“Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.”- Isocrates on Goodreads.com.
As a new week is about to start, let me share some really simple but extremely important tips for effective, mindful listening with you:
- Face the speaker and maintain eye contact
- Be attentive, but relaxed
- Keep an open mind
- Listen to the words and try to picture what the speaker is saying
- Don’t interrupt and don’t impose your “solutions”
- Wait for the speaker to pause to ask clarifying questions
- Ask questions only to ensure understanding
- Try to feel what the speaker is feeling
- Give the speaker regular feedback
- Pay attention to what is not said, to non-verbal cues
Enjoy your week!
Jenny
Photo credit: sadmafioso / Foter / CC BY-NC
Clear, succinct, and so very true…. I believe the skills required to be an ‘active and engaged listener’ or becoming more and more difficult to achieve. I will save this, print it out and post it in a strategic spot. Thank you!
Thank you so much for your kind words! I completely agree: most of us have to re-learn how to truly listen to somebody. Currently I am reading “Insight Dialogue” from Gegory Kramer; he explains an interesting way of engaging mindfully in interpersonal relations. Very interesting to read! Jenny