While some people believe that individuals are born with listening skills or a lack thereof, many experts conclude that listening skills are developed over time through practice. To be a good listener, you must learn to manage the flow of thoughts in your mind. For example, if you're thinking about other work or bills while someone is speaking to you, you are not being a good listener. A good listener has the ability to completely focus on the person speaking to them. With practice, you can learn to improve and further develop your listening skills by gaining control over your thoughts.
Instructions
1. Face the person speaking to you and maintain eye contact.
2. Relax and really take in what the speaker is saying to you.
3. Maintain an open mind. For example, if the speaker is talking about a topic that you disagree with, hear them out first before simply dismissing what they're saying.
4. Visualize in your mind what the speaker is saying to you. For example, if the speaker is describing a boat trip they took, try to visualize the boat, the water, feel the breeze and really put yourself into the experience they're telling you about.
5. Refrain from interrupting the speaker and attempting to override what they're saying to you.
6. Ask questions of the speaker at opportune times. Proper times to ask questions are during pauses or breaks between different sections of the conversation or when you're not understanding something fully and you want more clarification.
7. Ask questions relevant to the topic at hand and don't try and steer the speaker off in a different direction causing them to lose their train of thought.
8. Empathize with the speaker and try to put yourself in their shoes.
9. Be attentive and give the speaker regular feedback to show you are maintaining interest in what they're telling you.
10. Take notice of any nonverbal cues the speaker is giving such as hand gestures and posture. By noticing these cues, it could put a different spin on the way you interpret what is being said.
11. Prevent your attention from being drawn away to other distractions such as background noise or chatter. Focus only on the speaker and block out the other distractions.
Tags: good listener, listening skills, what they, example speaker, mind example, other distractions