Things I learned this week: This is a really important Habit! But there is a reason that it is Habit 5 not 1 and that you need to build on your own character as well as building trust with others to help make this the most effective. Seeking to understand before you seek to be understood is taking the time to learn to really listen. That is the one thing I really learned is that I need to work on my listening. Most of the time when we listen to others we are projecting our own autobiography upon them as well as things like, evaluating, probing, advising and we try to explain motives. All of these things may have their place but we first need to really be willing to listen. So what does really listening entail. According to Stephen Covey the best way to listen empathically is to rephrase what someone is saying as well as be aware and then state the feelings behind what is going on. There are always feelings and there is content. Be aware of both and try to show your child, friend, coworker or whomever you are listening to that you aware of not just the content but the feelings that s/he is expressing as well. As we do this Stephen Covey says that we give that person psychological air or the need to be understood. And as we do that we then can really learn to understand them more. He also says we really need to make sure to be aware that there are so many ways or paradigms in which a person can be seeing something and our effort to understand that will be a great deposit in the Emotional Bank Account. He did say that this is one of the most important things to learn as we communicate with other people in our lives.