Listen to Your Body

Listen to Your Whole Body

For a variety of situations concerning your body’s health and well-being, it is strongly suggested that you listen to your body to tell you what to do. It may tell you one day that you need more rest, while another time it may tell you that you are strong and ready for anything.

“Go ahead, run that next 10k”

Common sense tells you that your body won’t lie to you. That is unless you have the occasional ailment or sickness that needs an acute examination to provide additional information to help you decide what to do.

So, in normal day-to-day life, the idea to listen to your body makes a lot of sense to maintain a healthy and growing organism. On the medical information website WebMD, you can quickly find over 50 articles when you search on the term “listen to your body.” This axiom is recommended for a wide variety of situations on a broad spectrum of health issues ranging from curing the body of ailments to safety growing muscle mass.

With any organism, vital organs work together to keep the body safe, growing, and productive. So if it makes sense to listen to your body to make sure that you are not damaging it and keeping it performing at peak condition, doesn’t it make sense to do the same with your organization’s body of people?

What is true for your body’s health is also true for your organization’s health. 

Your organization is probably made up of individuals who have, for the most part, a desire to maintain a healthy and growing environment. People generally want to contribute effectively because it gives them purpose.

So when your people are communicating with you, really try to listen with an empathetic ear. As difficult, time-consuming, and irritating as it can be sometimes, it is good to be practiced in the art of listening. Your people really are the vital organs to your success who do communicate health concerns to you. So lead them like you lead your own body.

Use your eyes to notice behavioral patterns; use your ears to “hear between the lines;” use your nose to sniff out the truth. Do this because your people might be sending you important signals about your organization’s health that you need to recognize.

Do you think of your people as part of a body? Do you have trouble thinking of their complaints as only annoying sideshows and not as vital signals that are important to mentally digest? Think about it.

How have you grown in your ability to see, hear, and sniff out valuable indicators from your team?

Please share a story of how you have grown in listening and digesting feedback from your team. We would love to hear from your experience!

L2L Contributing Author

1 Comment

  1. Christopher V. Vitto on January 16, 2009 at 10:19 pm

    So true….the art of active attentive listening will provide so much insight into the mindset of your people, there intentions and motivations and in accumulation of sensory data you can understand what areas need your attenion today and those that seem to be functioning just fine. Just like your body the orginization will alert you with warnings signs. Listening to understand with sincere concern is vital…great points..



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