Malaysia Fogle

Journal Entry 4
Prof. Steven Williams
7 July 2020
Listening Skills

Do you believe you are an effective listener? Why or why not? Use what you learned in Unit 3.2 and
Chapter 5 as evidence for your answer.

I do believe I am an effective listener. Our book says that being an effective listener means you can put
aside any biases you may have. This is something I can easily do because I believe that no opinion is
ever going to be the same, so why not listen to it. Being able to listen to what anyone has to say means
you are open to conversation and not just responding to respond. I currently work at a credit union and
listen to a lot of people’s opinions and problems. I never judge those opinions or problems because all I
care about doing is helping that person in front of me. So, I make sure I am actively listening and finding
ways to respond to help them.

I do think that being an effective listener is much more than not being bias, but also paying attention,
showing that you are indeed listening, provide a response, and responding in an appropriate matter.
When I talk to someone who is only listening to for an argument or distracted while listening to me, I
don’t like talking anymore. I feel that when someone is talking to you, you should be giving your full
attention to that person. This way you can process what is being said and ask questions if you have
them or respond in a way that benefits both parties.

How has listening and empathy played a positive or negative role in your relationships and
interactions with others? How might you improve?

Listening has played a positive role in my relationships by being able to listen to people’s problems, or
just learning more about someone. I enjoy listening to people talk and learning more about them. I also
love being someone who can tell someone if they need someone to talk to, I am here to listen. I feel it
gives me the opportunity to continue to improve my listening skill, but also help someone else. I feel
that I am best at empathic listening because I always wanted someone to listen to me better, so I
learned to be that person for others.

Empathy is both positive and negative for me sometimes though. I tend to try to help everyone I can. If
someone is going through something, I will be there for them before myself. The positive side is that you
leave feeling that you just helped someone, even if it was just by listening. I have learned that
sometimes being too empathic is a bad thing. When listening to people we tend to take their body
language and feelings into consideration and what they tell you could possible stick with you. When
someone is sad sometimes you leave that conversation feeling sad as well. It is a negative thing because
if you are always letting people tell you what’s wrong for them it can then affect you by thinking about
things that are going wrong in your life. I think it is important to listen to others, but sometimes you
need your space away and that empathy part can go away. This is when distractions can happen when
someone is talking to you and you aren’t active listening. It is something we all need to be careful of and
that can be hard to do.