Effective Listening Skills

Mostly, we are all good at expressing ourselves. You might be a good speaker, even a good orator as well. But have you ever wondered what matters most in a conversation? Listening skills! Listening skills are important to be successful both in your professional and personal life. Listening requires ample amounts of patience, yes, but your active listening skills will win your life goals.

The ability to listen carefully is the most important thing in a dialogue. Listening to the other person’s thoughts and ideas with rapt attention is not child’s play. It requires a fair amount of patience and thus, is not an easy task. There’s a difference between hearing and listening.

The less people know, the more they yell. ~ Seth Godin (Tweet this)

We all have the liberty to put forward our views in a discussion but it is always to be remembered that our rights go hand in hand with our duties. It is our moral duty to respect other people’s opinion as well. Deliberately making others agree with your point of view just so as to prove your supremacy is not advisable.

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them ~  Ralph Nichols (Tweet this)

Putting forward your point of view is always good, how else will people understand your feelings and what you think? But at the same time you must realize, that while stating your thoughts and ideas you should never enter a person’s ego territory.

Be vigilant enough to notice when a conversation is turning into an argument. Being dominant or nagging in a conversation is never appreciated. Your posture, attentiveness, personality and overall body language play an important role in leaving a lasting impression on the other person.

You should realize that even if you are fighting over something, it is not to be forgotten that the aim should be to come out with a solution to the issue and not just continue the debate aimlessly. Also, if the other person is dishing out irrelevant ideas and logics, one out of the ten points he makes must have some meaning. Be honest enough to accept it.

If you are patient in one moment of anger you will escape one hundred days of sorrow. ~ Chinese Proverb (Tweet this)

Interaction

An interaction should never lose its decency. Most of the day-to-day stress is caused when we are not careful in our conversation with others. The best way to escape such a situation is to control the tone of your own voice. Do not in any case let your tone go too high.

Whatever you have to say, to get your point across, you can always say it humbly. Remember, it will always have a more lasting effect on everyone around you. You will be praised and appreciated if you are successful in controlling and tuning your tone and pitch.

Read more about this skill in “Listening Skills – How to Improve Your Listening Skills.”

Conclusion – Listening Skills

When you listen to others patiently and attentively, they feel important and automatically reciprocate in the same fashion when you start speaking; so you are always at an advantage.

On one hand, you learn from the other individual’s ideas and experiences and on the other hand build your own audience!