Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood From 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Seek first to understand involves a very deep shift in paradigm. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They are either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms.

We're filled with our own rightness, our own autobiography. We want to be understood. But we fail to understand what's going on inside another human being. This habit introduces the concept of the highest level of listening which is called empathic listening.

Empathic listening means seeking first to understand. It gets inside another person's frame of reference. We look through it, see the world through their lens, understand their perspective and how they feel. It's about understanding a person emotionally as well as intellectually.

In empathic listening instead of projecting your own thoughts, feelings, motives, and assumptions. We're dealing with the reality inside another person's head and heart. It's deeply therapeutic and healing because it gives a person a psychological air.

This type of listening satisfies a deeper need for human survival. Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival - to be affirmed, validated, and appreciated. After this vital need is met, we can focus on influencing or problem-solving.

It's also a risky endeavor because we are letting our guard down and opening ourselves up to be influenced. We become vulnerable, it's a paradox because in order to have influence we have to be influenced. That means we have to really understand.

Empathic listening abilities must be built on a character foundation that promotes openness and trust. You must be honest, mature, and have trust reserves that allow the other person to be vulnerable and open to you. It takes time but it also brings great returns in the long run.

How to apply empathic listening in your conversations?

1. Listen patiently without interrupting the speaker, even if you don't agree with everything, show acceptance without judgment.

2. Pay more attention to the emotions which are expressed by the speaker.

3. Give meaning and interpret the speaker's words in our own way it helps you understand his perspective with much more clarity.

4. Ask insightful questions, it really helps in going deeper into the speaker's perspective, opinions, or feelings.

Blend all of the four points above to provide the speaker the psychological air, acceptance, validation, and appreciation. This type of listening will open up layer after layer until we reach the very core where the actual problem resides.

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