I found the section on evaluating listening skills of slight
amusement but it also struck a personal chord with me. I oftentimes have
trouble expressing myself correctly with those closest to me. My fiancé and I
have adjusted relatively well to our individual listening and speaking styles,
and we are both very patient and understanding. I still think we can improve
our communication styles to be better in our thought process before we initiate
the conversation, or expand our empathetic understanding of each other so we
don’t start an unintended argument. The amusing aspect of this section in the
book was when it was describing that Americans are trained to be bad listeners.
The book cited examples such as Americans value activity and independence and
so our value towards listening is lessened. It was only until the last sentence
that the section entertained the thought that the teachers may be reinforcing
this bad listening behavior. This was amusing to me as I was wondering if this
might be the author’s own bias towards being less critical of oneself and more
critical of others.
I have that same issue you do, expressing your thoughts to others. I am sort of trapped in my head with thoughts and sometimes I think I say them and sometimes I don’t. Not only that but I have a hard time verbalizing what I want to say most of the time, like word usage. This book has not only taught me different approaches but how to analyze as well. However with my close circle of people, they just go along with my poor wordage and understand. Everyone is different when it comes to articulating things. I have also noticed that if you take the time to think about what you are going to say, it is a lot easier when it comes to articulating. I think my brain is always going a million miles an hour!
ReplyDeleteMy brain is also mainly geared towards numbers…haha!
I can relate with you guys because I too struggle with verbalizing the thoughts in my head. I seem to go “fuzzy” in the heat of confrontation and cannot find the words that I want to say and don’t hear the words that are being said to me. I think we could probably all stand to improve in our listening skills. I find that too often I am thinking about what I am going to say next instead of actively listening to what is being said to me. I thought about this when I read the chapter and why I do that. I think it is my fear of awkward silence or the conversation ending on an awkward note so I need to know the next thing to say so that I am not the source of awkwardness. It seems silly when I say it out loud (or put it in a blog!).
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