Sunday, September 30, 2012
Week 6 discussion - Question 3
The topic that stuck out to me the most in this chapter is the internal obstacles that hinder us from listening. The first one is preoccupation which means that we are too into our own thoughts and other life concerns that we cannot focus on what a speaker is saying. Next is prejudgment that occurs when a listener think he/she already knows what is going to be said or just judged someone before they started talking so they tune out the information being given. Reacting to emotionally loaded language is the fourth obstacle because people tend to react emotionally to a speaker's way of talking that they may not fully understand the meaning of whatever is being said. Lack of effort is an obstacle because listening takes a lot of energy and effort to do so sometimes people are not focusing well enough to actually understand meanings. Lastly, failure to adapt listening styles because it is necessary to be able to adjust to different listening styles when needed and some people fail to do so, making it hard for them to listen effectively. I felt like these five internal obstacles are really helpful to know because people need to see and understand what is causing them to be a bad listener so they can work on making it better.
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Your post this week about internal obstacles that hinder us from listening is very interesting. These are issues that can prevent us from learning how to properly listen. Preoccupation, or being concerned with your own thoughts, can be considered a great distraction. If you are too concerned with your own thoughts, you can't learn anything new. Failure to adapt listening can also be an issue if you care unprepared for the topic. You want to be able to adjust your listening styles to adapt to different people talking. If not, it can be difficult to keep up with the conversation. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a really interesting topic also. We often get so caught up in what we need to say that we forget to listen to the other side. We can talk for hours about what we want to talk about but we cannot listen to what other people are actually saying. When I was reading this section, I started to realize how often I do the things the book discussed. I cannot count the amount of times I have had a lot on my mind or been really tired and basically tuned other people out. This section really made me think about my listening skills and how I could improve.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that it's important to know and acknowledge the different internal obstacles that we sometimes face when listening to others. Most of the time I end up suffering from preoccupation. It can be difficult for me to pay full attention to others when I'm having a particularly stressful week or if I've got one particular thought stuck in my head that I can't seem to get rid of. I think the best way to overcome this, at least for me, is to empty the head of any and all thoughts as much as possible. That way we can open our minds fully to receiving what the person is saying.
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