Simple and hard to do

One of the first things I remember when I went on my ‘taster’ coaching weekend back in 2005 was about listening. Not listening to respond but listening to understand. It’s hard to do when you’ve been hard wired to listen and respond.

What do I mean by that ?

Well, you know when you’re telling someone something and you see them nodding and hear “hmmm” and “yup” and you just know they’re filtering what you’re saying so they can jump in with their 10pence worth. They’re not really listening to you.

Listening is one of the secrets to unlocking so many tricky situations, relationships, challenges but why is it so hard?

I find if I listen and just slightly nod, saying things like ‘go on ‘ or ‘and what else about that ‘ the person continues to unpack their thinking. They often look surprised (if it’s not a client) because it’s so rare that people deeply listen.

The other secret about deeply listening is this… You don’t have to work so hard!

You are allowing yourself to stay present and, let’s be honest, you might not like what you hear but you don’t have to commit yourself to what you think, not straight away…

Try this for a few days .

Ask a few more questions than you think are necessary to keep the person speaking and test your listening skills. Find out what you find out – about them AND about yourself.

Steven Covey, who wrote the amazing book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, said that Habit 5 is “Seek First to Understand; Then to Be Understood”.

The idea being it’s not only more human to listen first before jumping in but it gives you so many more options and you find out so much more.. Win/win.

If you struggle with establishing OR re-establishing boundaries and saying “NO” then I have something for you. So many women are struggling to reassert their work/homelife boundaries that I’ve created something targeted to help.

I’ll tell you about it shortly… 19th August at 7.30pm UK. Join me. More soon. Pop the date in your diary for now …