I consider myself to be an “empath”, meaning “a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another individual”. Since I was little I have always been in tune with people's emotions around me. For the longest time I felt it was a burden, because I soak up the emotions that surround me like a sponge. As I have grown up more though, I have found it to really benefit me. I have learned to ask more often how people are doing or how they are handling whatever may be weighing on them in life. I know when a soft voice is a must is a necessity and when some one may need to hear the truth in a stern voice.
When you develop the skill of empathy, you are able to work at a more efficient level with others. When you are able to listen and respond in an appropriate tone, you are also heard more in return. Teams that enjoy working together, often times create better work. Empathy creates an environment in which people are also more likely to take the time to help you if you are struggling to grasp something. I strongly believe that empathy will help me write better code and build better software.
“Empathy enables people to communicate better with each other and to function more effectively as a team.'' From my understanding of what I read, it is incredibly important to be able to listen to your teammates and try and understand where they are coming from. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. When working in groups, this is especially important and being self aware of your own emotions can have a positive effect when working with others.
When I was originally studying to be a Pathologist, I was taking a Biology class with a class once a week that require you to work with the same 3 other people. My group happened to be an all female group and some days you just simply do not feel like being present in class, especially if one girl is having an emotionally hard day. One day while in the lab, one of my lab mates was struggling to grasp the difference between mitosis and meiosis and started to get really worked up. Instead of telling her to go talk to the professor privately, I took a piece of paper and drew out the way that I best remembered the differences between the two. When it still wasn’t clicking with her, I tried a different approach and worded it slightly different. After that she was able to take a deep breath and repeat back to me in her own words what I had taught her. Keeping a steady tone and understanding that everyone brains work differently is key.
How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios? I’d say that I find it difficult to be empathetic when I’m struggling to understand a topic and someone next to me is clearly annoyed with me for not getting it. It starts to upset me and I’m guilty of not efficiently explaining where exactly I’m struggling. I can get worked up and irrationally frustrated. I can improve my skills by working on my breathing and identifying where all of the emotion is coming from. I understand that it can be a challenge for people to want to help you if you are a ball of emotions. I can work on my tone of voice and staying cool and collected rather than taking out my frustration on the innocent person who it just trying their best to help me.