The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens - Habit 5

Hi, and welcome back! As you know, I've recently enjoyed Sean Covey's Book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Today, I'm excited to share more of its information with you by discussing the fifth habit: Think first to understand, then to be understood. This habit is the second habit of the second section: the public victory which is about improving your relationship with others. This habit is about learning to listen to others opinions before sharing your own

Part 1 - The importance of listening.

This habit is so important because being understood is one of the most essential needs of the human heart. The book uses the quote “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care“ to explain just how important listening to others is. You can’t successfully help anybody if you don’t truly know how they feel and the only way to understand how they feel is by truly listening to them.

Part 2 - The 5 poor listening styles

The book discusses 5 types of bad listening skills: Spacing out, Pretend listening, Selective listening, word listening and self-centered listening. Spacing out is when someone else is talking but we don’t listen because we are lost in our own world. Pretend listening is when we aren’t paying attention to someone else’s words but we throw out words like “yeah“ and “of course” to make it appear that we care. Selective listening is when you only pay attention to the words that interest you, leading to very shallow conversations. Word listening is when you only listen to the words someone is saying, not the tone or the real message behind them, this type of listening shows a lack of emotional intelligence. Self-Centered listening is when we take everything that someone is saying and make it about ourselves, invalidating others feelings and being selfish.

Part 3 - Genuine listening

Genuine listening is when you listen in a way that shows you care about what the other person has to say. To practice genuine listening you have to listen to more than the words, you also have to pay attention to tone and body language. The book states that genuine listening is 7% words, 40% tone, and 53% body language, this shows just how important it is to listen with more than your ears. Another part of genuine listening is learning to walk in other peoples shoes. Until you understand where people are coming from you can’t genuinely understand them.

Conclusion

The overall message of this habit is that to have good relationships with people you have to learn to be a genuine listener. This requires paying attention to peoples words, tones, and body language as well as learning to walk in the shoes of others. If you practice these things and make sure to check what type of listening you're practicing you will successfully conquer this habit.