Communication Series Part 2: Listening as an Art
In order to become a great listener, you can think of listening as a skill that needs to be learned. Much like carpentry, painting, yoga, etc., all are skills that require dedication and focus to develop, maintain, and hone the expertise needed to perfect the task. Listening is much the same in that it requires constant effort and attention, especially at the beginning, when we are trying to move from “hearing” to “listening.”
Developing the skills necessary to become a great listener require you to open yourself to constructive criticism in order to gain the basic understanding of what listening requires of you. As mentioned in Part 1, hearing occurs virtually automatic for most without any effort, whereas listening requires your full attention to a sound made by someone or something. There are many activities that you can do in order to improve your listening skills. You can play the Telephone game with a group of friends or Guess the Emotion with your partner/spouse. These games help you first determine if you hear or if you listen. Secondly, they help you transition to become a better listener.
Maintaining your listening skills is something that should happened every single day of the year. Will you forget some things? Of course! The goal is not to absolutely remember 100% of everything that was ever said to you. The main goal is to listen so that you understand, comprehend, and empathize with the other person speaking. We already know that most marital disagreements tend to involve some type of misunderstanding or miscommunication. We sometimes set expectations of our partners/spouses, but we fail to actually communicate those expectations. The other possibility is the expectations are mentioned but listening did not occur. I want to help couples get better at communicating, especially about finances, since financial issues are the second leading cause of divorce.
Over time, as you work to constantly develop and maintain your listening skills, you will begin to hone them into a craft. Listening will never get to a point where it happens automatically, which is completely different from other forms of muscle memory. Each time you listen, it will require 100% of your attention. If you cannot give 100% of your attention to the person speaking, kindly mention that you are not able to give them your full attention, but as soon as you can you are willing to completely listen. I do this quite often if I am driving down the road using Bluetooth hands-free calling; I will mention that I am currently driving which requires complete focus so I will likely miss something that is stated. By doing this, I am effectively communicating that I am not in a position to devote the amount of energy to someone else. If they are a great listener too, they will likely state that it is okay and to call back when I am are available.
Honing your listening skills doesn’t necessarily make listening easier on an individual conversation basis, but it will make you more adept to the other person’s verbal and non-verbal messages. If you are married, it will allow you to understand the other person’s perspective better over time bringing you both closer together. If single and working, it can allow you to better understand your colleagues, customers, and supervisors. Listening, as mentioned many times, requires you to humble yourself and put someone/something else first. The world might start being a slightly better place if we learn to put others before ourselves. Listening is an art that we should all look at continually improving on, so that we can start to become better humans!
Listening is an art that requires attention over talent, spirit over ego, and others over self – Dean Jackson
