The 'Mindless Moments' Phenomenon

We all have them. Those unexplainable pieces of time that are inexplicably lost, when you seemingly leave your body and your brain to imitate life, while your mind takes off for heaven knows where.  Ever been driving and suddenly you arrive where you were headed for but,  you have no memory of the trip?  Is this a Mindless Moment?

What about when you are reading and after a page or two you realise that you have no idea or memory of what you just read, so you go back and read it again.  Another Mindless Moment perhaps?

Now I don't have any degree of education in the neurological field, but I am always fascinated at how our bodies and brains manage to carry on the business of living without any input or participation from our conscious minds.

Ever noticed how sometimes during a lecture, church service, wedding speech and the like your mind just takes on a life of its own and 'wanders off' somewhere.  Your body on the other hand, working closely it would seem with your brain - this three and a half  pounds of protoplasm - has the ability to mimic 'intelligent life' while the rest of you is who knows where.

Can we blame the fact that we are all constantly being bombarded by a never ending stream of sights,sounds, ideas and demands that compete for our attention?

Interesting Research in 'Human Attention Spans'

As a Corporate Trainer I came across some rather unusual research conducted over a nine week period by Paul Cameron of Wayne State University in Detroit to show that people are not necessarily listening to speakers or trainers.

During some lectures he fired off a gun at sporadic intervals then asked his students to write down their thoughts and  moods at the time.

The analysis of results was interesting:

• Around 20% of the students, men and women were pursuing erotic thoughts
• Another 20% were reminiscing about something
• 20% were actually paying attention to the lecturer (only 12% were actively listening)
• Others were worrying , daydreaming, thinking about lunch or - surprise - religion!

So to be heard, we need to ensure we have peoples attention, because their attention will surely wander if we let it.

Verbal Communication

Yes, it would seem that we are misunderstood.  Words do not always provide the same picture to everyone who hears them.  How we present them will determine their impact and the subsequent result of them

• Has an instruction or directive you have given been completely misunderstood?

• Have you have misconstrued an instruction given to you?

Either way the outcome in both cases generally ends up providing barrow loads of personal and corporate frustration and aggravation.

Verbal instructions are not the only culprit, we will often make mistakes when presented with written instructions as well.  Written instructions seem to serve our brains with immediate permission to operate without our full and conscious participation - referred to by some as 'using vision recognition' - meaning we really are not fully paying attention to the written word.

Listening Skills

**You are not listening to me.

**You never listen to me.

**You have not heard a word I have been saying.

Blah, blah, blah.  We have all either spoken these words or had them said to us.

Now I would like to believe the age old saying, be there truth in it or not, that men more so than women are the ones that have questionable listening skills, or is it just when women are talking that they just choose not to hear certain things. I know that my husband can block out the tone of my voice rather easily.  I have proved this time and time again by making outrageous statements all of which he has obviously blocked out.  Despite his impassioned pleas I am never going to accept that it is genetic.

At school we are taught to read, write and speak. Rarely are we taught 'how to listen'

As adults, we listen:

• five times as much as we write

• three times as much as we read, and

• almost one and half times as much as we speak

• almost half of our communication time is spent listening, a skill we have probably had no formal training in

It is no wonder that listening skills are predominantly weak in the majority of people.

Listening skills have little to do with hearing. The problem it seems, in most cases, is the understanding and processing of what has just been said.

What Can We Do About It?

In the corporate environment the practice of giving an instruction and then having the recipient repeat it seems popular and appears to work just fine, most times.

In a home environment however, this strategy would most certainly add some unwelcome spice to the moment and would probably cause pronounced emotive outbursts of anger and indignation.

There are effective listening skills courses available if we are so inclined.

Effective listening and communication is the cornerstone of any good relationship. If we or someone we work, live with or know has poor listening skills, then being innovative in our search to find a way to work around it is a must, or confusion and anarchy will surely do its best to disrupt our daily lives.

Some Humor In All This?

This humorous little snippet made its way into my inbox yesterday and the picture below captures a classic example of a 'Verbal Misunderstanding' -Okay ... So this is how this conversation went:

Bakery Employee: 'Hello 'dis be Enzo, how can I help you?'

Customer: 'I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week.'

Bakery Employee: 'What you want on the cake?'

Customer: 'Best Wishes Suzanne' and underneath that 'We will miss you'

This was the result .......

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