🎯 To sum it up
Reflections and encouragers prompt your conversation partner to share more about their feelings. They allow your conversations to go deeper, and lead to a greater understanding.
💪 Your exercise for this week: use a reflection and encourager in two conversations
Your task is to assess how much more you can get out of a conversation by using reflections and encouragers.
✅ Step 1: Choose two conversations this week where you think you’ll be able to try out these conversation skills. They can be in your personal or professional life.
✅ Step 2: Before you join those conversations, skim this pathway to refresh your knowledge of reflections and encouragers. Take notes if you need to.
✅ Step 3: Use a reflection and encourager in both conversations you chose in step one.
A reflection will help confirm that you understand what the other person is feeling. The encourager will help them to elaborate, giving you a better understanding of their emotion.
Afterwards, note down what you noticed, return to this card and let us know how you felt it went.
👋 Before you go…
Loading ...📚 Further resources
Connected, but alone?, TED Talk by Sherry Turkle
Why reflecting feelings works (even on adults!), by Dr Brenna Hicks
Voice-only communication enhances empathic accuracy, by Dr Michael W. Kraus
A guide to productively communicating your feelings, by Psych Company
How to more clearly communicate about mental health struggles by SimplyOli, a podcast available from Apple and Listen Notes
💬 What do you think?
Share your experiences in the comment section – did using these techniques improve your understanding? Did they change the outcome of your conversations?
