Tips On Improving Listening Skills

It is often said, a good listener is a good learner. This is reason this we planned to give tips on Improving Listening Skills. It is not that you have to listen only for learning, in your personal life listening skill can help you a lot in building intimate relationships with others. If you listen to others minutely, it resembles that you care. You will find that people prefer your advices, your opinions more than other just because you are a good listener and sharing their views with you makes them feel worthy. In our personal relationships, better communication brings greater understanding. Good listening skill will help you to be a better spouse, a better parent and a better friend.

Before moving on to the improvement part, let’s have a look on the list of barriers on the way of your being a good listener. Our mind is always filled with so many things, it can be a conversation you had with your friends last night, or a test mark which did not fulfill your expectation or any random event that happen to you in the course of life. Think simply, you cannot draw a picture in canvas where another picture has already been drawn. Similarly a good listening skill requires a temporary blank mind like blank canvas. So feelings like, anger, fear, depression, prejudice, boredom, preoccupation etc are the barriers of your good listening skill. To overcome them and to be a good listener followings are some tips on improving listening skills:

· The first tip on improving you listening skill is that try to listen with your heart and mind. When you will use your heart along with your mind paying attention will be lot easier for you. When you will engage your heart to someone’s conversation, eventually you will find that you are giving attention to his/her mood rather then just keeping pace with the conversation.

· Eye contact can be a good way to improve your listening skill but it is not enough. Think about how many times in the classroom you were looking into your teacher’s eyes as if you were listening to him but was thinking about your dreams, or about the last ‘Mills and Boon’ you read or about the last episode of ‘Prison Break’ you watched! Paying attention to the formal speeches (like class lecture) is tougher than an informal one. In order to improve your listening skill, along with the eye contact pay attention to the speaker's body language, postures and also the ups and downs of his tone. It might help you to be a good listener in the class or in a conference where formal speeches are given. If some destructing thoughts came up in your mind, try to re-focus recurrently to keep the attention.

· Try to focus your mind. Focusing your mind to the speech is a very important on improving listening skills. Do not try to interpret what the person is going to say next or do not let your mind wander about whether the speech is boring or not. If you got some problem in focusing your mind, change your sitting position or body posture. Sitting up straight or leaning a bit forward shows attention in your body language. Try to avoid external destructions, like sound of music or TV.

· Try to listen without being judgmental. If you keep yourself busy in judging whatever the person is saying to you then you would not be able to concentrate properly. Eventually you would find yourself not listening but judging.

· Try to participate in the talk, so that you can keep pace with speech you are listening to. Ask questions if you do not understand anything. But let the speaker finish first, keep in mind your participation should not be an interruption to the speech.

· Another important tip on improving listening skills is that try to recapitulate whatever the speaker said in your mind. Repeating the points in your mind will help you to concentrate and engage your entire mind into the speech.

· Meditation can help you to improve your listening skills a lot. It keeps your mind calm and focused. By doing meditation on a regular basis you can control your mind more than ever. During meditation the main key is to concentrate in one single thing and to increase your patience.

In your personal life, student life or professional life there is no alternative of being a good listener. Developing good listening skill will take time. Unless you are a by born good listener you cannot expect to be a good listener over night. By using these tips on improving listening skills you can try to develop your listening power but remember these are just some tips which can guide you only, the result will depend entirely on your dedication and eagerness.

Picture- Claudio Matsuoka