Factors In Listening

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There are a myriad of components that affect our style and quality of listening at any given time.

However, there are only a handful that we have direct influence over. How we employ and express ourselves along each of these controllable Factors determines the style and effectiveness of our listening. You can check out the Styles and Levels of Listening after you familiarize yourself with the factors to see how they impact the effectiveness of your listening.

The following Factors may come across as obvious to you (“Of course you have to pay attention when listening! Duh!”) and we implore you to consider that each Factor in and of itself is an art. There is great complexity beneath the surface of the word “Curiosity,” or “Authenticity.” Practicing any one of these Factors alone will enhance your listening overall!

After reading through the Factors, try focusing on one each day of the week while listening and see how it influences your communication.

Maybe these Factors seem obvious to you, and you think you’ve got them down. We invite you to be curious about it- remember when we said that most people think they’re good listeners when in fact they aren’t? Take the time to consider, quite seriously, your level of efficacy in each of these options. Then to affirm (or not!) your judgment, print out the following feedback questionnaire and send it to at least five people who can give you honest feedback on each of these!

How Well Do I Listen? Feedback Questionnaire

Click each illustration below to learn about each individual factor, or continue to scroll to read about each of them in turn. Beneath each section is a collection of links to content that expands on each idea, including how listening looks without each Factor, how to practice each Factor and why each is important, and finally, practices and exercises to print out for your personal work

***Click each icon to jump to that factor.***

Awareness

Attention

Intention

Curiosity

Self-Regulation

Authenticity

Attention

How often are you distracted during conversation?
Think of the last time you had someone’s full attention. What did that feel like?

Attention is fundamental to effective listening. By giving someone our full attention, we become present with them.

In our modern world, it is increasingly common to fracture our attention through multitasking, or the ever-present expectation of incoming notifications on our mobile devices. Another common pitfall includes daydreaming: thinking of our memories keeps our mind focused on the past while planning for tomorrow keeps it in the future- neither of which are relevant to being fully present with the person we’re listening to.

These challenging distractions are internal or external. Internally we’re dealing with our own thoughts and emotions. Our internal thought mechanisms are so distracting that a Harvard study of 2,250 adults showed that we are in a state of mind-wandering 47% of every waking hour. Externally we could be attempting to hear our conversation partner over various sounds, visual distractions, or physical distractions like the sounds of our children playing, avoiding direct sunlight that we’re facing, or being too cold.

Attention can be a challenging skill to master, and yet effective listening depends on it. Truly listening to someone involves focusing on gaining a deep degree of understanding by focusing on information from verbal expression, nonverbal expression, content, and various contexts in a conversation. It’s a lot to pay attention to!

And, it pays off. Being completely present with the people we’re with and focusing our attention on them as well as our own experience leads to greater satisfaction. On the other hand, more distraction has the opposite effect. One study showed that the mere presence of a cell phone on the dinner table was so distracting that study participants reported a drop in satisfaction of the overall meal!

“Attention is the most basic form of love. Through it, we bless and are blessed.” —John Tarrant, Zen Master

An easy way to pay more attention in conversation is to tap into why you care.

Consciously caring for the person we are listening to aids us in staying present by tapping into compassion for their experience and possibly the value of the relationship. Take a moment before you engage (or when you catch your mind wandering) to check-in internally and tap into caring for the person you want to listen to.

Beyond tuning our attention by caring with our hearts, we can train our minds to develop better-focusing muscles and therefore enhance our ability to listen effectively. This can be done through learning meditation (which we link some practices to below). You can learn more about this type of mindset in our sections on Presence, Mindfulness, and Habits to explore this more.

*PS. You should know that it is okay not to force yourself to pay attention if you do not have the bandwidth to show up at that time. Part of listening well is knowing where you’re at personally and being comfortable asking for what you need as well. Learn more about this in Messy Listening.

When You’re Not Listening
A parody short from Buzzfeed about how hard it is to pay attention in conversation.

Intention

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” –Stephen R. Covey

Have you ever decided, explicitly, what you wanted from a conversation before you entered it?
How about how you wanted to be during a conversation?
How might making such decisions affect the way a conversation goes?

Our intentions have an enormous impact on how we listen. When we engage in listening, we always have an agenda- our reason for engaging in the conversation. Sometimes our agenda is unconscious. Effective listening seeks to make our intentions in listening conscious, enabling us to choose an agenda that truly aligns with how we want to show up in that moment, resulting in integrity.

To sum that up: Having integrity while listening means consciously choosing our agenda and being in alignment with it.

