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In today’s fast-paced world, truly listening to others is a valuable skill often overlooked. But effective communication thrives on the ability to make someone feel heard and understood. Here’s how you can cultivate mindful listening and foster deeper connections in your interactions. I’ve also included a great book about effective listening skills and why listening has become a lost art in today’s world.
The Power of Presence
Ever since smart phones and public wifi became a common feature in daily social life, actually being present with someone in a social setting has been come a harder commodity to come by.
According to a survey published here, 71% of people spend more time interacting with their smart phone than they do interacting with their romantic partners. It can be concluded that just as little time is spent away from their smartphone and with family and close friends as well. All important relationships are beginning to fall wayside to smart devices, even in the presence of those loved ones. Leading to a lack of true presences with that person.
What can you to do work on being more present with those around you? Whether it’s your family, romantic partner, or even a friendly stranger you come in contact with in the produce isle at the grocery store, there are actionable steps you can take to become more present. Us humans, we are social creature by nature. Not only will that other person reap the social benefits of your presence, but so will you.
Put Away Distractions and Make Eye Contact
Putting away distractions such as your phone, smart watch, and other electronic devices that might be pulling your attention away from the person in front of you are a good start. Before you put your phone into your bag so that you can be more present, be sure to put it on silent mode so that the sound of notifications doesn’t drawn your attention back away from the person you are spending time with.
now that all distractions are put away, its time to fully engage in the conversation with the person infant of you. This next step might be scary for some, as it is a practice that has fallen to the way side in recent decades. I am talking about the practice of making eye contact with the person you are speaking with.
Whether it’s due to the increase of online communication over in person communication, or just a complete lack of encouraging the younger generation to make eye contact with the person you are communicating with. What ever the case may be, eye contact is so important when being present with someone.
Making eye contact while talking to someone may feel uncomfortable at first, to someone who’s not used to it. Eye contact is important for a number of reasons. Such as helping both parties maintain their focus and concentration on the conversation at hand. It also allows you to feel that they are fully paying attention to you and what you have to say. Instead of looking around and appearing disinterested in what is being talked about.
Eye contact also allow you to better pay attention to a person’s facial expressions during a conversation. This helps to improve understanding as well as the ability to show and receive empathy when appropriate in a conversation.
Focus on the Speaker
Making eye contact is a great first step in giving the speaker your undivided attention. There is a big difference between focusing on what someone is saying in order to understand them, and listening just to give a response. If you take a moment to think about past interactions you’ve had, or even current ones you will have today, notice the train of your thought when someone is speaking with you.
Are you listening to understand what they are saying? Or is your mind constantly working on formulating your response back to them while they are still speaking? Or maybe you even caught yourself interrupting them in order to give them that response you came up with while they were still speaking. These are habits of a bad listener, and ones that you should try and break if you want to become a better listener.
Active Listening Techniques
Harvard Business Review defines active listening as “When you not only hear what someone is saying, but also attune to their thoughts and feelings. It turns a conversation into an active, non-competitive, two-way interaction.” It ties in the last point of listening, not to respond, but to understand and connect.
Using nonverbal cues, or body language that shows that you’re paying attention and engaged in what someone is saying it you are a great active listening technique to implement. By that, I don’t mean nodding and raising your eye brows at appropriate moments just to appear engaged when you are actually off in la-la land and not fully hearing the speaker.
“But how do I make it known that my non verbal cues are real and not just for show while I day dream?” you may be wondering. This is where eye contact is so important. It is the distinguishing factor.
Side note: Some folks with attention deficit disorders may tell you that they can be making eye contact with you the whole time you talk and still not actually hear a word you said. That, is a conversation for another day. Some times there are barriers that will need to be worked with/worked around, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I only say this because of personal experience I have with such instances, on both ends of the conversation.
Some books or you tube videos may try and teach you that repeating back or paraphrasing what someone is saying is something you should do in order to show that you are following along and listening closely. In more recent studies on being a good active listener, they are saying that paraphrasing will actually do the exact opposite.
If you really think about it, it doesn’t really take much mental effort to hear enough of what someone is saying so that you can mechanically repeat their words back to them intermittently. Does that mean you actually hear and UNDERSTAND what they are saying to them? No, it really doesn’t prove anything. Experts are more so leaning toward silence (silence is a nonverbal cue actually) as a better approach to show one’s interest and focus on what they are being told.
