Are you actively listening?
A few weeks ago, I spoke about listening to your body, and after happily spending some time on my bike; I got to thinking about the word listening.
What does it mean to not just listen to your body, but to actively listen to other people?
“The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent”
Harvard Researcher William Ury, states that eighty-five percent of everything you know is through what you hear. “Listening is much more beneficial than talking,” Ury says, and that active listening is becoming more difficult because of our everyday distractions, and our minds are subject to an overload of information. In his research, Ury found that people with active listening skills are healthier, more successful, and more content in life than those with poorer listening skills. He believes we should spend twice as much time listening as we do talking.
"According to a recent Microsoft study, the attention span of people who frequently use social media is only about 8 seconds."
According to bestselling author Tony Alessandra, Ph.D., there are four types of listeners:
The non-listener ~ they generally make no effort whatsoever to hear what is being said.
The marginal listener is better, but is still a superficial listener. Generally, they are too busy preparing a reply to be sufficiently attentive to what it means.
The evaluative listener is logical and unemotional. They evaluate any message strictly on the basis of the words being spoken and totally disregard the vocal tone, body language, or facial expressions of a speaker.
Active listening is the most powerful form of listening. Once you master it, you can conquer the world! However, active listening takes real effort. It requires a very deep level of concentration and attention.
There are 3 ways to practice active listening:
1. Body language of the listener ~ Maintaining eye contact and appropriate facial expressions is important to convey empathy and attention.
2. Following ~You allow space for them to speak, reducing or eliminating questions. in this way, the speaker feels understood and empathy is established.
3. Reflecting ~ Try to capture the essence of what is said and reflect it back to them, the listener should respond to the feeling of what was said.
“Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors”
Check in this week as you are with others and see if you can practice active listening.
