Being an active listener is extremely important to strengthen our communication with people. Actively listening to someone shows that we are interested and respectful of what that person is saying. However, we can get distracted for various reasons and miss the topic being discussed. This causes communication problems between us and the other person.
Being a good and effective listener is difficult because there are many factors that cause this problem. For example, other thoughts may come to our minds at that moment, thinking about the answer we will give may distract us, or we may not listen even when we are sure of what the other person will say. So how should a good listener be? The answers are in this article!
How to Be an Effective Listener?
What needs to be done to be an effective listener can be explained as follows:
- Stop any other thoughts that come to your mind.
- Focus only on what is being said.
- Get away from distractions.
- Harness the power of body language.
- Empathize with the speaker.
- Don’t stop talking.
- Take advantage of small breaks.
- Clarify whether you understand or not.
- Summarize the conversation.
- Choose the right time to communicate.
- Apologize when you can’t listen.
1. Stop Other Thoughts From Coming to Your Mind
Being an active listener is often difficult because of other thoughts that come to mind while we are listening to the other person. Similar thoughts come to mind at that moment, and when these thoughts go on and on, we become completely disconnected from the environment.
Awareness is important to stop the thoughts that come to our mind. When different thoughts come to your mind, first notice them lebanon telegram data then stop them and try to focus your attention on the moment you are in. When you suggest yourself in this way, you will be able to do the behavior automatically.
If you can’t stop your thoughts, tell the other person that you’re distracted in appropriate language. In fact, one of the best things an active listener can do is to tell them that their focus has been disrupted instead of pretending to listen when their attention is distracted.
2. Focus Only on What is Being Said
There may be many distractions around us when we are communicating with someone. To be a good listener, we need to only be interested in what the person is saying, rather than paying attention to the reasons that create a focus problem .
One of the problems experienced during active listening is reading intentions. If what the speaker says seems contradictory to you or creates question marks in your mind, you can find a suitable space and reflect this conflict to him. During this time, be careful to be polite and not use accusatory language.
When you start thinking about more than what the person is saying, you can’t stay in the moment and you can’t listen to the speaker. Therefore, it is extremely important to be careful to establish clear communication.
3. Avoid Distractions
When we are communicating with people, the most important things that hinder us are external factors such as sound, light, and smell. When our brain focuses on two things at the same time, attention is divided. Therefore, it will be very difficult to focus on both the sound coming from outside and what the other person is saying. After a while, active listening will be almost impossible.
One of the biggest distractions in interpersonal communication today is social media. As long as one hand is on the phone, we cannot listen closely enough to what the other person is saying. To prevent this, precautions can be taken such as muting the phone or turning off the computer monitor.
4. Leverage the Power of Body Language
To be a good listener, it is also very important to use your body language effectively. For example, when communicating with someone, turn your face and body towards them, and do not forget to make eye contact with that person.
In the meantime, make sure your physical distance aol email list is balanced. If you stand too far away, you may not be able to hear that person’s voice, and if you stand too close, you may not be able to listen comfortably.
To be an active listener, do not continue to listen with a blank facial expression while listening to the speaker. Show your emotions. For example, when you are surprised, open your eyes and raise your eyebrows. However, avoid unnatural behaviors. Nod your head slightly up and down to show that you are listening to the other person.
5. Empathize with the Speaker
Being a good listener includes being empathetic. If you find it difficult to listen to someone, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine the same thing happening to you. When you realize that the other person is not listening to you, you will probably feel worthless too. Try to be empathetic so that others do not experience the same feeling.
6. Don’t Stop Talking
To be an active listener, avoid behaviors that will interrupt communication. For example, try not to interrupt someone while they are talking. Wait for the conversation to end, then express what you have to say. When you act this way, the person you are communicating with will feel more valued and the relationship between you will strengthen.
7. Appreciate Small Breaks
If you want to intervene and take the floor, use small gaps. For example, if the speaker is distracted or forgets what they were going to say, take over. Say what you wanted to say during this time. This way, you will not interrupt the speaker and you will communicate more effectively with them .
8. Clarify Whether You Understand or Not
When it comes to the characteristics of being a good listener, it also includes making sure that we understand what is being said. For active listening, we can briefly state what is being said and ask questions like “Did I understand correctly?”
Especially when communicating with someone who speaks quickly, it can be difficult to clearly understand the beginning and end of what is being said. Similarly, when listening to someone who speaks very slowly, you may get bored and stop listening to what they are saying after a while. However, an active listener must confirm whether they have understood what is being said correctly.
9. Summarize the Speech
One of the requirements for being an effective listener is to summarize the conversation. You can do this mentally, but it would be more functional to take notes of what you listen to. Of course, we do not mean taking notes in your daily communications. For example, if you are a psychologist, a mediator lawyer or a speaker, in short, if your job requires you to actively listen to the other person, it is very important to take notes.
Since it is difficult to listen to a person for a long time, notes should be taken to make the process more effective. When summarizing, the following should be taken into consideration:
- Decide in advance whether you will take notes on a tablet or on paper.
- Use abbreviations that you know the meaning of.
- Do not write down everything that is said, write down the most important ones.
- Write down information you are likely to forget, such as names and dates.
- Make sure that the most important parts are emphasized by underlining or capitalizing.
- Save your notes.
- Don’t forget to take notes of your questions.
10. Choose the Right Time to Communicate
One of the most important things to be a good listener is to communicate at the right time. It would not be healthy to communicate when you are very effective listener busy or anxious . At such times, you can suggest to the other person, “I am not available right now, please talk later.” In this way, you will avoid pretending to listen or playing a role.
11. Apologize When You Can’t Listen
We may not listen to what is being said from time to time. This is a problem that everyone experiences, but the other person may perceive effective listener this as disrespect and our communication may weaken. However, in order to be a good listener, it may be necessary to apologize when we cannot listen.
However, at such times, when we say something like, “I apologize, I was distracted and couldn’t listen to you. Can you explain it again?” we can please the other person. In this way, we can also show that we care about them.
