This can feel just as hard as it sounds, but it gets easier with practice. Effective communication is not magic, nor does it take place without intent and effort.
Everything seems like magic until we learn how to do it.
Socially, we typically get what we focus on. The irony here is that the best communication happens when we’re not speaking. Active listening is the primary tool to be learned in this chapter. When we reword with our own internal phrasing what the other person is saying, while the other person is speaking, that is active listening.
It is not possible to re-communicate each statement out loud, and that is why we have the capability to talk to ourselves in our own imagination. If you’re not sure how to speak to yourself without making verbal words, try to read the rest of this paragraph without saying the words aloud. If this is a new practice, keep in mind that active listening takes a lot of energy! Good job; Keep practicing.
In the same way that an athlete can work out for hours at a time, but someone who doesn’t work out will exhaust after a few minutes of warm-up – active listening is a taxing exercise for those who are out of practice. If you get tired after a couple minutes of active listening, that means these muscles are out of shape. This is not shameful, but if you’re conversationally flabby – don’t expect to be understood.
There is no other way to best understand what others are talking about than through active listening.
Active listening starts with paying attention and not allowing your mind and imagination to drift during parts of a conversation that don’t interest you. Look at the person, bring unconnected throughs under the control of your will power.
Stop thinking about how you will reply or how to manipulate the other person.
Simply pay attention to what they are talking about right now.
Be present in the moment with the person you are speaking with.
Accept they have a legitimate reason for what they do and say
Understand the mind in which we are synchronizing our thoughts through conversation.
Without this, people on both sides of the table will poke and prod for any topic or example that will support the point they are making. If we forget that we’re in a discussion, the room will fill with narcissistic monologue and sections of silence that each will think support their point. Even though we’re all using the same words, there will be no common thoughts.
It’s also important to understand that (no matter how scattered the other person’s perspective appears) they have a legitimate and usually intelligent reason for why they’re thinking what they’re thinking. Chances have it that they’re trying to figure out the gap in your perspective that you have overlooked.
Otherwise, they assume that we would understand what they’re talking about. As we see this cycle beginning, or catch that we’re both wandered into a foggy land of disconnection, stop and go back to whatever baseline our conversation has been built upon.
Show you are Listening
Follow up being present with displaying that you are listening.
Nod or shake your head if you can see each other to show that you are listening. This is called feedback, and typically happens without effort if we’re actively listening. If not face to face, use short verbal confirmations that you are tracking what they’re laying down. Even if we’re only on the phone, our facial reactions are communicated through our tone of voice, grunts & mumbles. Give mini-confirmations that you are tracking with the speaker.
Once this skill begins to develop, we start to take control of the rapport we are building. Rapport is the process of establishing trust, harmony, and cooperation in a relationship. Relationships are built on rapport, because humans who aren’t interpersonally sadistic spend their time with people they know, like, and trust.
Start by seeking to understand and then seek to be understood.
If we recognize that we aren’t being trusted, own it and work from there toward a commonality. All this adds up together to require modern people to possess real communication skills, but to not use them for selfish ends.
Become trusted, because you listen, hear and not always talk about me, Me, ME!
Follow the Speaker’s Perspective
We all have our own maps we follow, and we only ever understand our own version of reality.
It doesn’t matter how hard we try to enhance or expand it, we never get outside of our translation of our past experiences – just like whoever we’re conversing with.
A man will never truly know what it’s like to be a woman. He may pay attention to all the women he has spoken with in the past and through active listening track exactly what is being stated, but it will only ever be a guess as to what a woman’s experience is.
We only ever know our own experience. Own it and move forward with patience and compassion for those who experience what we will never have to handle. I may not understand, but I can empathize and work toward knowing each other.
We naturally think that our opinion is right …or we would change our opinion. This same truth is consistent in “their” perspective. Listen to what they say, find at least one single point of agreement or connection, and use that point as a baseline. Then move forward toward knowing and being known.
Active Listening Conclusion
Actively listening allows us to create conversation checkpoints, bookmarks, or baselines which function like markers on a spiral. Each time we pass that point, another checkpoint is created and an agreement is built on previous agreements. Checkpoints which are closer and closer together signal that conflict is circling closer and closer to resolution.
It is not required to follow these guidelines to converse, it is just required to converse with clarity.