For example, we may notice our agenda shifting during a conversation and need to readjust.

Example

A woman named Susan is visiting her elderly mother and listening to her share about her week. Susan’s objective in this conversation is to connect with, understand, and support her mother. When her mother begins complaining about issues at the nursing home, Susan notices herself listening to gather information to fix the situation. She is coming up with arguing points to take to the administration after her visit. While the desire to fix the situation feels like it is coming from a loving place, Susan recognizes she is no longer listening in a present, supportive and connecting way. Rather she is listening with a critical and action-oriented agenda. Susan re-adjusts her agenda and attention, enabling her to stay present with her mother’s emotional experience, and comes back into integrity with her intention to be a compassionate listener for her mother. The process of re-adjusting her agenda is called Needs Shifting.

Most of the time, our intentions are unconscious- meaning we’re not directly aware of them or aware of choosing them. When our intentions are unconscious we can end up getting in our own way.

Think about the last time you had an argument with someone; did you enter that conversation with the intention of ending the conflict? Think about it deeply. You may have wanted the conflict to end, but you may also have been attached to being right and showing the other person they were wrong.

The intention to ‘win’ is often opposed to finding a resolution that works for both people. If you had been conscious of your intention to be right as a way to end the conflict, you could have given yourself the opportunity for some self-empathy and regulation before entering the conversation- which has the power to transform the whole dynamic!

Types of Intentions in Conversation (not an exhaustive list, and in no particular order):

To connect with someone
To gather information
To support someone
To influence behavior
To gain approval
To understand
To assert our view
To find fault
To be heard
To learn
To entertain

To make a request
To practice listening
To show respect
To show interest
To connect with emerging possibilities
To problem-solve
To evaluate
To confirm
To appreciate
To empower
To create relationships or build trust

Test Yourself: What Intentions are present in these conversations?

https://youtu.be/izj4iCPkQYE

Curiosity

As a child, recall something you were always excited to understand better. Imagine and hold the feeling of pure curiosity that drew you towards that thing. Do you ever feel this way towards people?
How often do you stop yourself from asking questions? Why?

Listening to fully understand someone begins with genuine curiosity. Curiosity, as we’re defining it, is a combination of sincere interest and openness. This openness generously accepts aspects of the speaker, internal events within the listener, and situations more generally.

Openness to the speaker

Acceptance of their experience, emotions, thoughts as legitimate and reasonable
Openness to hearing and understanding their views, experiences, emotions, beliefs, ideas.

Openness within the Listener

Acceptance of internal experience, emotions, and thoughts as they arise
Openness to understanding these things

Openness to the situation

Openness to possible discomfort in the conversation
Openness to not controlling the conversation
Openness to the conversation going or not going according to your preferences

*We have an entire section of this website dedicated to Curiosity! Check it out here.

It is common for us to enter conversations and interpret what we hear through filters we’ve unconsciously developed throughout our lives. It takes Awareness (see next factor) to figure out which ones are in operation and how they’re affecting our understanding of what we’re hearing. Some examples of filters and their possible consequences may include:

Expecting women to be emotional (we may hear her complaints as irrational).
Expecting conservatives/liberals to be stubborn (we may not try to engage in constructive dialogue at all).
Expecting your brother to be lazy (we may misinterpret his desire not to mow the lawn as lazy, when he is actually overwhelmed at work).

In order to really hear what someone is saying, we have to approach the conversation with curiosity.

Two Examples of the Impacts of Curiosity on Interpretation

1. A Common Scenario:
Adam is having lunch with his mother-in-law who arranged the get-together. She asks him what he is getting his wife (her daughter) for her birthday.

Listening Without Curiosity:

Adam knows that his mother-in-law has high standards for her daughter and wants the best for her. He feels like he has never really measured up to her standards. Adam is feeling insecure and simultaneously feels confident that he is being judged. He interprets his mother-in-law’s question as, “You should know what you’re getting her. You should have something extravagant planned.” Or, more extremely, “You’re not good enough for my daughter.”

Because of all this, Adam ends up responding defensively and reinforcing his story about his mother-in-law.

Listening With Curiosity:

Adam notices that his story about his mother-in-law not thinking highly of him has gotten triggered by her question. Instead of assuming that that is what she is communicating, he takes a moment to consider the possibilities of what she is communicating.

An innocent wondering, because she is excited to celebrate her daughter’s birthday, or maybe she is trying to make conversation.
Perhaps she needs to know because she doesn’t want to duplicate the gift.
Perhaps she has an idea to offer in case he hasn’t decided yet.
Maybe she wants to brainstorm with him and plan something together.
Possibly she is judging him and his insecurities are well-founded.

