Chapter 7 - Active Listening

 Action-Oriented Listening

When I grew up I always spoke to people by relating what they said to said to myself. This is content-oriented. For example, they would say how they recently got into a car accident, and I would respond with a story about how I got into an accident before. I would mostly converse like that, and I never realized that I did that so often until we talked about it in class. Since that class, I have started listening and responding to conversations in different ways. One new way I started listening, was action oriented. 

    Now when I enter a conversation and where a friend is airing a frustration, I try to decide on an action to solve the problem. For example if they're upset, I've offered to hang out or go somewhere, or play a video game. Since I've started doing more active listening, I feel like I am communicating more diversely, and I feel a lot more charismatic talking to new and old friends. I've also started using some of the other types of listening, like people oriented listening, and I feel a lot more confident in my ability to socialize.