Active Listening Essay

Listening requires focus and attention, and failure to listen is one of the key causes of miscommunication (Sole, K. (Chapter 2, 2011).Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc). I think at some point in time everyone has been guilty of believing that they knew someone better than they actually did. When we assume we know all there is to know about a friend or a loved one, I believe that we unknowingly stop listening to them. One perfect example of this would be my best friend Carla and I. Carla and I have known each other for many years, we were friends in High school, roommates in college and godparents to one another’s children, so one would naturally think that we knew each other VERY well. One year for Carla’s birthday she asked me to make her a cake, and obviously I agreed. The day of her birthday celebration I arrived with the cake and presented it to her, only to have her wind up extremely unhappy. Carla was under the impression that she had specified she wanted her favorite cake, which happened to be strawberry, but she did not, had she specified she wanted me to make a strawberry cake I would have declined because i am extremely allergic to strawberries, if I consume them I’m nauseated if I touch them I break out in a sever rash. Even after Realizing that she had not requested a strawberry cake she remained upset claiming that as her best friend I should have known she wanted me to make a specific cake and I remained upset because I felt like she either didn’t know or didn’t care about my allergies and as a friend neither of those options were ok. At some point we were able to realize that we failed each other. Had we communicated with one another we could have avoided an unnecessary fight. One way we could have avoided our misunderstanding would have been to actually say exactly what we wanted each other to know, Carla could have asked for what she wanted from me instead of assuming that since I know how much she loves strawberries, that I’d be making a strawberry cake  and I could have asked more questions about what she wanted rather than assume that because she knows my allergies she knew I wouldn’t be making her favorite cake. Another way to avoid that type of situation is to actually listen and focus on the conversation that you’re having. This is where I think active listening comes into play. We weren’t intentionally ignoring each other but I think that our long-term friendship and assumption about how well we knew each other caused us to only listen partly as opposed to completely. In the future I fully intend to be an active listener and completely engage myself in discussions that I have. References: Sole, K. (2011).Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc Active Listening Essay Active listening is one of the most rewarding skill sets that I have learned from the lesson because it has really contributed to my personal growth and my professional lives. Active listening skills refer to the skill of being fully present when you are in a conversation with someone. Very often when we are in a conversation, we are not paying any attention to what the person is saying. We are just waiting for our turn to talk. We are actually having a conversation in our own heads while the person is talking to us. It is when we are not â€Å"present† in a conversation. Before I realized the importance of active listening, the most important thing in a conversation was that people understood what I was trying to share with them. Meaning that my perspective was the most important thing in a conversation and that they had to understand me. And what I learned over the lesson, was that the best way to nurture a relationship was actually to stop caring about people understanding my point. This lesson reminds me that each of us had different experiences, we grow up with different believes, different values, different rules. And how we think and how we view everything that goes on around us are always filtered based on the environment we grew up. Throughout the lesson, I had many opportunities to practice my active listening skills by actively participating in the class discussions. After completed the lesson, I would not say I am an excellent listener, but I definitely feel that I am a better listener. I find myself paying more attention to the speaker and interpreting his/her non-verbal cues, showing that I am listening by probing and providing feedback and clarifying by asking questions. By listen closely, I am able to gain more information about what the person is sharing and to find things that peak my interest. When the person is done with the sharing, I will ask them about what that peaked my interest and let the person respond. By doing so, I am able to understand their point of view and to see things from their perspective. I will not interrupt when the person is speaking as I know that interruption always limit my ability to connect. Improving active listening skills will enable me to reshape my ideas about myself, my beliefs, and everything that are important to me. From now on, I will remind myself to be fully present and fully aware of what others are saying, instead of feeling the urge to find what I am thinking of and what my response is going to be. I will try the best I can to get rid of thinking on my own perspective and to do everything I can to understand the other person’s point of view and make them my priority.