Rather than indulge in his insecurities and perpetuate a story that doesn’t feel good to him, Adam decides to give her the benefit of the doubt- she did invite only him to lunch, after all. And, if she is judging him, he has the option to reveal his concern and ask her about it, possibly strengthening their understanding and connection.

2. A More Intense Scenario: Debra’s sister Elizabeth is upset with her, but Debra doesn’t know why. Elizabeth tends to shut down when she is upset and has chosen to ignore Debra as a strategy for dealing with her feelings and as a way to passively communicate to Debra that she did something wrong. This annoys Debra because she feels it is childish for Elizabeth to expect her to read her mind. Debra finally resolves to ask Elizabeth what is wrong.

Listening without Curiosity:

Debra (with frustration): What is up with you? You want to tell me what’s going on or are you going to ignore me all day?

Elizabeth: You’ve got an attitude problem. I don’t have to tell you anything.

Debra: I’ve got an attitude problem? Obviously something is bothering you. I don’t understand why you can’t behave like an adult and just tell me instead of expecting me to figure it out.

Elizabeth: Act like an adult? Adults don’t share each other’s private information behind each others’ backs!

Debra: This is because I told Mom about your car accident? You’re so self-righteous. Keeping things like that a secret doesn’t help you stay accountable!

It is clear in this example that both parties entered the conversation defensively. Because the sisters were both triggered and not emotionally-regulated, they were stuck in a frame of mind in which they were attached to assumptions about the other person’s behavior. Because they made assumptions and accusations, the conflict escalated.

There is a ton of information here that goes unacknowledged because Debra is not in a curious state. If Debra had listened with Curiosity, she would have also learned that Elizabeth feels like her personal boundaries have been crossed, she wants to be left alone in the moment, and that keeping someone’s confidence is very important to her. Her trust has been violated.

Listening with Curiosity:

Debra (with a deep breath): Hey Elizabeth, are you open to talking right now?

Elizabeth (irritated): What do you want?

Debra: I’m noticing that you’re upset and ignoring me. I’m starting to get frustrated, too, and form some stories around why you’re doing that. I’d rather hear it from you if you’re willing to share with me what’s going on, as I cannot read your mind.

Elizabeth: You really wanna know? I’m pissed that you have no sense of respect.

Debra (taking another breath): What happened that made you think that?

Elizabeth: You told Mom about my car accident after that was obviously just between us!

There are many more skills present in this conversation than Curiosity alone. Debra makes sure to regulate (breathing) before entering the conversation so she can be in a frame of mind that allows genuine curiosity regarding what’s going on for her sister. She also reveals her authentic state to explain where she is at instead of letting it control her. Then, instead of making assumptions about the accusations that Elizabeth makes, Debra continues to regulate and ask an open-ended question. By being open to learning something from Elizabeth and taking Elizabeth’s words as information and not assault, Debra is able to connect to what is going on with her.

Developing curiosity can be challenging (but not impossible!).

We face a lifetime of stories about how the world works, who people are, and how we’re supposed to be. The first step to fostering curiosity is considering that we don’t (and even can’t) know everything.

This is called Intellectual Humility: the recognition that what you believe could possibly be wrong and being open to learn due to this understanding.

Intellectual Humility (part of “Openness to Experience” according to Hexaco) is correlated with higher well-being and creativity. You can learn more about it in our Discovery section on Mirrors and Lenses.

Ignite Your Curiosity | Rose Cain | TEDxKanata
Rose Cain for TedX in which she explains the positive impact of Curiosity in her life. She admonishes her audience to ignite their Curiosity through overcoming their fears of failure or negative consequences, asking tons of questions, and believing things are possible.

Awareness

How often do you consciously pick up on changes in your emotional state?
How often do you miss things going on around you that other people seem to easily notice?

Awareness differs from attention in that attention involves focusing on (“attending to”) something specific, while Awareness is a conscious sensitivity to anything that one could direct their attention toward. With listening, Awareness can include the following:

Self: What is occurring within the self like emotions or thoughts, personal filters and biases, and physical or mental status
Other: What is occurring in the other, such as emotions or thoughts, personal filters and biases, and physical or mental status
Nonverbal: Nonverbal communication like body language
Content: The content of what is being expressed
Context: Various contexts of the conversation; such as cultural conditioning, the relationship dynamic, power dynamics, time constraints or environmental factors
Unsaid: What isn’t being said or addressed

“Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear.
When I really want to hear another person’s story, I try to leave my preconceptions at the door and draw close to their telling. I am always partially listening to the thoughts in my own head when others are speaking, so I consciously quiet my thoughts and begin to listen with my senses.
Empathy is cognitive and emotional—to inhabit another person’s view of the world is to feel the world with them. But I also know that it’s okay if I don’t feel very much for them at all. I just need to feel safe enough to stay curious.” Documentary filmmaker Valarie Kaur

Try it out!

