Ochie Oca

Thursday, June 10, 2021

How to be a good listener and how to be better

How to be a good listener and how to be better
How to be a good listener and how to be better

How to be a good listener and how to be better. A good listener has been in you since childhood. Initially we learn everything must be through hearing. We learn to recognize the voices of mothers and fathers also through hearing.

When all other senses are not fully working, our hearing plays a role, even he said, we can already hear our own heartbeat and respond to the voices of mother and father with certain movements while we are still in the womb.

Tips to be a good listener and how to be better you can try


As we age, our listening skills continue to function, but our listening skills decline, we don't practice them anymore. Let's remember again whether there used to be listening lessons in school?

Yes, there are language lessons, other than those subjects, it seems there are no more. Our study time becomes more spent on reading and writing, listening skills are no longer trained and used.

I don't know in this day and age, the practice of listening to other people may have started to be taught. This is also emphasized by Julian Treasure, an international presenter who emphasizes the loss of listening skills in a presentation.

How to be a good listener and how to be better
How to be a good listener and how to be better

Julian says that we give 60% of our communication time to listen, but only 25% of what we hear we remember, the cause of the loss of that ability according to Julian one of which is caused by an increasingly noisy world that makes everyone impatient. , want fast and less sensitive.

Even though the ability to listen is a requirement for someone to understand and understand each other, any problem and wherever it will all be resolved if we want to listen. Then how to restore listening ability?

Julian Treasure, who is also an expert in applying sound to good business, provides the following exercises, which you can practice to improve your listening skills.

1. Silence for a moment. With silence, we become more sensitive to our surroundings, maybe you can meditate for a moment in your own simple style. Julian only requires us to be quiet for a few minutes as an exercise to improve our listening skills.

2. Listening to some voices. For example, when you are in a coffee house and enjoying coffee while hanging out with some friends, try to recognize and listen to several sound channels such as the sound of the coffee machine, the sound of the water tap, the roar of the milk mixing machine.

It could also be in other places, for example at the beach, try listening to the sound of birds, the waves, the breeze and so on, this kind of exercise will make us more sensitive.

3. Enjoy the sound you don't like. You probably don't like engine noise, but Julian recommends that you enjoy the noise. For example when next to my house, my neighbor is building a house, the sound of the cement mixer is quite noisy in the morning, just try to enjoy it because there is actually a certain rhythm in the sound that we can enjoy.

4. Change your listening position. Change your listening position, you will be more aware and increase your sensitivity by changing your listening position.

5. Listen with Receive, Appreciate , Summarize, Ask. You should start practicing listening by Receive, Appreciate, Summarize, Ask. Then practice always at every opportunity so that you can be a good listener.

Active listening technique

The Receiving, Appreciating, Summarizing, Asking technique is actually an active listening technique, this active listening technique is the highest technique in listening.

We don't just listen to find the main ideas, we don't just listen to get them quickly and we don't just listen with our own minds preoccupied with other things.

Active listening means we listen to feel and catch all the express and implied messages from the speaker, in turn the speaker can feel that you are indeed listening.

How to be a good listener and how to be better
How to be a good listener and how to be better

In conversation with new people, this technique is very effective in getting you familiar quickly, there are four things you must do while listening so that you become an active listener and are able to catch the message well. Here is a summary of the results of several studies on active listening:

1. Pay attention. Let go of all burdens, thoughts, work, talk about matters of the heart and feelings, let go. You are ready to listen now and also limit all outside distractions as you will be listening.

2. Give Appreciation. Show you're listening, smile, natural facial expressions, head nods, and other body language that shows you're paying attention.

You also have to stay still and not interrupt, and taking short notes is also very useful, of course, to show the speaker that you're listening.

3. Give a Statement. You have to keep your mind active to listen and not run. Making a statement will go a long way in keeping your mind busy with other things.


Visualizing the speaker's sentence in your mind and then stating it by saying okay, agree, yes, or simply repeating certain words from the speaker is a statement of the speaker's attention while keeping you focused.

4, Ask Questions. Feedback is needed as a manifestation that we are indeed listening, you may misunderstand the message if you don't clarify and confirm, a quick question to the speaker will ensure your understanding.

That's what I wrote about How to be a good listener and how to be better. This knowledge answers why I often don't follow what is being said in a discussion or meeting at work, and it turns out that this is because this mind is sometimes self-absorbed and unfocused.

0 comments