The past two weeks, I have implemented research I found on active listening into my peer mentor meetings to try and help me be a more effective communicator. I consciously tried to do things such as focus on the conversation/avoid distractions and conclude with a summary statement. Only three people turned up to my meetings so it was easier to actively listen with less people there.
On the day I had a lot of things going on including academic, personal and emotional issues that were overwhelming to me so it was difficult to try and fully concentrate on the conversations and interactions, but I feel as though I successfully did it. I tried to make sure I was truly in the moment by maintaining eye contact so that my mentees knew I was present in the conversation and I think that made them feel more at ease. I found that by putting these thoughts to the back of my head, I took in more of the conversation and felt that I was much more engaged than I would usually be. It was interesting that my mentees seemed to open up more than usual too, so perhaps they sensed my active role in the conversation and that then inspired their engagement.
Some of my mentees came to me with issues they were having surrounding academic workload and worrying about housing for second year. Alongside directing them to the correct places in terms of support and providing advice and resources, I made sure to try and really listen/understand their problems. I utilised the idea of finishing the conversation with a concluding statement to show them that I was listening. This surprisingly (in my opinion) made my mentees confidence in me increase as they have come to me since these meetings for more advice and support. I didn’t expect such a difference after only two weeks but I guess my research has worked and I’m not going to complain! Although I was nervous to try out something new at these meetings I believe it was a success and one of my mentees even stayed at the end of the meeting to thank me for being so supportive, this made all of the stress really worthwhile.
The thing I found made a profound difference was trying to avoid distractions. I did not realise how much I was previously distracted during my peer mentor meetings and this resulted in me not being present or able to communicate effectively. I read online to imagine physically pushing all of the stress, emotions and thoughts to the back of your mind to help me focus on what was important in that meeting, supporting my mentees and being a good mentor. As silly as it may sound, this worked. For those 30 minutes I didn’t think once about the large amount of things I had going on at that time so this is definitely something I will be using in my day to day communication as well as my mentor role.