Are You Listening?

Listening is a skill, it is an art. It is an important part of good communication. How good are you at listening? The quiz below enables you to quickly compare your own listening behaviours with behaviours normally thought to be associated with exceptionally good listening skills.

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Listening Skills Quiz 
Indicate your response using the following scale:
4 = always 3 = most of the time 2 = some of the time 1 = rarely

1. I remind myself that listening is an opportunity to learn something.
2. I pay attention even when the subject doesn’t interest me.
3. I listen even if I disagree with the speaker.
4. I focus on the speaker’s ideas and not on their appearance or mannerisms.
5. I try to understand the speaker’s feelings as well their words.
6. I wait for the speaker to finish before forming an opinion.
7. I make sure I understand the speaker’s point of view before responding.
8. I show I am engaged by maintaining eye contact, nodding and leaning forward.
9. I am relaxed, calm and patient when listening.
10. I do not interrupt the speaker.
11. I take notes if I must remember the points being made.
12. I take time to reflect on the speaker’s main ideas.
13. I ask non-threatening questions to ensure I understand.
14. I often paraphrase what I hear to be sure I have heard correctly.
15. I do not allow distractions to divert my attention.

Listening Skills Quiz Scoring

50 - 60 Excellent! You have exceptional listening skills.

40 - 49 Above Average, but you could improve your skills.

30 - 39 Your score is promising, but you could greatly improve.

15 – 29 You need to pay serious attention to improving your listening skills.

Next obvious step is improving your listening skills. More on it in my next blog post.

Do I know myself?

“Do I know me?” The thought that immediately comes to my mind is, “I obviously know myself. Big deal?” But after introspecting for a moment, next thought comes, “Do I really know myself?”

Clear knowledge of my personality can be called Self-Awareness. It is accurate understanding of my abilities & preferences. It includes knowing my strong points, where I lack, my thoughts, beliefs, emotions, behaviours. It’s also the understanding of my needs, desires, failing, habits.

Now, the next question that arises in my mind is, “Why? What’s the use of it?” Before trying to find the answer to this question, let’s try to answer a much simpler question. What do I do when I have to find directions to some place on Google Maps? I update/ make visible my current location. Getting any hint??? Self-awareness is updating my current location before finding directions to my destination. Without knowing where I am standing, I can’t choose the direction towards my dream/goal.

So, what can I do to be more self-aware?

Learn to look at yourself objectively. Write down a description about yourself. Think about the stories you like to share about your past. These stories convey information about your traits that you think are your strengths.

Keep a journal of your feelings. Write down how you feel. Learn to pay close attention to your inner world – what you are feeling, what you are saying to yourself, how you are behaving.

Assess your self-talk. Pay attention to what you are talking to yourself. Take a couple of minutes each day to listen to your thoughts. Learn to replace demoralizing, negative talk with motivating positive talk.

Gain different perspectives. Ask for feedback from those around you. As you learn more about yourself & others, you will be able to differentiate between biased or dishonest feedback & real, genuine, balanced feedback.

Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the quality or state of being aware of something. It is paying attention to present moment, to your inner state as it arises. Mindfulness can be practiced anytime, through mindful listening, mindful eating, mindful talking.

To sum up importance of self-awareness in one line, ‘In order to achieve Self-improvement, one must be self-aware first’.