Check out the following scenarios and what you could possibly be aware of in each of the categories. We filled in a few for you. Feel free to make up details that fit in with the other answers that are pre-filled.

Scenario	Self	Other	Nonverbal	Content	Context	Unsaid
Your housemate didn’t water the plants like you asked them to while you were on vacation. When you point this out they become irritated and say that they didn’t remember you asking.		They’ve been very busy with work throughout the week and dealing with challenges in their relationship. Perhaps they were distracted and forgot.	They look truly perplexed, as if you really hadn’t asked. Maybe you didn’t make the request clear enough or you didn’t have their full attention when you asked.
You’re a waiter in a restaurant. A woman ordered a dish with meat when all of her other choices were vegetarian, so you informed her and she said it was fine. When the dish came out she was upset, saying she hadn’t understood and wanted a refund.	You are frustrated- you told her exactly what she was getting and she agreed to it. Now your tips are going to suffer because this woman is irrational. It isn’t fair.				It’s loud in the restaurant. The woman is a bit distracted by how attracted she is to one of the people she is dining with.	I want to feel competent, and have had this happen before. I am currently financially strained. This could contribute to how angry I am about this. //The woman didn’t fully understand what I was saying as she was distracted by the social dynamics of her party and didn’t want to make a fuss at first.
Your son is 16 and was invited by some older kids to go to an 18+ club. He says he can still get in and wants you to pick him up.	You’re worried about his safety and him getting in trouble. You’re shocked that he is brazen enough to ask you to support this choice, and you’re wondering if you have given him too much leeway.			He explicitly said, “Jenny works there and will let me in. Everyone is going for Jose’s birthday- I really want to celebrate with them.”		Your son is wanting to become more independent.

In different styles of listening, Awareness varies in amount. Lower degrees of Awareness, such as not being conscious of anything specifically, can result in listening styles like Ignoral or Cosmetic. As Awareness expands, your listening style evolves because you have more information to consider and respond to. For example, in Empathic Listening, we’re more aware of the speaker’s emotions and can gain a greater understanding of their meaning than we would if we only listened to the content of their speech.

Scenario	Low Awareness	Medium Awareness	High Awareness
You and your partner are breaking up. It has been an unsaid knowing between the two of you that this was on the horizon, but you haven’t verbally addressed it until now. Your partner tells you they agree that you ought to break up and wants to move on.	You take your partner at their word, feel relieved that they agree with you and move forward with planning how to split up shared things, like who will move out.	You notice that they are more restrained and stiff than normal. It appears that they are upset even though their words don’t match up.	Putting on a brave face? Knowing how they’ve behaved in the past in similar situations, and you’re conscious of being in public and how that could influence reactions. You recognize that they are putting on a brave face and aren’t entirely on board with the break up even though they say they are. You realize having this conversation in a public setting may be influencing how they are behaving. You begin to wonder what other reasons may be causing them to agree rather than speak their mind. You wonder what ways you have contributed to this pattern.

Kyle Cease How Enlightened Families Argue
This is a parody video of a family that is highly self-aware and expresses exactly what is going on for them during a family dinner. While it pokes fun at self-awareness, with their self-knowledge these individuals are empowered to make choices that will align them with growth in the future. Are they acutely aware of what is going on for each other? Well, that may need to be the subject of another video…

Self-Regulation

When you get frustrated, annoyed, nervous, or angry in conversation, how do you behave?
Have you ever responded differently to your heightened emotions? If so, how?

Primed with a sense of self-awareness, we’re able to notice when we are emotionally triggered in a conversation and address it internally. Regulating our emotions and staying centered is essential to effective listening because when we are emotional, we are not operating from the region of our brain that enables reasoning, critical thinking, and self reflection. This means we aren’t able to process or understand as much of what is happening. Instead, we react emotionally. When this happens, what we’re hearing from someone else can quickly become about us.

Pixar Inside Out – A Family Dinner Scene
This clip from the movie Inside Out showcases how our emotional reactions impact how we behave.

