"Giving" your attention

How to basically “give” your attention to someone. To take your attention and focus it solely on what they are saying and how they are saying it, hopefully resulting in the highest possible transfer of meaning between you and the person. But I think that one of the most useful tactics the book offered was how to receive feedback. Receiving feedback is tough, I think partly because most of the time, you really don’t want to hear what other people have to say about you. You might be willing to hear it sometimes, when your properly prepared and in the right context, but it can still be hard, as feedback for most people carries emotions. I dealt with getting feedback a lot during my time as an Art major. It took awhile to get used to the critiques and opinions of others, and not shirking off their advice as insignificant. But after awhile you realize that the reason feedback is so important is that others can see things that you never did, and usually in a totally different, unexpected way. This is a huge benefit in art, and most other areas. The biggest point for me was to realize that feedback is a sharing of perspective, and should be listened to intently and given a lot of weight, because feedback is hard to give as well as receive. The steps given by the book about receive feedback I see as very useful. Taking deep breaths, slowing your thoughts down, relaxing, listening, not interrupting, are all great steps to take in order to receive feedback on something. Making sure to let the person know that they’ve been heard is also very important, building an understanding and relationship between you and the giver. I think that the last piece of advice is one of the best, that if you don’t understand or like the feedback, ask questions from the give that can possibly make it clearer or more constructive.