Effective communication is vital to a relationship as we are all aware.
We are born with a mouth that has the ability to speak. Yet to be effective speakers, most of us need some form of training to do so. We need to be taught.
We are also born with two ears that have the ability listen. Most of us are never trained to listen, like we are to trained to speak.
We do not see listening programs all over world, like we see speaking programs like Toastmasters.
Sure, there are small workshops and books written about listening. But, nothing like formal training.
Though we would all greatly benefit from them on so many levels.
How well we listen truly makes a difference.
Often when we think about listening, we think primarily about listening to others.
But, think about this:
Can you listen to others very well, if you are having a hard time listening to yourself?
As a speaker, I take speaking classes often to learn how to convey my message better.
We work on pitch, tone, extending vocabulary, as well as other verbal skills.
However, we also work on body language, gestures and facial expressions.
In one class, our instructor asked us to look in the mirror as we were speaking so we can observe ourselves.
Then, he asked us to video tape ourselves, as well as voice record ourselves.
We were to analyze ourselves to see where improvements would be beneficial.
But, there was another reason why this instructor wanted us to do all of the above:
So we were comfortable with who we are.
When we are comfortable with who we are and are able to face ourselves, we deliver our message on a more efficient level that if we were not.
This was the best lesson for me. I am not one for faking gestures, purposely making my pitch higher, and other well known techniques.
I prefer to speak from my heart and inflections naturally happen, as well as gestures and passion are truly conveyed.
In order to truly speak from my heart, I had to be very comfortable with myself and trust enough to be vulnerable.
This is what I call Authentic Speaking.
Continue on to read what I consider to be authentic listening.
Listening Authentically
Here are five important keys to authentic listening:
Authentic listening is listening from your heart, not with your ego based thoughts.
It is listening with openness and without judgement.
It is listening without looking for what you want to hear, nor steering their to mean what you want them to mean.
It is remaining consciously present, without forming a response to what they are saying.
It is being comfortable with the silent moments while they may be formulating their thoughts, instead of filling that silence.
How can you Learn to Listen Authentically?
In order to speak authentically, it greatly helps to be comfortable with yourself and to know yourself.
Likewise authentic listening to others is easier to do if you are comfortable listening to yourself.
Are you comfortable with listening to your thoughts?
Many people run away from their thoughts by filling their mind with music, tv, news, or reading book after book.
Other people have so many thoughts that are crowding their mind that they are overwhelmed, confused and feel stressed.
Some people hate silence and actually fear it. So, they refuse to ever be in silence. Even when not watching TV, they leave it on, just so they hear something.
Others may yell back at themselves when they think certain thoughts. They get angry when memories come up that they no longer want to remember and when thoughts of other unpleasantries.
Do you see yourself in any of these situations?
If you do, ask yourself:
If you are not able to truly listen to yourself in peace, love and with presence, are you really able to listen to others with peace, love and with presence?
When you run, hide, hate, or are frustrated by your own personal thoughts, how are you able to be comfortable with what others are saying? It is very challenging.
I will share with you 4 practices that I teach my clients to do when they are learning how to listen to others:
How to truly listen to yourself with an open mind and open heart.
How to appreciate silence.
How to slow down and pay attention to your thoughts.
How to learn to appreciate your thoughts and to learn from them.
When you are able to listen to yourself, it is so much easier to listen to others authentically.
Your Turn: What some other listening tips that you can offer? Also, do you believe that being able to be open to listen to yourself, will help you effectively listen to others?
Also join us on Thursday, June 26th as we discuss listening in our relationships on #InspireChat at 11amEST.
Enjoy your day!
Joanne Cipressi, CHt, CNLP
Empowerment Coach, Speaker and Author
For coaching, seminar, workshop and speaking engagement requests, please contact me at 267-266-6480 or joanne@joannecipressi.com
Wonderful Joanne!
I think listening to someone is simply an art, which many aren’t able to do though.
When there is a conversation going on, it should ideally be just the speaker who does the talking while the others listen. And once the speaker ends, then the other person talks or if there are more, take turns to speak their mind – this is what’s called effective communication.
I’ve often noticed that when someone begins talking, they are often interrupted by the listener even before they can end what they are saying.This happens because they want to convey what’s on their mind, without listening to the speaker, which shows their lack of listening power or skills.
I loved the ways you shared about how it should all be done. Thanks for sharing and reminding us to be good listeners too.
Harleena Singh recently posted..7 Easy Ways to Find Inner Strength
Harleena: I tend to cut people off sometimes, but I have been working on that. Instead, I just want people to feel like I actually care about what they have to say. Sometimes, I cannot get my words out as fast as I would like and so I can loose a person’s attention and that is one of my biggest flaws.
William Veasley recently posted..Agree To Disagree
William,
I admire you admitting where your listening improvements are needed. That is the first step to improving how we listen. Caring is so vital when it comes to listening. When we care, we do listen better and it makes the speaker so much more comfortable to convey their message.
Thanks for sharing.
Joanne
Joanne Cipressi recently posted..13 Tips to Improve the Way You Listen
Harleena,
You are absolutely right, many conversations do have much interruption. Even as a coach who teaches how to communicate effectively, I fall short once in a while. I usually catch myself and apologize when I do–whether in business, with clients or personal. The more we practice, care and are aware the better we listen. The better we listen, the better our rewards on so many levels.
Enjoy your day!!
I do believe on the things you have stated. You are right that when you become the listener of yourself, you can also have the power to engage yourself from the things you want. Thanks for sharing about this great information.
TracyAnn0312 recently posted..אתר סלולרי
TracyAnn,
You are welcome! I do enjoy sharing this information. It reminds me too to make sure I am listening within and without.
Enjoy!
Joanne Cipressi recently posted..13 Tips to Improve the Way You Listen
Joanne: Thanks for the wonderful article! A lot of speaking effectively comes from being comfortable. Most of the time, I am not comfortable with how I sound and I worry too much about what other people think about me. I would say that I am a better listener than speaker.
Anyways, I believe listening is more important than speaking so I always try to do a good job and even more so with an elderly person. Wisdom is worth more than the almight dollar, at least in my opinion.
Best wishes,
William Veasley
William Veasley recently posted..Agree To Disagree
William,
Ah, the wisdom of elderly people is golden! Listening to their words can surely teach us so much about life, behavior and also lets them know that they are valued.
I remember not being comfortable speaking, because I was not comfortable with several things about myself. But, learning to appreciate yourself and valuing who you are does wonders to bring out your authentic self with confidence.
Enjoy your day!!
Joanne Cipressi recently posted..13 Tips to Improve the Way You Listen
Really interesting and I would say complicated but in a good way, your article made me really thinking about this. I think that at first, we have to listen for ourselves, although sometimes it could be easier to listen to somebody else. Listen to the other party’s thoughts or complaining could happen from a selfish reason as well, that is why I really like your point on listening authentically. And that actually needs some open-mindedness.
Elisabeth recently posted..Eine schöne Wochenende: Naturfotos mit meiner Freundin
Elisabeth,
I appreciate how you bring out that sometimes it is easier to listen to others than ourselves. This is definitely true for many people. There are a lot of people who can not bear listening to themselves and immerse themselves into the lives of others. But, I think after a while, this catches up with them. Whenever we run away from listening to ourselves for too long, we find it very hard to have a really deep bond with others. Learning to listen authentically benefits everyone–yourself and others.
Thanks so much for stopping by!!
Joanne Cipressi recently posted..13 Tips to Improve the Way You Listen
This is a very interesting issue)) As for me, I’m more of a listener than of a talker. Girls always appreciate it))
Listening to a person is what I call a silent communication.