Nelson Creath

Professor Anderson

Comm 2110

30 July 2022

Personal Change Final Report:

Overview

My unwanted communication pattern was that I have/ had a hard time paying attention

and staying focused when talking to people. This affected how I interacted with people and I al-

ways felt like I was not paying enough attention to people. I also realized that when people no-

tice you not paying attention they do not want to talk to you. This made me want to change this

habit.

I decided to implement a 5 step plan that could help me change my habit of getting dis-

tracted in conversations. Each of the 5 steps references back to chapter 5 of the textbook, “Lis-

tening and Responding Skills”. These steps are based on improving my listening and communi-

cation while recognizing the negative patterns I have been displaying.

This exercise in self discipline and self analysis combined with the required journaling al-

lowed me to reflect and show my best attempt at changing my behavior. I learned more than ex-

pected and the results were positive.

Unwanted Communication Pattern

 The pattern I chose was distracted listening or getting distracted in conversation. I have

always had a bad habit of this and it has caused me some issues. It bothers people and makes me

less desirable to talk to. It also sometimes leads to me interrupting which is impolite. People have

told me that it bothers them and so I think it is a good habit to work on changing. Being a good

listener is both important in personal life and professional life, it helps develop better relation-

ships and is respectful when talking to people.

Strategies

My plan to help change this behavior is 5 steps and each step references a section of

chapter 5 in the textbook. The plan is designed to help me recognize my listening barriers and to

help me begin to build good listening skills. Each step was worked on for about a week or so. I

still kept in mild trying to improve my listening throughout, from the beginning to end. In the be-

ginning the main goal was to recognize the bad habits while the final weeks were focused on de-

veloping and improving skills of different types. Here are the steps and an explanation of each

1) Learn and identify the Listening Barriers that affect my communication (pg. 121) - My main

listening barrier is “external noise”. Getting distracted easily is a huge struggle for me and

this is the main obstacle I face in trying to better my listening skills. Most external stimula-

tion outside of the conversation is distracting enough to get my attention away from conver-

sation. This is the bad habit that I have chosen to improve upon.

2) Learn what type of listener I am and adapt to that style (pg. 119) - I learned that I am a rela-

tional listener. It is easiest for me to improve my listening skill by trying to relate to whoever is
talking to me more. Trying to show empathy to the speaker even if it's just to be respectful.

Imagining I am in their position and thinking about how I would like to be treated.

3) I will improve my critical listening skills. (pg. 134) - I used the skills mentioned in the book

like using the information to make a decision and being active in the the conversation. Improving

my listening skills helped me stay focused while completing this project. It helped in both my

work and personal life.

4) I will improve my responding skills. (pg. 135) - This skill was the most impactful. I specifi-

cally worked on paraphrasing and using that skill to better pay attention and stay engaged. If I

paraphrased enough it was not annoying but it kept me totally focused on the conversation at

hand.

5) I will improve my body movement, posture, and eye contact to show attentiveness. (pg. 184 &

187) - This was the final step. Showing eye contact and good posture shows engagement and in-

terest in the speaker. It is respectful and helped me pay attention even better. Eye contact and

posture combined is a good practice especially when combined with step 3 & 4 of the plan.

Constraints

I was working and doing school during this time so my level of distraction was especially high. I

was a bit stressed also at some points so it was difficult to remember in the moment that I needed

to improve my listening skills.

Implementation

I worked at my job in Park City most of the days of this project (5 days a week) so most

of my practice was with my boss and/ or with coworkers. This made it easy to be intentional
about improving my listening skills. With my boss I noticed the biggest difference when I would

make eye contact and paraphrase. I felt like he respected me more and felt heard. I felt more trust

from him.

The biggest changes I made to help me pay attention was making eye contact and para-

phrasing. Those two skills together made me seem attentive and engaged in the conversation.

I managed constraints by staying disciplined and not allowing myself to fall back on bad

habits. Journaling helped remind me to keep at it even when I was sick of reminding myself.

I achieved what I wanted but I am concerned with staying consistent and keeping up the

work that I started. A month is not that long and I could easily fall into the bad habit again. My

goal is to continue to improve these skills over time.

Results

I followed the sections from the textbook and used my improved skills to help break my

bad communication habit of getting distracted in conversation. I did well and succeeded in this

project. I did not have any negative results but I feel like that is had with a project of this sort. I

feel like if you follow the steps it is pretty much guaranteed to work. Anyone can benefit from an

exercise like this and that’s why I took advantage of the information in the textbook and used it

to try to improve my life. I had to do the project so why not actually put the effort in to changing

something that actually causes me some grief. I am satisfied and glad I completed it and I hope

to keep improving these skills.

Recommendations

I will continue this strategy and I would like to add on to it maybe a bit. As far as my re-
sponding skills, I’d like to engage more by asking questions. “Asking appropriate questions can

help not only you but also the person sharing information with you. One research study by com-

munication researchers … found that speakers did a better job of sharing a story if listeners asked

appropriate questions and made appropriate responses to the story rather than offering no obser-

vation about what they heard.( Interpersonal Communication pg. 135). This is a skill that can

help keep me focused on the conversation and the speaker and so I will start to work on it along

with the other 3 skills mentioned.

Works Cited

Beebe, Steven A.; Beebe, Susan J.; Redmond, Mark V.. Interpersonal Communication (p. 136).

Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.