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Am I the only one who believed I was a good listener until my friend called me out at a diner?
My friend Dana and I grabbed lunch at a diner in Columbus last month, and she was telling me about losing her job. I nodded along the whole time, but when she finished I jumped right in with three ways she could fix her resume, and she just stared at me. She said, "I didn't ask you to solve it, I wanted you to hear it," and I felt like a total jerk. It hit me that I've always said I'm a good listener, but really I was just waiting for my turn to talk. Has anyone else caught themselves doing this and actually changed?
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the_mary18d ago
What helped me was giving myself a rule: no advice unless they ask for it. Sounds dumb but it works. Now when someone vents to me I just say stuff like "that sucks" or "tell me more about that part" and it keeps me from jumping in with fixes. The hard part is sitting with the silence when they pause, because that's when I want to fill the gap with solutions. I also started asking "do you want ideas or do you just need to get it out?" at the start, and people seem to like that. It takes practice but you catch yourself faster each time.
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