Listen First Then Talk a Little Less

It’s harder to listen then it is to speak. My goal to listen first and focus on the people in my life seems harder than the other goals this year. It wasn’t always.

In college, I took this one class called the “Shy Person’s Speech”. I found out about through my advisor when I told her I hate giving speeches. Now mind you I had to do presentations in a ton of my classes and honestly was really struggling to even stand up much less open my mouth and have full sentences come up that weren’t piles of gibberish.

Fast forward a few years I told my senior capstone project professor in an email: “ if my business needs me to give speeches to groups of more than 5 people at a time I will have to hire someone else to speak for me because I am much happier and have less anxiety when I can be a fly on the wall.” That’s how little I wanted to talk just a few years ago.

Now if you give me the opportunity I can’t stop oversharing or talking. I’m sure it’s because now with a toddler, working only part-time and being around very few non-parent adults if someone gives me an opening I’m talking. I don’t feel like I’m being heard at all otherwise.

“We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.” –Diogenes

Listen First, Talk Less

So listening seems to be a bit of a problem. I listen to my son’s nonstop talking. He just wants someone listening to his continuous dialog. I listen to my husband who has hyper moments at night. Usually, about 2 am, when I would prefer to sleep. I listen to my mother who is having a lot of stuff crashing down on her now that my dad has taken hands off of pretty much everything in their lives.

I listen. But I don’t listen first. I usually try and solve their issue quickly. Then talk about something else. It’s really hard to hear them when I just want to move on to the next thing. So I’ve been trying to hear them a little more. To let others talk first before bring up my own problems.