Knowing how to listen is an art from which real conversations flourish

Knowing how to listen is a fundamental process for effective communication. However, few people know how to truly listen. They do not pay attention, although they do simulate it and this causes different conflicts that affect their relationships with other people.

We are not aware of the importance of knowing how to listen and how much it would benefit us to enhance this skill. However, our need to be heard overrides this and we become selfish without being aware of it.

Hear and listen

Hearing and listening are two different attitudes. After a day you hear many things but hear little. When we hear we do not pay deep attention, but we simply capture the succession of sounds that occurs around us.

While when we listen our attention is directed towards a specific sound or message, that is, there is intentionality, with all our senses focused on what we are receiving. Thus, people who know how to listen to others accompany them on their journey through life.

Do you remember when you were in a teacher’s class and you were not interested in what he was saying? You didn’t hear it, but you heard it. Your ear canals received the sound he emitted, but he didn’t understand it, he didn’t understand it. Your mind was elsewhere, ignoring everything that you perceived through your ears.

Well, you carry this attitude in a boring class, unintentionally, into your daily life, because sometimes It is much easier to hear than to hear, since the latter requires a willingness to pay attention and make an effort to understand what the other is telling you. This is called active listening and it is very necessary and important.

Learning to listen

An oriental proverb says: “No one shows his clumsiness and bad breeding more than he who begins to speak before his interlocutor has finished.”

It sometimes happens that when we are talking to another person, both the other and us have difficulties listening; going from listening to hearing on many occasions, while we prepare what we are going to say when the other finishes, instead of trying to pay attention to what they tell us, leaving the dialogue blocked by verbal incontinence. Well, If we all want to speak at the same time and the reasons of others are not listened to, there will be no dialogue as such but juxtaposed monologues..

Knowing how to listen is a difficult attitudesince it requires self-control and implies attention, understanding and effort to capture the other’s message. It means directing our attention towards the other, entering into their area of ​​interest and their frame of reference.

Dialogue requires a silent attitude of attentive listening. The writer and speaker J. Krishnamurti stated “Listening is an act of silence.” As long as we do not silence our internal dialogue and pay attention to our interlocutor, we will not learn to listen. Only an attitude of attentive listening makes the word we can give to our interlocutor fruitful.

It is difficult to be able to say something valid to others if we do not open our ears wide to listen to it. Thus, the person listened to will feel that they are being given the importance they deserve, remaining grateful and in turn creating a climate of respect, esteem and trust.

Tips to improve active listening

If we want to enhance our ability to listen, First of all, we must identify those aspects of active listening in which we have deficits. and then work on them.

These aspects can be summarized in: attention to our interlocutor; the interest conveyed; the postponement of the trial itself; the ability to give and receive feedback; and empathy. Below, we leave some specific techniques that help work on each dimension:

Pay attention

If we do not pay attention to the other’s message it will be impossible for us to listen. Therefore, if we have problems attending, Let’s try to focus on what they tell us and ignore all those distractors (both internal and external).

In addition, Let’s make an effort to understand our interlocutor’s line of argument and pay attention to their body language.this way we will identify the context more easily and we will be able to understand the entire message.

Finally, to pay attention It is vitally important not to interrupt and cultivate patience.

Show interest

Knowing how to listen involves showing that we are interested in what they tell us. If not, the other will perceive that he is not being cared for and we will provoke a negative response from him.

Therefore, to denote interest the ideal would be:

Make short comments and nods that show that we are listening.Adopt a listening body position, which implies maintain eye contact, reduce the distance, orient your posture towards the other, avoid crossing armsetc.

Postpone one’s own judgment

When the interlocutor is expressing his ideas to us, we must be able to silence our internal dialogue. For it, Avoid jumping to conclusions while the other person is speaking, try to override your preconceived prejudices about the topic, don’t interrupt and put your emotions aside.. For this, there is nothing better than practice.

Give and receive feedback

This is a very important aspect of effective communication. To put it into practice we can ask them to clarify ideas that were not clear to us and reformulate, in our own words, the message that we have captured. Thus, we avoid falling into unnecessary misunderstandings.

Empathize

Without empathy there is no active listening. Therefore, For effective communication to occur we must be able to put ourselves in the other’s shoes and understand them from their position.. In addition, we must pay special attention to those messages that go beyond words, such as: their feelings and emotions transmitted, as well as their body language.

In sum Let’s exercise the ability to listen! It is a healthy, enriching and supportive exercise, especially in a society in which there are many people who need to be heard. Only when we are able to listen to others, do we open the door for them to communicate with us. Therefore, let us not underestimate the ability to listen. Shall we start doing it for real?

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