Social Awareness Skills for Work/Life Balance, Part 1: Giving Your Full Attention in Conversations

Today’s post is about how the 3rd skill set of Emotional Intelligence (Social Awareness) can help you improve your work/life balance.

Social Awareness is your ability to recognize and understand the emotions and behaviors of others.

To understand others better, you need to put your full attention on them as they communicate.

2 Contrasting Examples

1. Think about a time when you were talking to someone and you could tell that they weren’t really paying attention to you — that person was clearly thinking about something else — they were not mentally present with you — and you could probably tell by their body language.

2. Now, contrast that by thinking about a time when you were talking to someone and they were giving you their full attention. You could see by their body language that they were listening. They were not interrupting you. They were listening to you to understand what you were communicating.

In the first memory, you probably felt some negative emotions like frustration or resentment.

In the second memory, you probably felt more connected to the other person and were grateful that they were listening to you to understand what you were communicating.

When you realize that you are not fully listening to someone who is talking to you, pull your focus off your inner dialogue or external distractions like your phone or the TV and focus on the other person.

Your full attention to others in conversations will help you connect better with them and build stronger trust and respect.

And you need to have trust and respect with others to have a great work/life balance.

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