Are you A Good Listener? 👂🙉 Find Out and Fix With These 3 Steps.
Hi friend,
We literally need a training camp for listening.
Amazing that you can get certified for CPR, babysitting, sales, accounting, sailing, pyrotechnics–but not the most important skill for life: LISTENING.
An oversight, right?
Do you recognize the need for training?
Has anyone ever accused you of:
being a bad listener
being “checked out”
interrupting
not really getting them
losing focus while they are speaking
talking too much
losing the thread of a conversation?
If so, you are NOT alone! It’s hard to pay attention amidst all the external and internal noise. Read all about that in last week’s blog.
Here’s what my bootcamp would consist of…and if it seems a bit like the army, I wonder what would happen if this was done in the army!
Indoctrination
First, I’d want to make sure all my trainees were convinced of how important and helpful it is to listen well. If you were my trainee, I’d want you to know listening is the greatest gift you can give someone, and it’s free. And I’d want you to be convinced that what you’ll get in return is more than you ever had to give!
The best thing I have learned from honing my listening skills is: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE OTHER PERSON IS GOING TO SAY! In a life that feels like nothing much new happens (because most of us do and think the same things over and over), it’s pretty exciting to think of how much NEW STUFF you’ll experience if you just learn to listen.
Imagine you don’t even really know most of the people in your life. Or even if you once knew them, if you haven’t been listening lately, you don’t know them now! There is so much new to learn and experience–and that is great news!
Further indoctrination: YOU CAN DO IT! Even if you have been bad at it before, you can learn to be good at listening with just a little bit of practice…
2. Drills
There are skills you need to learn before you go into real conversations.
First, did you set up the conversation for success? Read last week’s blog for the steps.
Then, you have to literally practice with a coach or a buddy. If you are in the Love-in Community we do drills! When someone speaks, you take notes, and then say back what they said. It’s “active listening” on steroids. Ask them if you got it right, and what else they have to say.
You may always have to take notes in order to focus and remember, and that is okay. If it’s an important conversation, the other person will understand, and feel honored that you want to remember it.
You will notice that people are not used to being listened to, and they often change or broaden what they have to say once they realize someone is listening. That’s normal!
In fact, this is the juiciest part: the showing that you are listening actually makes the speaker smarter, more insightful and more likely to tell the truth!
It’s the magic of listening!
Finally, there is the skill of guessing what the other person is feeling. It’s okay if you are not always right, but developing the skill of paying attention to tone, words and body language–enough attention that you could give a good guess–is going to be very rewarding.
During drills, after the person felt fully heard, you would say “it sounds like you are feeling X.” Now maybe they said how they felt, or implied it, or maybe it has changed over the course of the conversation. The focus on this listening drill is paying enough attention that you could guess. Obviously, if the speaker corrects you, you’d say whatever they say back, and record that in your notes and your memory.
3. Real life combat! oops, I meant conversations.
Once I’d observed you in enough drills, I’d send you out into the field to practice what you’d learned in real-life conversations. Here are your reminders:
Bring something to take notes with everywhere you go!
If you initiate the conversation, make sure you are all sorted out first, so after you say your feelings and opinion, you can listen to the other person too!
If someone else initiates an important conversation with you, make sure to postpone it to a time when you are both rested, fed, and sober, and when you can be somewhere private.
Regardless of who initiates, make sure you know why you want to have the conversation. Context is everything. Being aware of the higher purpose makes it easier to react constructively when uncomfortable feelings arise.
When it’s the other person’s turn to talk, take notes and say back what you heard. If it’s emotional, guess how they are feeling.
Ask them if you got it right, and if there is anything else, until they feel fully heard.
If appropriate, discuss solutions and agree to follow up.
Please try this, and report back in the comments how it goes. Got questions, ask ‘em and I’ll address them on an upcoming Couples Competency Tip on Instagram.
Until then, Happy Listening.
Forward march to juicier love!