An article published by Forbes back in December of 2023 has this to say about using silence as a tool in communication: “Silence can be a powerful communication tool. It’s not just about the absence of speech; it’s about listening, understanding, and absorbing.”
Empathy Over Judgment
When someone is sharing something with you, whether its an experience, an emotion, or maybe a big decision they just made for their life, they aren’t telling you so that you can give them your opinion (unless they directly ask for it) or for you to cast judgement on them. A good listener knows how to listen to understand the speakers perspective, whether they disagree with them or not. You don’t have to agree to be able to show empathy.
Learn more about empathetic listening here, in my blog article about a book I read and highly recommend, called I Hear You, by Michael S. Sorenson.
When listening with empath, you are focused on seeing the speakers side of the story. Understanding why they would feel the way they do about what they are communicating withy you. Your goal is to validate those feelings. Which might be as simple as just saying “I totally understand why you’d feel that way about XYZ. I would feel that way too if I experienced XYZ!”
As I previously mentioned, someone will tell you if they re looking for your input or some advice about what they are sharing with you. Giving unsolicited advice can come off as invalidating and at times judgmental as well. Which negates your efforts of being a god, empathetic listener.
Ask Open-Ended Questions
If you aren’t quite sure what an open ended question is, let me explain. They are simply what they sound like. A question that you ask someone that isn’t targeted at a specific response, like “yes” or “no”. Open-ended leaves room for the person to give a full, honest answer to your question. Instead, you want to ask questions that will encourage elaboration on their part.
Questions and the idea of curiosity go hand in hand. You want to show genuine curiosity in what the person you are speaking with is sharing with you. Think about a time that someone was genuinely curious about something you were sharing with them. Maybe a story about an adventure you went on, or an experience you had that you learned a lot from. Didn’t it feel good to have an audience, even if only one person, who was totally captivated with what you had to share? So much so they had lots of follow up questions aimed at getting you to paint an even bigger picture about your experience. The goal is to make the person who is sharing with you feel that great about the audience they have before them.
Sometimes long stories allow our minds to wander off, even if still around the same subject matter. Maybe someone is telling you about their trip to a National Park, and you are now thinking on how badly you’d like to travel there. So much so you are now thinking about you and your spouses work schedule, and when you might have the time off to go. Who would watch your pets, and how long you would go for. Even though you’re still thinking about what the speaker is telling you, you are no longer present and fully engaged in the conversation.
If you catch yourself doing this, that’s when it’s important to bring in the first few steps demonstrated here in this article. Along with practices of active listening, eye contact, and asking open ended questions. Keeping yourself fully engaged in the conversation is important, and will allow you to demonstrate great listening skills and connect with who you are speaking with on a genuine level.
Create a Safe Space for Sharing
This is one of those things that you’d want someone else to do for you if you shared something personal with another person. Creating a safe space that maintains a level of confidentiality between you and the other person, while also offering positive reinforcement is important in becoming a good listener and making others feel heard by you. If you can do these two things, in addition to the above points, you will become someone who people want to talk to and share things with.
Assuring someone that the personal information that they trustingly shared with you, will remain between the two of you is important. Of course, there are certain exceptions to this, such as if someone could be in danger of harm. But that is up to your digression in the moment of course. In a more general sense, however, being a good listener means knowing when someone is being vulnerable and sharing something heavy, and recognizing that that they trust you with that information.
Positive reinforcement happens when you give some one praise and recognition for sharing something emotionally heavy with you. Such as saying to them “Thank you for sharing that with me, it must have been really difficult to do.” It lets the person know that you recognized how difficult it must have been to verbalize their feelings on a subject, and lay it all out there for someone.
Sharing is hard, but so is listening. If not even harder. Being able to remain quiet, focused, attentive, and empathetic while someone speaks to you sounds overwhelming ehe stated that way. Listening, just like any other skill, takes practice and intention. Becoming a good listener can be life changing. Not just for you, but for those who you give the time and effort to listen to.
**Remember, listening is an ongoing practice. By incorporating these tips, you can foster meaningful connections and ensure that those around you feel heard, valued, and understood. **
Bonus Tip: Practice active listening not just in conversations, but also when consuming media like podcasts or watching movies.
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