Active Listening and its Benefits
Last Update on June 26, 2020 : Published on June 27, 2020
How do you feel when someone, whom you are speaking with, listens intently and responds to you actively? You feel good right? You feel that your opinion matters and that person is eager to know what you want to express. That act right there is known as active listening. Though it sounds simple, most of the time we don’t practice it in our daily lives. People around us are too busy and only pay attention to the words of the person whom they hold dear or pay utter respect. From gaining almost all of the information that the speaker is relaying to making someone feel important, active listening does it all. And not only had these there are many benefits related to it. What are they, have a look:
Benefits of Active Listening:
1. Benefits Related to Personal Life
If you hate the people who just don’t listen no matter how important information you are relaying to them, it may be possible that you are one of them. How? Most of the time we ignore someone even without our knowledge, it is by mistake, lack of interest, lack of attention span, etc. This leads to passing-on of wrong information. If someone is restless for any reason from poor health to tension at hand then too he won’t be able to stand patiently and listen. Once the misinformation is passed on, what you say, doesn’t matter.
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Now you cannot always change the person standing in-front of you but what you can do is to change the way you listen to others. How can you do it? Well, you can start by trying to understand, rather than jumping to conclusions, allowing the speaker to finish, by not multitasking, by asking relatable questions that would help you to understand what message actually is, etc.
2. Benefits Related to Mental Health
Active listening is also quite beneficial for mental health too. If you are trying for some time, then you would have noticed it too. Better listening skills helps a person to develop sympathy but an active listener feels empathy. He can understand what a person can go through in a much better way than a normal listener, provide appropriate responses, feel the gravity of the situation and can suggest optimal solutions. With practice they also become better at understanding emotions and also at processing them. It also helps the speaker to develop confidence in the listener and he or she can express more freely than to others. It helps ease the tension, anxiety, awkwardness, stress, etc.
3. Office or Work-Related Benefits
If you are working in an organization, especially when you are handling a team, if you are not getting all the details of all the interactions you have in your office then you may miss out on some crucial ones as well. For example if some of your team members want a day off and ask for permission, suppose you were busy scrolling down your social media feed at the same time. Then it is possible that you forget the names of all the employees that or what your supervisor told you in the meeting. Anything can go wrong and you will be blamed in the end for your carelessness.
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If you are practicing active listening on a regular basis then you will be able to get more information from the conversation than most people. You would be able to understand the problem in a better way and also offer the solution that is more feasible, opening more doors for your success.
Did you know?
By eagerly listening to others you can even ease or help relieve the speaker of their pain? A psychologist usually spends a majority of her time when diagnosing a problem, patiently listening to patients. It not only helps them grasp the entire situation but it also helps the speaker to let out all the anger, sadness, frustration, tears, etc. which was bottled up inside for a long time. If you also feel that you need someone to talk to or want someone to lend an ear to you and don’t have anyone close to you, don’t worry.
7cups is an international organization that works through trained volunteers and professional experts. They believe that listening to someone is a great way to help them and so they work on this sole basis. They train members to be better listeners. So whenever you feel like talking it out then do check their website.
So these were some of the benefits of active listening that I wanted to share with you. Try it out for yourself for at least a week and you will feel the difference.
I hope it helps.
Thanks for reading!
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