The Importance Of Knowing How To Listen: Do We Do It Well?

Knowing how to listen is not something simple.  Sometimes we believe that by putting our ears and making us pay attention we already know how to listen. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s put ourselves in situation. Imagine two friends, one of whom is telling the other that she had an argument with her mother yesterday. The first is worried but, as soon as she finishes speaking, the other takes the opportunity to tell her about a similar experience.

Have you really been listening to it? No, because you have used your friend’s concern to introduce your own experience and thus go from listening to being heard. The truth is, she didn’t really listen to her friend.

Errors when listening to others

You may be doubting right now. I really don’t know how to listen? If I thought so! Therefore, it is important to mention what are the most frequent mistakes we make when we “listen” to others.

• The first error is given from the example already mentioned. Someone tells us about an experience that worries them and we use the opportunity to talk about ourselves.
• The second mistake is perhaps more drastic: change the subject quickly. Our friend is telling us about the discussion with her mother and our answer is: “oh, how about yesterday’s work?”
• The third mistake is to downplay  the matter by saying phrases like: “don’t worry”, “it’s silly”, “it will pass” …
• Another mistake is to tell the other what to do, giving advice and solutions that they may or may not carry out.

As you have seen, in all these cases the other person has not been listened to, but we use what they say to mainly talk about ourselves.

Avoid the concern of others

These realities can make us think that we are selfish people who think we listen when, in reality, we want to talk about ourselves.

The truth is that listening is a process that requires attention, attending to the other person’s concern and not intervening with personal matters. Even when we tell the other what to do we are drawing attention to our way of seeing things.

It is true that you can give your point of view, but not say how you have to act or how you have to speak, because it is not you. You want to make yourself present through the other person.

Somehow you want to stand out and it is your own ego that comes to light when you are not listening. Although it sounds difficult to accept, we avoid the concern of others.

Begin to know how to listen

Now that we know the mistakes and where we fail when we think we are listening, it is important that we learn, again, to listen.  Therefore, it is essential that you keep the keys that we will present below:

• Never give solutions. As we have already mentioned, it is not positive to give solutions or tell the other how to act. However, we can ask you questions that invite you to reflect and make you make decisions. This is the good way to listen.
• Delve into the subject. If you are really listening, ask questions that show your interest in learning more about what the other person has been telling you. The questions “what do you think about it?”, “What are you going to do?” they are just a small sample of everything you can interact with.
• Avoid talking about yourself. Focus only on the other person, on what they are saying to you and avoid talking about yourself unless they directly ask you about a similar situation that you have experienced.
• Don’t downplay it. Although it may seem trivial to you, the person who is telling you something is concerned and interested in the subject, so never try to detract from it, for her it is!

Now you know how to really listen, sincerely and without thinking about you, but about what the other person is telling you. Remember that, on some occasions, it will be more difficult for you to do it but it is important that you keep trying.

We have to get rid of the idea that listening is a passive action, because it is very active. Therefore, it is necessary that we educate ourselves to know how to listen.