From Amanda's very early writing (1990s to early 2000s), shared as it was originally written.
39 Do you listen as well as you hear?
"You ain't learnin' nothin' while you're talkin'"! I read this last week and the truth of it stuck a chord somewhere deep in my body.
We spend years at school being taught all about words and spelling and how to speak and grammar - yet when are we taught to listen? About one percent of the population (and I'm being generous!) can actually listen - and really hear what someone else is trying to say to them. Listening would be one of the most powerful tools of communicating available to us. Remember the old saying - God gave us two ears and one mouth - he was hinting!
There are always two levels to any communication - the obvious one and the hidden one that we usually miss. Non verbal communication is 93% of everything we communicate - not just body language. The actual words only account for 7% of the actual message we want to send to someone else - yet most of our training relates to the use of words.
Non verbal messages come out in our voice tones , micro muscle changes and micro color changes in our faces, vocal variety and our breathing. Most of the time we don't even know we are transmitting or receiving these messages - think about those times you have walked into an area and no one has said a word but you know something is wrong. And you ask them "What's wrong?" and they say "Nothing!". At which point you know that there is something major wrong! And the way they said "Nothing" is the give away - it wasn't what they said, it was how they said it.
At Christmas time , I was driving to Brisbane and listening to Stephen Covey's tapes - The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People. His fifth principle is 'seek first to understand , then be understood'. Imagine what life would be like if everyone practiced this habit! Wouldn't it be bliss!
No more interrupting, people would wait till you had finished your sentence, they would understand how you are feeling before they jumped in to give you their wisdom. Most people think they are listening when in fact they listen to 10 seconds of what you have to say then they hold their breath with the answer poised, waiting only for a gap in your conversation so they can launch into what they want to say!
How many times have we been guilty of only listening for the pause (our opportunity to speak!) in the conversation , rather than intently listening to the real message behind what the person is saying?
The other Covey phrase that I thought was wonderful , that has turned my listening skills around is "listen with your eyes for feelings". Isn't that great? Listen with your eyes for feelings. In other words, when someone else is speaking, really pay attention to the way they are saying the words - look for the feelings behind what they are saying. It is amazing to experience the difference in the quality of your communication once you start to incorporate this philosophy into daily life.
When your attention is focused on the person with whom you are interacting they pick it up at a non verbal level - they know you are really interested in what they are saying - it's a great compliment (not to mention skill) to be able to tune into someone and actually register the feelings they may be experiencing.
Of course, to do that , we have to set aside our own internal dialogue (self talk/ voices inside our heads etc) that say "oh, I know what they need to hear" - at which point we stop listening to the feelings and words and start waiting for a pause, so we can start talking.
Having heard or guessed the sort of feelings the other person may be experiencing, the next step is to feed back into the conversation some way of showing them you understand how they feel. Women are, generally speaking, more tuned into this behavior than men. Women are used to responding in an animated way (their faces move and they make sympathetic noises when they listen!) and this is a powerful non verbal way of transmitting your understanding of the other person's feelings.
Comments like 'you must have felt awful' or 'what a great feeling!' or ' I would have felt upset as well' or 'no wonder you were angry!' indicate that you understand - you may not agree with the sentiment but you understand how they could have felt that way.
So, if you want to dramatically improve your communication skills, to avoid conflict and misunderstandings and arguments, decide to practice your listening skills. Turn off your internal dialogue (you'll always think of something to say when you need to!); focus on the other person; seek first to understand , then to be understood; listen with your eyes for feelings; and then feed those feelings back into the conversation - non verbally and verbally. You'll be amazed at the differences you see and experience!
