How often have you listened to someone and found that you got to know them better for that? When a person talks, they reveal a lot about themselves. So if you want to get to know a person better and understand their motives, dreams, and desires, it makes sense to listen more carefully.
While most of us can hear, not all people have the ability to listen as attentively as others and for this reason, listening is often listed as a desired skill. When you start to listen to a person, you gain more insights, such as:
- Understand what they expect from themselves and you
- Build better relationships with family, friends, and colleagues
- You will be able to solve problems faster
- Have a better understanding of what people want to tell you
- You'll know how to answer correctly
- You will become a trustworthy and respected person
The moment you present yourself as someone who is not listening, your level of trust drops significantly. There are indeed physical and mental barriers that you must overcome to listen well. Among the most common are things like:
- Prejudices
- Language and accent barriers
- Noise level
- Fear
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Poor attention span
- Consultation questions
Some of these barriers will prevent even the best listener from fully understanding the subject. An excellent example of this is trying to listen to someone who does not speak their mother tongue. They may use the right words, but their most significant handicap is their accent. No matter how hard they try to pronounce the words correctly, they are not understood.
So what can you do if you find it challenging to understand someone? An excellent active listener will often try to do the following things to improve their understanding of the situation:
- Move a little closer
- Maintain eye contact
- Nod and smile to indicate that you're listening
- Ask appropriate questions
- Try to answer the question in your own words
By doing these things, you show the person that you are doing your best to understand them, which can be very helpful and calm the person who is speaking. They often feel stressed, nervous, and anxious. By helping them to leave their feelings behind, they can usually explain the situation better.
As you can see, it is not so difficult to improve your listening skills. Just be aware that there are problems that can sometimes prevent you from fully understanding people.