This is what author and science-journalist Daniel Goleman refers to as an “Amygdala Hijack.” To explain why, let’s look at the way the brain is set up.

Brain Science and the Amygdala Hijack

The human brain has two main areas that are relevant here: The Amygdala and the Cerebral Cortex. The Amygdala is part of our reptilian brain, meaning it is one of the oldest parts of the brain and was present long before we evolved into humans. It is part of the Limbic System, which is where we generate and experience emotions. The Amygdala was essential to our early survival as a species because it enabled us to respond to threats in our environments by taking over our brains and stimulating fight, flight, or freeze. This was essential to our survival when threats included aggressive predators or dangerous storms. Today, the Amygdala still triggers our reactions to threats, but the nature of threats in our lives has changed. We’re more likely to face a big deadline or have a job interview than interface with an alligator. However, our reptilian brains don’t know the difference between these types of threats, so it still activates.

The trouble comes because when our Amygdala is triggered, we can lose most access to our Cerebral Cortex, where our executive functioning occurs. That means we can’t effectively rationalize, make decisions, or think clearly. We’re in reaction mode (fight, flight, or freeze) instead of response mode (think, decide, process). This means we cannot truly listen.

Listening is a practice that requires conscious engagement, which only occurs effectively from the Cerebral Cortex.

Now don’t be mistaken, this doesn’t mean that you lose full brain function every time you get upset. There is variance in how triggered you can be by an event.

It is important to practice Awareness of your level of emotional response in a conversation and thus be able to regulate it and maintain access to your executive functioning. As Michael Nichols wrote about in his book, The Art of Listening, we need to keep the Amygdala to a simmer, instead of allowing it to reach a boil.

Emotional Regulation Guide - ameaningoflife.org

Try it out!

Check out the following scenarios and the different ways you could respond. We filled in a few for you. Feel free to make up details that fit in with the other answers that are pre-filled.

Scenario	Amygdala Hijack	Stay and Respond	Regulate and Respond
Your grandmother is nagging you about getting married.			You tell her gently that you’d be willing to talk about it at another time. That night you journal about what triggers you when she brings it up. When you feel centered and connected to her loving intention, you give her a call and have an open chat about how it feels to hear her bring it up, and make a request for her to approach the topic differently.
Your boss is giving you a bad review.	You feel very defensive and misunderstood. You accuse your boss of not paying attention or giving you the credit you deserve. You quit on the spot.
Your student has not done their assignment for the third time.		Without skipping a beat, you tell the student you are disappointed in them and that they will be given no more extra chances.

You can learn about regulation techniques to keep your Amygdala at a simmer here.

Self-Regulation (just as many of these factors) is an essential component of Emotional Intelligence (“EQ”), which Oxford defines as, “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.”

Emotional Intelligence has a massive impact on many areas of our lives, such as our success at work, relationships, and financial success due to such skills as communication, negotiation, and leadership. A study by the Carnegie Institute of Technology on these facets show that they account for 85% of financial success (while technical knowledge only accounts for 15%)!

What are three simple ways you could regulate in response to your rising emotions during a conversation?

*Need a hint? Check out our Regulation Master List resource.

Self-Regulation Skills: Why They Are Fundamental
In this video, The Committee for Children explains four types of regulation skills: Flexible Attention (managing your attention), Working Memory (managing your thoughts), Inhibitory Control (managing your behavior), and managing your emotions. They offer that regulation skills lead to more achievement, social competence, and continued emotional growth.

Authenticity

When was the last time you revealed how you truly felt about a situation? What happened?
What stops you from behaving without filters?
What would it be like to be ‘real’ all the time?

The more things we become aware of and the more secure we feel, the better equipped we are to be fully authentic in conversation.

The type of Authenticity important to our topic is acting in congruence with our highest values while acknowledging, accepting, and revealing our underlying emotions, physiological states, and beliefs.

Authenticity is essential to listening because it builds trust between the speaker and listener. If we are not authentic with ourselves and in integrity with how we are showing up in our relationships, how can we expect others to be authentic in return?

Authenticity is deeply intertwined with Self-Awareness and Regulation. When we are conscious of our inner emotional climate, we can choose how to respond to that in the midst of conversation. Sometimes, we have an Amygdala Hijack and it would be authentic to our underlying state (based on, let’s say, a feeling of rage) to refuse to listen to someone or yell at them. Such a reaction would be true to our feelings. However, it probably wouldn’t be serving to the conversation or the relationship. When we cannot regulate in the moment, it is more powerful to say so (be honest and authentic about where you’re at) and take some time to cool off before continuing the discussion. This often enables us to act in alignment with our values.

