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Effective Listening

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Effective Listening
General Short Essay Stage One (1st person, opinionated)

Effective listening is an ongoing skill that improves with time and effort. People are more often interested on conveying their own ideas. Being an effective listener requires a person to withdraw in order to better understand another individual's idea. “Assumptions” is actually the general idea, that when someone begins to express themselves and try to convey a concept the listener will jump to conclusion. I personally noticed that I most often assume what someone others are saying. When one assumes what another is trying to say it can hinder the other's ability to fully say what they want to say. For example, a two people are having a conversation; one says to another that they are going to an event next weekend. The other responds by saying that he/she is free to go with him/her that weekend. One assumes, and should have waited for the other actually invites him/her, which could turn out to an awkward situation. Effective listening sometimes doesn’t really need a response. It’s what I’ve noticed, I personally can’t say I am an effective listener, but for some reason I’ve picked up a few tells that someone isn’t really listening when they try to respond or fix a problem. One is when someone is blowing off steam about a stressful situation like work or a relationship. In my experience those type of conversations don’t require responses other than nods, those who are speaking are actually just putting it out there so they can resemble it themselves unless they ask specifically for what one thinks, that’s the only time for a true response. The only reason I perceive it that way is because when I speak, I notice that others are trying to fix problems, and by the time it has reached that point I realize that was not my intention to have something fixed but to sort of organize my own thoughts. The truth is after I realized that others are the same way, and responding may only aggravate the already agitated individual. Putting that into practice, just be an ear, is actually more revealing then engage into the conversation. Well, little experiences I’ve found through effective listening.

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