Improving Your Listening Skills - Active Listening?
What you learn today: The best way to improve your listening skills almost immediately & it’s not really “active listening.”
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“Active listening” is not really “good” listening - it’s more like “regurgitation” of what someone says. Active listening says that you should re-cap what someone says after they say it.
Not only is that awkward and annoying in conversation, just repeating someone’s words does not mean you heard them.
A good listener understands the meaning behind those words, the implications and the entire scope of the message that is being delivered. A good listener doesn’t just LISTEN, but he/she watches for body movements, facial reactions and everything else.
You combine all your senses and create a full picture of what is being said - THAT is “good listening” - ironically, 50% of good listening has nothing to do with your ears.
Forget All This, Go Back To K.I.S.S - Keeping It Simple Stupid
Today, I’m not going to tell you that you should immediately start understanding people better just by watching and listening to them. This skill does not come over night, it’s far more complicated than you think.
My goal is to give you a SIMPLE tip that you can put into place immediately and start IMPROVING your listening skills (rather than solving them over night)…
The Best Way To Start Improving Your Listening Skills…
Start with this simple exercise and just work on this for an entire month. It may be simple, but it’s not easy.
Some background: By default, as humans we have an inclination to want to speak. We want to share our thoughts/feelings. Most of us are never “listening” to anyone, we’re busy getting our responses together.
Think about it, you’ll agree - observe yourself during your next conversation. I bet you spend at least 80% of the conversation making evaluations and gathering your thoughts for a response.
Simple But Not Easy Exercise - Start NOW…
Let someone finish.
That’s it, I know it sounds simple, but try it - it’ll almost hurt the first time.
Make it a point to not say a THING at all until the other party is completely finished. I mean COMPLETELY finished, not a “pause.” Heck, maybe even wait for them to say “so…why are you so quiet? what do you think about this!”
Try not to doze off during this period, but for now, even if you do - fine. The goal right now is that you should just stop interrupting and butting in. Get yourself to stop wanting to hear yourself talk.
There you go - your assignment today, every conversation you have - walk away from it having said the LEAST you can and NEVER interrupt anyone (even during a pause), let them finish.
Popularity: 18% [?]
May 20th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Hi…
I read your article and agreed…and tried it…..did much better at listening….till the end..the very end…and it worked great.
I am semi-retired…..working at home and sometimes I focus alot and am not around people while I am working…I like it too….
So when we all go out…everyone chatters….on and on….mostly about nothin much….but they want to be heard….not that they are ranting and complaining…just need to be heard and understood.
We men like to give advice sometimes….so I tried to not say a word…listen to the bitter end and agree….no suggestions.
This one guy had a week full of good luck on his projects…break throughs you might say and wanted to tell his story and be happy.
So I listened…agreed…said tell me more…..and the conversation was terrific and he felt validated. Worked nicely….
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May 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 am
[...] Improving Your Listening Skills - Active Listening? [...]
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 am
I’m going to try it. But before I even start, I know this is going to be painful. I find myself butting in a lot lately. I always stop and apologize, but my impulse to speak is so quick.
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June 20th, 2008 at 8:49 am
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