The Blind Spot

Recently, a female friend texted me telling me one of my male friends was mansplaining things during our group dinner a few weeks ago. She told me her friends were a bit annoyed by that mansplaining behavior.

Knowing my male friends for over eight years, I knew my friend didn't mansplain on purpose because he always had good intentions.

After hearing the feedback from my female friend, my first reaction was to let my male friend know about his mansplaining behavior as soon as possible. Fortunately, I delivered the feedback to my male friend the next day.

My male friend took the feedback well and was committed to improving. After I told my female friend how well my male friend took the feedback, my female friend was still skeptical about whether my male friend could change.

I completely understood why my female friend would doubt whether my male friend would improve because changing a deep-rooted behavior is extremely difficult.

However, I am a big believer that people can change. I also recognize that permanently changing negative behavior is challenging.

In this post, I am going to provide a guide on how to change a long-established behavior. I will be sharing my own experience of changing a negative behavior that has haunted most of my life.

The framework to change a behavior

1. Awareness

Understanding what is the problem and why the problem matters

Before changing any behaviors, we need to know what needs to be changed. We need to be aware of what is the problem first before we can even do anything about the issue.

My bad habit of not listening in a conversation

When I was in school, I had a habit of not listening to others during a conversation. However, I didn't even know I had this habit until my best friend from college pointed the problem out to me.

I remember I went on a date with a girl when I was a senior in college. I thought the conversation flowed well during the first date and believed that I would certainly have a second date with this girl. However, the girl was entirely not interested in going on a second date with me. I was extremely confused.

Since my best friend from college was also friends with the girl I went on a date with, he was able to find out why my date suddenly lost interest in me. My best friend told me that the girl felt like I didn't listen to what she said because I was too busy talking about myself.

When I got the feedback, my first reaction was to brush it off, but I decided to put my ego aside to learn more about the situation. My best friend pointed out that my date felt frustrated by me not listening to her.

I was surprised to learn how my date felt because I was completely unaware of my tendency not to listen in a conversation. If my best friend didn't point out this blind spot, I would probably never know I was a bad listener.

Key takeaways in the Awareness stage:

We often have blind spots in our behavior, so we need to rely on our support system (friends, family, and significant other) to point our problems out
We need to make our support system feel comfortable about giving us feedback. We will need to put our pride and ego aside to have the space to receive honest feedback
Not only do we want to understand what behaviors we are doing, but we also need to understand how our behaviors are negatively impacting others

2. Assessment

Assess and determine if we need to address the problems

After learning about the behavior that is impacting others, we will then need to assess whether we need to make a change.

How not listening to others was negatively impacting my life

After learning that I tended not to listen to others in conversations, I reflected on how not listening had impacted my life.

The most obvious one is not listening hindered my dating life. I annoyed my date when I wasn't listening, causing the girl to lose interest eventually. I felt super bad and embarrassed after learning how frustrated I made my date feel when I didn't listen.

Not listening also impacted my ability to learn from others. Since I tended not to listen, I often lacked the capacity to accommodate suggestions or feedback from others. Some of my friends didn't even bother giving me any feedback because they knew I would not listen and make any changes.

Thinking about the future, I knew I would have more critical conversations when I started working full-time. I knew I would be in very big trouble if I still didn't listen in a work setting. My lack of ability to listen could greatly hinder my future career.

Since I want to have better dates and to be able to learn from others, I know a change is necessary. I also know I need to learn to listen before I start working, so I need to immediately change my habit of not listening.

Key takeaways in the Assessment stage:

To determine the magnitude of our problems, we need to assess how our behavior is negatively impacting our lives currently
To determine the urgency of our problems, we need to think about how our behavior could continue to negatively impact our lives in the future
Once we understand the magnitude and urgency, we can then determine whether we need to make a change and when we need to start changing
We can analyze all negative impacts of our behavior, but we ultimately need the courage to make a decision to change

3. Action Plan

Figure out how are we going to change our behaviors

Once we determine we need to change a certain behavior, we need to figure out a plan of action.

My plan to practice listening

When reflecting on why I was not listening during a date, I realized I was always thinking about myself and what I wanted to say next. I was always thinking about myself because I wanted to prove I was an interesting person.

