March: International Listening Awareness Month

International Listening Awareness Month

International Listening Awareness Month was created by the International Listening Association (ILA) to promote the critical role listening plays in all human activity. This is especially important in today’s world where more and more people are stressed every day.

Have you been in a conversation where the person repeats themselves or you find yourself asking them to repeat “the last thing they said?” Listening is an art. It can build stronger and closer relationships as well as build trust. It can help in understanding and even enjoyment.

Did you know there are different types of listening? For example, there is reflective listening, where the listener repeats back the information. It attempts to reconstruct what the speaker is thinking and feeling and to relay it back to the speaker. There’s also discriminative, comprehensive, critical, biased, sympathetic, and empathetic listening

Another big factor in listening is depth of listening. These include false, initial, selective, partial, full, and deep listening.

Tips for Better Listening

  • Face the speaker, and maintain eye contact.
  • Use positive body language. Uncross those arms, nod, lean in.
  • Don’t interrupt to input your observation or solutions.
  • But do ask for clarification when needed—only to understand what is being said.
  • Wait for pauses to ask.
  • Don’t think about how you’re going to respond—you’ll miss something, just listen.
  • Keep an open-mind.
  • Give feedback, not solutions, but feedback that you listened. Ex: “That sounds terrible!”

This month practice full listening. Pay attention to what is being said and understand what is being said. Then acknowledge what’s being said. You don’t need to offer input—unless it was asked for—often people just need to talk and be heard.

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⇴ image from Pixabay.com

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