How often do you stay silent and notice? Think about it “really notice”. Coaching is a fantastic process for individuals to improve in any area of their life, both professionally and personally. I have found since mastering my coaching skills; staying silent can be an incredible experience. I genuinely love to see the change in individuals as they move between recognition and awareness of thoughts and feelings. Watching people has become a habit of mine. Years ago, I would have jumped in with my own opinions and my thoughts. Not now, I learn so much more watching, noticing and listening. Even if I have a prejudgement on someone’s views, I still sit. It is a habit I have formed. In life, we experience so much, and when we have time with both work colleagues and friends, we gain an opinion on our conversations. The problem is it is very easy to try to force opinion in a conversation. This, of course, means you stay in the same direction and don’t listen to understand someone else’s point of view, still stuck on your own. Most fall into the trap of twisting what you hear to fit! The current situation with our election is a nightmare! All I hear are peoples own personal points of view and of course we all vote based on our own experiences and our own interruption of the world. This is where I have noticed over the last few weeks people making judgements based on what has been their opinion and no matter what they hear, they still respond based on their already decided judgements. It has been so interesting, observing and noticing regardless of what side you sit. This is so sad, that means we don’t listen to understand. The majority of people seem to be about juggling their words to fit their opinions and judgements on what they hear. Listening and noticing is a far greater skill to gain and very powerful.  If you do this, you are then in a much better place to offer something more valuable and unlikely to create any resentment or a bad feeling. If you fancy creating a new habit and wish to learn, understand and practice this powerful skill, then come to learn properly. This is a great skill, and you don’t know when this skill is good as you have nothing to compare it to. You don’t know what you don’t know, and it is hard to get the right opinion if you are not told otherwise. Staying silent and noticing is a massive skill; not everyone has this perfected, so come and learn this excellent coaching technique. If you wish to learn more contact Claire Moody is our head coach at Target Training, and you can read more about her here.  She delivers training on all coaching and numerous training the trainer courses.