Listening Skills

[caption id="attachment_1583" align="aligncenter" width="227" caption="Mind"][/caption] I came across this great little tool to help you focus on where you may be lacking with you Listening Skills. It is a simple Yes / No questionnaire. So have a go at it and see how well you are a listening skills.   When you're Listening to Someone,

1. Do you think about other things while you're keeping track of the conversation?
2. Do you think about what you-re going to say next?
3. Do you listen with the intent to reply rather than with the intent to understand?
4. Do you break in with your own ideas before the other person has finished talking?
5. Do you listen primarily for facts rather than ideas?
6. Do you "tune out" to things that you feel will be too difficult to understand?
7. Do you try to make it appear you're paying attention when you're not?
8. Do certain words or phrases prejudice you so that you don't listen objectively?
9. Do your thoughts turn to other things when you believe a speaker will have nothing particularly interesting to say?
10. Do you finish other people's sentences?
11. Can you tell from a person's appearance and delivery that he/she won't have anything important to say?
12. Are you easily distracted by outside sights and sounds?
13. Do you miss the emotionality of the other person just from their tone of voice?

Unfortunately only a rear person will answer No to all these question, because we all live in our own minds and have distracting thoughts during a conversation. Furthermore, Theory of Mind is a developed skill that we are not born with. Theory of mind is the capacity we have to understand mental states such as: believes, feelings, desires, hope and intentions. It's the way we imagine other people's feelings or thoughts. We can create a mental picture of our own emotions or other people's feelings. This theory of mind enables us to understand the behavior people display is caused by their inner feelings, believes or intentions. We can predict some of those behaviors and anticipate on them. Whatever goes on in the mind of other people is not visible so it will remain a "theory" we create for ourselves.