How to Become an Active Listener
Because we all listen to people talking daily, we listen to music daily, we watch the tele daily, we’re pretty good at listening itself, it’s just that we often let a lot of it in one ear and out the other. Active listening can help to prevent this from happening, but how can we get from where we are with our listening abilities, to where we need to be? Here’s a few things to help you:
EYE CONTACT – We’ve all had an experience when someone asks you to look at them when they’re talking to you and it’s for a good reason. It’s to make sure you understand what’s being said. When actively listening to someone, you should aim to look in their eyes for about 60% of the conversation. Too much and it can become awkward, too little and it can look like you’re disinterested. With eye contact, you are subconsciously letting them know that you are paying attention to what they have to say. Look at it the other way around. If you are talking to your friend, and they have their arms folded, starring at their phone, mumbling to themselves then there’s a good chance they don’t have a clue what you’re on about. A friend who looks at you, and who engages in the conversation clearly has understood what you said.
DON’T INTERRUPT – You might not think it, but the flow of a conversation is very important, especially when it comes to messages and information. If you continually interrupt this flow, it can seem like you don’t care for it, and are not listening to what’s being said. This goes for your response too. Try to give you response at the end, rather than when you think of it. The meaning of the conversation could change, and if you’ve already said something that contradicts the meaning, it could potentially reflect badly on you. Finally, don’t abruptly change the subject to something that you want to talk about. If you’re talking about politics, and you change it to sport midway through a conversation, it’s clear for everyone to see that you had no interest in the conversation, and it can actually look quite selfish. Talking and listening is all about patience. You’ll have the chance to talk about sport or whatever topic you want to talk about, but the last thing you want to do is interrupt and offend someone when they’re talking about something that matters to them.
INTERNAL DIALOGUE – In life, it’s very easy for our minds to drift and wonder, especially when someone else is talking and you’re not interested. Many of us have constant internal dialogues that are always chewing our ears off, giving us opinions, ideas, thinking of jokes and comments, and what you’re going to have for dinner. When someone is talking, try to shut that away and listen. It’s damn near impossible to do both. Of course, the main style of comment that our internal dialogue produces is that of judgement and bias. When listening to someone it’s important to try and remain as neutral as possible. With this in mind you can be less likely to offend, and hurt people, as well as offer practical advice or reasoning rather than seemingly criticise them for going about something in a certain way.
BEHAVIOUR – We’ve talked about subtext and the hidden meanings behind what is said. We’ve talked about how listening to the conversation can reveal these hidden meanings, however, there are also many behavioural clues that can inform us that there’s more that meets the eye – or in this case ear. Tones of voices are the biggest tell-tale sign of a certain emotion. You can get a sense of their true feelings by listening to the way in which people speak, something you might miss without active listening. Besides this, body language like having arms folded could mean they’re being defensive, pointing and gesticulating could be that they’re on the offensive, their facial expressions too also play a part. Now this isn’t to say that every time you see someone with their arms folded it means that they’re concealing some form of information, it could just mean that comfortable, but when they are talking about something that matters to them, their body language might indicate their true feelings and emotions.
ASK QUESTIONS – Asking questions is a great way to inform people that you are listening. There’s nothing wrong with not understanding something, so there’s nothing wrong with wanting information clarified and explained to you in a way that you can understand. If you don’t question it, and they believe you to understand, they could ask for your opinion or advice, and if it just so happens that you don’t know what to say, it can seem like you were disinterested and didn’t care to make an effort to help you understand.