How To Become A Better Listener?

Meaningful conversations don’t just come from the words you speak. Listening plays a big part. Here’s a guide to garner good listening habits.

One-to-one conversations occur infrequently these days. As we all sit indoors, typing away on our phones and laptops, the art of listening seems to be lost. Be it the buzzing of the smartphone with notifications, that meeting reminder on your laptop, etc – The plethora of distractions available to us make retaining the attention span a difficult task. 

What Is Listening And Why Is It Important?

Listening is the skill of retaining information that has been communicated to you and a good listener is one who understands, articulates, and empathizes with it. It is an essential skill everywhere. For example, a doctor in a field like psychology, where listening plays a vital role, must listen to their patients carefully to draw conclusions. Similarly, most workplaces demand good listening skills. And it is not just in the case of work, actively listening is what binds us as individuals. If one only hears what the other is saying, without paying attention, it would cease all meaningful conversations.

Ask yourself how good of a listener you are, if you were to rate yourself from 0-10. You can cross-check with the qualities of a good listener mentioned in the subsequent section to verify your answer. Now that you have a score in mind, let’s understand the types of listening.

Passive vs Active Listening

A passive listener is someone who listens to what they are being told without putting any inputs from their side. By inputs we mean, any reaction or feedback to what’s being said. Imagine, sitting in a boring lecture, where your mind wanders off midway – that’s you being a passive listener.

On the contrary, the person in the same class asking questions, and understanding the topic being discussed would be deemed as an active listener. But, an active listener goes a bit further than just responding to what’s being said. It also includes reiterating what the person sharing an experience said to you so that they know you’ve been genuinely listening and you got the message they were trying to convey.

How To Become A Better Listener 

Step 1: Create the Right Headspace

The brain can become a cluttered space every now and then. Appointments to keep up with, the number of chores left to do, pending job assignments, and the list goes on. With all of these things running inside your head, giving 100% attention to every person speaking to you is surely tedious. Here, you might become a passive listener, who is not able to be present at the moment. 

Now, this is something that must be practiced long-term to overcome distracted listening. Learn to push away your thoughts and clear your head, whenever it’s needed. Some people achieve it through meditation, while some do it by practicing mindfulness. Develop the skill of clearing your headspace and being fully present when people really need you to listen to them.

Further, if someone reaches out to you to talk about something that’s personal, or rather important, pick a place and time that is comfortable. It should be a setting that keeps you and the speaker both at ease and is free from noise and disturbances. Remember to keep your phone away during this time as well. Avoid all the interruptions possible to focus solely on the speaker. 

Step 2: Focus Less on Just Responding

Now that we have the perfect environment and a fresh mind, let’s see the things that you should and shouldn’t focus on while listening. As we discussed earlier, active listening is all about listening and responding, so why does this header contradict? It is because, when the conversation flows, it is more about the speaker than the listener. 

So while you may have a dozen questions to ask, a number of solutions, and relatable stories, refrain from sharing those right off the bat. Think about it yourself, you’re talking to a person and they have a distant look in their eyes. You realize right away that they haven’t been paying attention, don’t you? So, focus on listening to what the speaker has to say, instead of thinking about what you should be saying when they take a pause. So, first, give your speaker the time and space to share their piece, and when they’re done provide a response. Silences are comfortable too or you could use non-verbal cues. 

This brings us to step number 3.

Step 3: Adopt A Receptive Body Language

You’re listening to the person in front of you, but you’re sitting with your arms crossed, staring at the floor. What does that tell them? That you’re probably not interested in what they’re saying. 

One important aspect of listening is making your speaker feel listened to. Whether it’s a nod of the head, open arms and leaning in while sitting, or just frequent eye contact, it all communicates as a good listener. On the contrary, looking away, sitting with your body leaned away showcases you as closed off and unavailable. 

Step 4: Don’t Judge, Validate Instead

The next important skill to develop is the skill of no judgments. Do not sit through the conversation with pre-set opinions, notions, or agendas. A situation might arise where the speaker must be going through something similar to what you have. Feel free to share your experience, but do not try to use it as a prescription to fix their issue. Validate their problem, understand their perspective, and suggest ways from your own experience, but insisting them on doing something that worked for you is not helpful at all. 

No person would be comfortable opening up to someone if they feel like their perspective isn’t being respected by them. Everyone is different, and every situation has its own nuances. Your opinions would be appreciated, but the speaker might not share the same. Remember, it’s about them, not you.

Step 5: Understand, Learn, Empathize

The speaker has laid out their situation in front of you. What comes next? It’s articulating what you listened to and asking the right questions. Ask questions that are open-ended so you can fully assess the details of the situation. This might be uncomfortable sometimes because you might have to walk on eggshells as per the gravity of the situation. But your questions will let the person know that you’re willing to help and are supportive of them through it. 

Moreover, learn to empathize with your speaker. Listening, when done well, is an act of empathy in itself. You are trying to see the world through another person’s eyes so putting yourself in their shoes is the key to becoming a good listener. If someone comes up to you with a new idea or concept, try to learn from their thoughts and way of thinking. You can learn something from every single situation, so keep that learning curve rising!

Was the score you gave yourself correctly? Or is there room for improvement? Whichever the case be, the above steps would’ve surely let you know how to listen better, to understand people better!