![]() You can practice repeating what they said to show that you understand. This led to more productive and meaningful conversations. They were more likely to view the conversation as positive and they were more likely to actively listen in return. A Japanese study found that individuals who believed someone was actively listening to them had their reward system activated. Research shows that when you use nonverbal cues to signal your engagement in a discussion, the speaker is more likely to feel understood and validated. You can show you’re invested in what they’re saying through nonverbal cues like nodding, making eye contact, and leaning in when throughout the conversation. It’s being an active participant in the conversation. Show Your InterestĪctive listening isn’t just hearing what someone is saying. The more you’re able to stay in the moment, the better you’ll be at active listening. You can also practice mindfulness through daily meditation and journaling. Try things like turning off your phone, silencing your notifications, and simply be present. This takes a lot of practice, so you want to do this throughout the day. Take a few deep breaths and clear your mind of everything except what you want to focus on. One way to strengthen your attention is by practicing mindfulness. This strengthens these areas, improving not only your communication skills, but your focus, concentration, problem-solving, and more. Research shows that when you pay attention to someone, you activate the prefrontal cortex of your brain, the area responsible for decision-making, attention, and other complex cognitive behaviors. To be an active listener, you want to tune out all those distractions and focus on the person in front of you. The pings and dings from social media, texts, emails, and more are constantly disrupting your focus and drawing your attention away. This might seem obvious, but actively paying attention is harder than it sounds. You can’t listen if you aren’t paying attention. How can you improve your active listening skills? Here are a few tips, backed by research. Researchers believe that synchronization promotes empathy and understanding in people. This means that the listener’s brain was processing the story in a way that mirrored the speaker’s brain. One study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley found that when participants listened to a speaker recount a personal story, their brain activity synchronized with the speaker. Research has shown that when you actively listen to someone, you activate several areas of the brain. ![]() It’s about fully engaging with the person in front of you by showing them you care about what they’re saying. Truly listening to someone is not just nodding along and waiting for your turn to speak. And science agrees.Īctive listening is the art of really hearing what someone is saying. The second reason is our natural inclination to jump to conclusions, stereotype, selectively listen, and other bad habits we have, that cause us to make major mistakes in our listening.īefore you start the video and take this quick, 10-question listening quiz, be sure to grab a pen and a piece of paper so you can write down your answers.One of the most important skills you can develop to improve your productivity, creativity, and relationships is active listening. The first thing is what I’ve stated above, we can’t or won’t take the time to verify what we’ve heard. You’ll see, after you get the answers to the quiz, that there’s two big problems at play when most of us are attempting to listen. However, for those of you who haven’t, you’ll likely get fewer than 5 questions right. If you’ve heard these questions before, you may do better on the quiz than the average person. I didn’t invent the quiz, and can’t find out who did (but I thank the person!) It’s not only fun, but illustrates how ineffective our listening skills are when we don’t close the communication loop by asking questions, paraphrasing what we’ve heard, or asking people to repeat what they’ve said when we don’t understand. I thought I’d do something fun this week instead of a regular written blog and that’s to give you the listening quiz I give in many of my workshops.
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