Reaction_Reflection_Paper

2nd Reaction/ Reflection Paper I consider “Selective listening” to be my most severe listening problem after reading through the section in my textbook that is entitled “Poor Listening Habits.” Two barriers that I believe need the most improvement would have to be “Rapid Thought” as well as “Personal Concerns.” Now that I have taken the time to recognize my flaws in the way that I communicate with others, I have realized that I can strengthen those weaknesses by making steps to improve those skills. Out of my top three poor listening habits that I need to work on, I feel that the one that I must improve is “Rapid Thought.” Usually, when someone is talking to me, I am able to listen to them and give them my full attention. However, sometimes if I do not find what they have to say as being very captivating I do find that my attention span seems to shorten and my mind tends to be more focused on thoughts that are irrelevant to what someone else is talking to me about. I notice that the less interesting the conversation becomes, the more I focus on more important things such as, the things that I have going on in my life, or things that I have to get done. In order to overcome my poor listening habits of “Rapid Thought,” the first step I plan to take is to put myself in the other person’s shoes. By concentrating on the fact that if I were them, I would want them to listen to what I have to say would prepare me to be in the mindset of putting more effort towards actually listening to what they have to say to me. Another step I would take to make sure that I am focused on the conversation is to ask them questions and also to paraphrase the main points and or the emotions that they are trying to get across to me. By doing this, this will make me more focused and intent to listen to what they have to say to me. This technique to paraphrasing also lets the other person know what I do and what I do not understand as far as what they are trying to tell me.