Benefits of habit “Pause before responding”
✓ Improves your listening skills
✓ Reduces stress of giving an answer too fast
✓ Improves relationships with people around you
First step:
Once a day
Progress:
1. Next conversation you have, give yourself a pause after a person said what they wanted to say and only then answer. Do the same with questions, even if you know the answer immediately. Do it once a day for one week.
3. Next week try to do it twice a day.
2. Each conversation you have, try stopping yourself from answering immediately and give yourself deliberate pause.
Helpful tips to make it a habit:
✓ Trigger your mind. Although you cannot plan when you will have a long conversation where such pausing will be available, you can trigger your mind to react appropriately when it does happen. Carry a stress ball or a bracelet that would symbolize your commitment to stop from answering too quickly to any new information or question.
✓ Let the app help. Make notes in the app’s calendar of every day you paused before responding and see how many days you managed to do so. The more the better.
✓ Reward yourself. Once you feel confident you became a better listener, take several of your friends or family you practiced pausing before responding with out to dinner and keep listening. Use your newly acquired habit to your advantage.
Tips for beginners:
✓ How to listen. Don’t think about your response until the speaker stops speaking or asks a question. Follow the information flowing from them, take it in and let your brain form a response. Then say it, but only when you make sure you will be listened to.
✓ Not speaking is an option. Part of being a good listener is knowing when to not speak. It is also important to remember that it is not always necessary to have a response. Simply to listen is enough and that is a response in itself.
✓ Form a good response. As much information, leaving your lips, as possible should be relevant to the conversation at hand. If you are not well informed on the topic, it’s alright for your response to be a question or an inquiry.