanding. If
the other person's feelings aren't important
to you, you won't make the effort.

2. Focus. Listening effectively requires
attending to both what is said and how a
person feels about what is said - the verbal
and the nonverbal messages. To absorb all
these elements, you have to pay attention
to them. You have to shift your focus away
from other activities, unrelated thoughts,
and external distractions.

3. Awareness. It isn't easy to pick up on
nonverbal messages. You have to notice
the little details - tone of voice, posture,
facial expressions, and hand gestures. You
can't check these out and relate them to
what is said if you aren't aware of them.

4. Self-discipline. You may have the presence
of mind to focus your attention and make
an effort to be aware of the whole
message, but the trick is to sustain this
during the entire conversation. Your mind
may want to wander but prevent it from wandering. There may be
distractions going on around you. And you
have to resist talking when you should be
listening. All this takes quite a bit of self-
control.

5. Patience. Not everyone communicates the
same way. A person who has something to
say may not say it the way you prefer to
hear it. You may hear a lot of detail before
someone gets to the point. Or someone
may hit you with the bottom line with no
explanation. Or you may have to endure
repetitiousness. Meanwhile, you may feel
anxious because the other person isn't
telling you what you feel you need to hear.
It takes patience not to express your
anxiety, to let the speaker communicate in
his or her say own way.

Not all of us are blessed with an abundance
of compassion, focus, awareness, self-
discipline or patience. But we all have the
ability to stretch. We can reach for more of
one of these strengths when needed,
especially when we know we have to. If
you do, your interactions will go your way
a lot more often....