
Introduction:
The powerful listening is an essential skill that can be learned and practiced. The lack of listening is the leading cause in relationships. If you become a good listener, it will help you have good communications and relationships in all areas of your personal, social, and working life. It will reduce stress, frustration, and misunderstanding.
Listening is the oil in the engine of inspiration. We can inspire people only when we know what they want, which means listening.
This article will help you become a conscious, attentive listener when you practice them. You can inspire people by learning how to use your voice and ears to maximum effect.
Reasons for poor listening:
- If you do not feel good both physically and mentally, it is impossible to be focused and pay full attention. When you are unable to focus, for whatever reason, you could find yourself giving responses that you later regret.
- If you don’t have a good environment, you may find it challenging to listen to someone speaking. Arrangement of room furniture, sitting positions, and surrounding noise also causes poor listening.
- When someone has a lengthy conversation and gives too much information or explanation, we may be tired and bored. It makes you feel the urge to wind up the conversation.
- When we don’t like what we are hearing, we cannot receive the actual message from the conversation—so misunderstanding the information causes us to misunderstand the spoken person.
- Our emotional reactions can create a barrier and prevent us from listening. When you have strong feelings, you cannot think and react rationally. However, we need to manage and control such a response to prevent them.
- Language is a means of communication, but it can prevent you from listening. Using unfamiliar words or phrases makes you do not understand and listen properly. Remember, your language, words, tone of voice, body language, and slang play a significant role in effective listening.
- Being negative is one of the reasons for poor listening. Instead of listening to the whole message, we focus on the content that fits our negative attitude. They always tend to tune the directive negatively.
Be aware of the barriers that caused to have a poor listening. You can minimize their effect by removing them. Learn the skills of reflecting and responding that help you listen with an open mind.
Qualities of a good listener:
- They can establish good rapport and get on the same wavelength.
- They have appropriate eye contact.
- Their body language conveys attention and responsiveness.
- They won’t interrupt in the middle of conversations.
- They use paraphrase questions.
- They nod encouragingly.
Tips for the powerful listening:
Active listening means not just focusing on what they said but also making choices about responding. You will find that when you pay attention to the person, the quality of your communication improves and will encourage the person to talk openly. You can learn the skills of focusing, understanding, and reflecting by developing discipline and concentration. Check this article to know more about how to draw people attention
Be present:
Paying attention to someone will promote communication. “The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.” We can’t focus on someone when we are full of our thoughts. Be mindful of the moment you are. Put aside your thoughts, need, and feelings. You have to forget all the things on your mind and not allow them to prevent you from giving full attention to the speaker.
Be empathetic:
Listening with empathy means paying total attention and showing that you understand and accept what the person is saying. You can understand the message from the speaker’s point of you only when you pay full attention to the speaker. Being empathetic is a mighty encouragement to talk.
When we sense that someone understands our feelings, we continue further. To develop compassionate listening, we need to respond to what they say and feel what the speaker feels. You can communicate with someone through facial expressions too. These gestures show that you understand how someone is feeling.
Choose to respond:
You can develop the conversation through the proper responses. Inappropriate responses could cause to end up the conversation. You can respond to them by asking questions focused on matters of fact. But avoiding the wrong type of questions may shut down communication further. Give feedback on what you are hearing.
Show that you have understood the facts and say what you understood from the conversation in your own words. It shows you have listened and understood the message. Paraphrasing helps you to clarify your message. Paraphrasing means following and reflecting on their message with your own words. The real skill of paraphrasing lies in using your own words without twisting.
Effective questioning:
This skill is a crucial part of the process of active listening. Using the correct type of open-ended questions in your conversation helps you get the information you need more quickly.
You can ask questions hypothetically, like questions that start with the word ‘suppose,’ what if….? are an excellent way of helping someone to think differently. The right kind of questions asked at the right time can encourage the speaker to speak further.
Body language:
When you are listening intently to the speaker, sit slightly forward. Keep your hands open and relaxed with your palms turned up. Avoid fiddling and fidgeting with objects; it will distract the other person.
You could keep your head slightly tilted to one side as this is a receptive posture that indicates you were paying attention. Practice good eye contact with the speaker. Look serious when talking about a severe matter and smile when speaking a pleasurable thing. Check this article to know more about body language
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Happy growing!
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