Practice Empathetic Listening

Start practicing reflective and empathic listening (or 5 Secrets of Effective Communication) in your every daily life.

Pick one of the following to practice and try to do it for a whole week, repeat till you do all of them, then do all at the same time for another week with as many people and situations you can. This practice will take 8 weeks to complete, so feel free to continue this course while you practice this.

Disarming Tech – Find the truth in what people around you are saying. You can just write down your answer if this is from a video you are watching or a social media post or something you overheard at the store. You can practice this in many different scenarios but the real challenge will be with your kids/spouse/partner. Attempt a verbal answer in these cases. You are likely to do very badly at first. That’s ok, don’t give up.

Thought Empathy – Repeat back what you heard in the persons words. Don’t use your own interpretation of what you heard. This means you will likely have to write it down. Again, you can do this while watching a video but also you can ask a friend to help you practice. Let them know you’ll be writing things down to make sure you get them right.

Feeling Empathy – Guess what the person is feeling and ask if you got it right.

I feel Statements – Share how you feel. Make sure you don’t add qualifiers like, “When you do X…. or that makes me feel…”.

Self-Disclosure – Share something relevant that’s from your heart.

Stroking – Tell them what you like about them. What are their strengths, gifts, talents, that you see in them. Be specific.

Inquiry – Ask for more information with the emphasis on getting the person to open up more rather than seeking details about the situation. IE: I’d love to know more how did that impact you?