Try it out!

Check out the following scenarios and the different ways you could respond. We filled in a few for you. Feel free to make up details that fit in with the other answers that are pre-filled.

Scenario	Authentic Behavior and Likely Outcome	Inauthentic Behavior and Likely Outcome
Listening to someone you disagree with.	You notice yourself getting frustrated and let them know this (without blaming them) and communicate that you disagree and aren’t feeling open to discussion right now. You both agree to change the topic and revisit it tomorrow.
A friend is bad mouthing another one of your friends and you’re feeling defensive.		You stifle your defensiveness and try to support them without telling them how you’re feeling. You end up feeling resentful and slowly stop talking to this friend without explaining why.
You’re feeling attracted to someone you are talking to and it is making you anxious.

People crave Authenticity. When it comes to business and marketing, a study by Stackla (a visual content creator) showed that 90% of consumers prioritize Authenticity when choosing a brand to support.

Security and Being Authentic are intertwined!

When we feel safe, we’re more likely to open up and be vulnerable and authentic: two things which are not only important to listening, but to speaking, too.

When we talk about feeling safe, it’s common to think about things like our physical or financial security. In listening, it’s our emotional security that is most relevant. It may sound extreme to use the word “unsafe” to describe discomfort in a conversation, but at its core, emotions like anxiety are a form of feeling “unsafe” in a situation. “Unsafe” is intended to capture the nuanced discomfort we feel in the presence of other people, or in exposing our truth in various situations. This response is due to how our brain functions, a response that evolved millennia ago as an instinctual survival mechanism. In essence, we overreact to non-life-threatening situations because we are biologically primed to.

Check out this ironic excerpt from a movie called “Red 2,” in which one man beseeches his friend to embrace emotional safety by sharing his feelings:

Not feeling safe while listening can show up in diverse ways such as:

Being afraid you’ll say the wrong thing when comforting a friend
Overthinking your responses and then saying something highly orchestrated or nothing at all.
Feeling anxious to impress someone and then blurting out poorly considered comments or trying to look good.
Refusing to listen to someone we disagree with because we’re afraid that showing interest could mislead them or validate their opinion.

We need to take responsibility for our personal sense of safety instead of leaving it up to the world to account for. When we claim to feel unsafe, there is often a flavor of blame, as in, “something outside of me is making me unsafe.” Feeling comfortable and confident in the circumstances enables us to show up fully in conversation. Otherwise we become distracted by our insecurities, fears, and concerns. It can be challenging to let go of these in the moment if we do not feel safe and trusting of ourselves, our conversation partner, or the environment. Our sense of security affects our ability to stay present and fully follow the speaker.

Scenario	Secure behavior	Insecure Behavior
You’re a freelance graphic designer and have pitched a project to a company you’ve worked with for a couple years and are fairly reliant on for their business. They decide to hire another designer for the project.	You acknowledge your disappointment and ask for feedback regarding the design you pitched. You do not personalize or catastrophize about the situation. You realize you’re not sure where you’ll get the income you were relying on from them and decide you need to diversify in the future instead of depending on a single client.	You feel wronged by them and can’t believe they would do this to you. They knew that they were your biggest client and how this could impact your income. Now you don’t know where the income you were depending on is going to come from and get very stressed out, feeling powerless and angry.
Outcome	The client explains what they were hoping for and how your design missed the mark. You learn more about their preferences and improve trust in the relationship. They are still a potential client for the future.	You’re upset about how they ‘treated you’ and decide not to pitch to them in the future, essentially losing them as a client. Because you choose to blame them instead of take responsibility, you do not create the opportunity to learn from the situation.

Security is built up through self esteem, which can be cultivated through developing our skills in a handful of things you and others value, as well as developing secure relationships. See these topics for tips on building up your sense of security: Agency, 100% Responsibility, Habits, Attachment, Love, Relationships and Dating, Friendship

Authentic • Short Film
In this award-winning short, the main character becomes conscious of the limitations of conforming to what is expected of her. While this isn’t necessarily about emotional Authenticity, it offers the same message: being true to ourselves creates new opportunities.

On This Page

Attention

Further Reading

Intention

Example

Further Reading

Curiosity

Two Examples of the Impacts of Curiosity on Interpretation

Further Reading

Awareness

Try it out!

Further Reading

Self-Regulation

Try it out!

Further Reading

Authenticity

Try it out!

Further Reading