I kept talking about my beliefs and dreams, hoping to impress the girl. I was sharing all my hobbies to demonstrate how interesting I am. Since I was always thinking about what to say about myself, I ended up not being able to listen during the conversation.

Similarly, I was always thinking about what things I wanted to share when I was having conversations with friends. My thoughts constantly occupied my mind because I was always trying to say something that seemed interesting.

However, I learned that my behavior of not listening frustrated people instead of making me an interesting person. Therefore, I knew I must start by changing my mindset.

Instead of focusing on what I can share with other people, I want to focus on what I can learn from other people.

To learn from other people, I gave myself a simple goal to stop thinking about what I want to say when other people are talking.

Key takeaways in the Action Plan stage:

Figure out the root cause of our negative behavior to develop a plan to change it
An action plan starts with a change in mindset and a simple plan to exercise the new mindset

4. Execution

Just fucking do it

Once we develop an action plan, we need to execute our plan.

My journey of practicing listening

I had a tough time when I first started practicing listening. My mind was always filled with thoughts when others were talking.

I had to break my action plan into smaller milestones to continue practicing listening. I gave myself a target of not thinking for a short period (~five minutes) while others were talking. Gradually, I was able to increase my not thinking time to a more extended period after several months of practicing.

Once I built up the muscle to not think, I was able to stop thinking about what I wanted to say while others were talking for the entire conversation.

Since I had conversations with people very frequently, I was able to practice my listening skills almost every single day. After at least two years of practicing listening, I finally felt like I could fully listen to what others had to say.

Key takeaways in the Execution stage:

There's no secret about how to change behavior. We just need to start practicing the new behavior
When doing a new behavior, start with the easiest step we could do
Changing behavior takes patience and perseverance

5. Feedback

Ensure we are actually improving our negative habits with our new behavior

Once we develop a new behavior, we need to make sure our new behavior solves the problems caused by our old habits.

If we realize the effort we are putting into the new behavior is not helping us, we need to course correct to fine-tune our new behavior.

Feedback on my listening skill

I felt like I became a better listener by practicing listening every day. However, I was curious whether other people also feel the same way.

I got my first feedback about my listening skill in my first job, which was about two years of me practicing listening. During one of my co-workers going away party, I was chatting with a coworker who was about to leave the company about the things we appreciate about each other.

I remember distinctly what my coworker told me: "Jamie, I noticed you are a good listener. I really appreciate you were always willing to listen to me ranting about work."

Oh my god. I would never have imagined I could hear the compliment about being a good listener in my life.

A few days ago, I asked my best friend, who gave me the original not listening feedback, about whether my listening skill has improved or not. He also told me I had become a much better listener than six years ago.

After hearing positive feedback on my listening skill from my coworker and my best friend, I finally felt like all my efforts finally paid off over the past few years.

The positive re-enforcement of my improvement made me want to continue to hone my listening skill.

I think improving how to listen is a life-long journey, and I am only at the beginning of this journey.

Key takeaways in the Feedback stage:

We must get feedback from others to know whether our new behavior is addressing the problem we want to solve
Ask the person who provided us the negative feedback initially to see if we are making any improvements

Conclusion

We all have our blind spots. We all have some behaviors we are unconsciously doing that frustrate other people.

Therefore, it's important to encourage our support system to surface feedback to us regularly. Once we are aware of the problems of our behaviors, we can then assess our behaviors to see if we need to change anything.

After we are committed to changing a behavior, we can then figure out the root cause of our negative behavior to identify an action plan. When we have a plan to change, we can then figure out the easiest way to execute the plan to form a new behavior.

At the end of the day, we need to validate our new behavior is addressing problems our old habit was causing. We need to rely on others to help us understand whether we are on the right track.

The process of changing a deep-rooted negative behavior is incredibly lonely and difficult. We will need humility, courage, and perseverance to overcome all the challenges along the way. Regardless of the result of the change, I believe we will all become a better version of ourselves throughout the process.

Feel free to share your reflections, thoughts, or feedback with me @themagichen on Instagram or reach me at themagichen@gmail.com.