Developing Listening Skills
To Increase Overall Performance

Listening skills can help you become more successful in different aspects of your life like family, friends and work.

The ability to understand people well can change many things. You’ll build better harmony and cooperation with other people involved in your life. This also promotes better personal productivity.

Developing your listening abilities is not only for relationships but it is also for greater understanding about the things that you do and how to make more out of it.

Listening is not simply about hearing, it is also about observation. There are different techniques for effective listening that you can apply.

How to Listen Well

Most people would think that listening abilities are simply about the "hearing of things." However, listening should also be about interpreting and understanding the way how someone relays her/his message.

Learning disabilities such as adhd symptoms can become a blockage with listening. Those with bipolar symptoms can also have some difficulty with listening.

Despite of these learning disabilities there are still technical aids and professional help available for overcoming these problems.

When you’re ready to listen here’s what you can do to improve it: The first thing to do is to focus and concentrate so you can grasp well what someone is telling you. Let your ears be alert to what it can hear.

You should avoid thinking of other things and not let distractions come in to you when you’re listening because when your mind is occupied with random thoughts or some idea, your attention to the speaker gets divided. This may result in not catching some of the information that you should get.

Avoid talking when someone is speaking. Avoid getting in the middle of someone’s dialogue because it will interrupt what the person is saying to you. Let the person finish then say your statement. When there’s someone interrupting you learn how to say no when necessary.

Thinking Before You Act

When you're listening to someone you should listen well. You should hear and consider everything what someone is saying to you so you can think more accurately about it. If you have all the information and when all information is given to you, it would help you create sound decisions based on good judgement.

Making the best judgement of a certain situation can happen if you have many of the details. This includes more understanding of what's happening and what is someone telling you. It is important for your listening skills, to think well so you can avoid making mistakes which can waste your valuable time.

Wrong understanding can lead to poor decisions and eventually to poor results. Being able to listen and think well can sharpen your mind too. You'll become more sensitive to sounds and words around you and you'll be able to analyze things better whatever you hear.

Build Better Listening Skills

As mentioned earlier listening skills are also about observation. You can do this by seeing how a person talks, that is the tone and expressions being used. 

Observe how they pose and move while talking. Gestures and movements are also ways of expressing things and facial expression is the most important to observe. You can also interpret a person if the words they say are related to the way of their body expression.

Being able to understand someone well is a timesaver for you because you’ll be able to react appropriately and avoid misinterpretations that create mistakes.

In business, listening abilities are valuable because when there’s clear communication there’s the greater chance of things going smoothly for everyone involved. It improves productivity as a whole.

Prejudices and biases should be eliminated when you’re developing the way you listen. An open mind will bring in a lot of things in your life. It is a great leadership trait to be able to connect well with anyone.

When you don’t want to hear about something, you wouldn’t want to entertain that certain idea. When you’re choosy on who’s giving an idea, you wouldn’t most likely respect or consider some person’s message. You might lose something important that can benefit you when there’s prejudice and bias.

Practice Makes Perfect

It may be a good saying but nobody’s perfect, but you can always become better. Improving listening skills should be added to your personal development plans and you can attend some training sessions for it too.

When speaking with someone, you can clarify with her/him on what they’re saying. Don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t understand well. Other people make mistakes too. What’s important is that you get to understand one another. 

In a class or seminar you should also do some note taking while hearing the speaker. This way, you won’t be missing any information that you’ll need. The Evernote tool is something that is very useful for remembering things.

To be able to listen well is part of personality development and the way you listen also improves when you work on your "soft skills."

When your mind is "clouded" by several problems and worries, you may lose some attention to other people.

In this challenging society, don’t forget that relaxation therapy is still important. There are times when you have to clear your mind so you are capable of listening well to others.

Listening abilities promote getting things done and the more you understand others, the more you’ll be able to make an accurate response and the better the result of things will be.

Listening well in a class for example, develops more efficient study skills which results in better grades.

More Advantage in Dealings

Better listening skills can help you make better transactions and negotiations with other people. If you're in the business world being able to understand and interpret other people way beyond just listening to each word they say can be your great advantage.

You'll be able to make more favorable things for yourself because you can sense well what's happening or what is most likely to happen according to the things you observe and feel.

With good listening skills, you'll be able to be more careful with the "traps" in your way to your goals in life. You'll be able to avoid some of the deceptions and "tricks" of other people better.

You should know that life is not "smooth-sailing" or simply not easy so improving your senses such as your way of listening can help you a lot in many ways.

Listening skills are very useful in every situation in life: work, business, school, social clubs and all other places where you interact. This is one skill that can change the outcome of your relationships dramatically. So don’t lose every opportunity where you can improve this skill.

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