Hearing and listening are two very different actions. Hearing is a physiological process that is unconscious and involuntary. You cannot control how or if you hear someone. It is entirely uncontrollable and it is not something that you can improve upon. However, listening is entirely different. Listening is completely voluntary. Every single day you choose to listen to your alarm clock. You are in complete control of what you are listening to.
Listening is a lost art in today's world, especially when it comes to communicating. We love to listen to music but the minute your significant other sits down to have a talk with you, you suddenly have lost all your listening skills. Vibrations of sound waves on your ear drums result in you hearing things, what you decide to do next is the listening aspect of communication. Listening is about taking in what people are saying and thinking about it. You have to concentrate on what they are saying, formulate thoughts, and then come up with a way to respond effectively.
Lots of things can stand in the way of your actually listening to what someone has said to you. You might be distracted by a big presentation you have coming up or worried about a big fight you just had with your best friend. We're all guilty of occasionally not listening to what the people in our lives are trying to communicate to us. As humans, we retain less than half of the information we hear when we are listening. As a result, relationships suffer. We don't communicate effectively with the people around us because we aren't listening to the people around us. We all have to take responsibility for our own relationships and start listening!
We have to focus on the people around us and what they are trying tot communicate to us. When your significant other comes home and starts telling you a story about their day, put down what you are doing, look at them and take in what they are saying. If you start giving people your undivided attention and really listen to what they have to say to you, they will be flattered. If they feel listened to, they will feel respected and they will reciprocate and show you the same respect. Think how flattering it is when someones gives you their full, undivided, attention to listen to whatever it is you are telling them. It gives you confidence and makes you feel valued.
Why not give those feelings to someone else? If you can start really listening to the people in your life, you will be surprised at how much you can hear! Listening is an active process and you have to be dedicated to really trying to understand what they are saying. But if you can do that, just listen, your relationships will flourish and you will have mastered the lost art of listening!
