YOU LEARN MORE WHEN YOU LISTEN TO OTHERS THAN WHEN YOU ONLY LISTEN TO YOURSELF

We all have a great deal of confidence that what we think and say to others is very worthwhile and has positive value and generally this confidence is well placed. However, if we readily accept that this is true for ourselves, it stands to reason that it must also be true of almost everyone else.

So this leads us to two areas of knowledge and experience, the first being our own and the second being the knowledge and experience of everyone else we have interaction with. Unfortunately, whether we like to admit it or not, many of us have not successfully learned the very important skill of becoming good listeners. We may believe that we do listen well to others. However, experience tells us that in reality we are much happier listening to ourselves talk than actually spending time listening to others. Of course we all have a worthwhile contribution to make to any conversation in which we participate and we have every right to this expectation and to be able to interact verbally with others in any reasonable and polite manner we wish.

What we need to consider doing is to remember that we already know the things we are going to talk about; we do not really need to hear them ourselves over and over. It is worthwhile to believe it is of value to us to hold back on our desire to impart our knowledge and wisdom and instead spend time to take a genuine interest, in not only listening to others in a superficial way but truly taking on board what the ideas, feelings and emotions they are expressing tell us about their concept of the world and their view and understanding of who they believe they are. I believe that this is especially important in dealing with our family and good friends because it is in our relationships with these people that we build most of the love, trust, faith and respect that contributes such an enormous amount to whether we have a happy life or one filled with stress, worry and unhappiness.

At this point, some of you reading this may well be saying to yourself, I am not sure that I like this fellow suggesting that I am not good at listening to people I talk with. It is very true that many of us definitely have good skills in this area. However, there are very few of us who will not gain some benefit from trying to be more conscious of just holding back a little and allowing others to have a longer say. I certainly have been guilty at times of wanting people to listen to what I have to say without showing them the same respect and opportunity. Fortunately over many years, my lovely wife, who I believe must have learned this skill quite young, has managed to educate me to pay much more attention to others, in particular my daughter and son who I had a very bad habit of cutting short in their conversations as they were growing up, so I could impart my wisdom about whatever they were trying to discuss, very big mistake. Please give them every opportunity to talk to you as it is the very best way to understand and accept who they are. Now, I need to complete my education and stop interrupting my wife and I will really be popular at home.

If you are still not convinced that you may have a few things to learn about what we are discussing, consider something as simple as when someone we know introduces us to a stranger. We acknowledge them and usually exchange pleasantries. However, even though we have just been told their name, how often does it happen that by the time we finish this normally short conversation, we cannot remember the name of this new person we have just interacted with. If we are honest with ourselves, we know it happens quite regularly but we should not try to sell ourselves the idea that we just have a poor memory and this is why, it is normally, simply that we did not truly listen when we were introduced. If it is so easy not to concentrate on retaining something as simple as a Christian name, we are all going to have substantial difficulty remembering the substance of any longer conversation and this is a great pity as we may miss out on knowledge, wisdom or perhaps good humor that that may have been very worth while. We may ask ourselves why then do we miss so much in a conversation. In most instances it is probably simply because we are so busy working out in our own mind what we are going to say next that we do not hear a great deal of what is actually being said.

Listening well and retaining a greater amount of what we hear is one of many life skills which can easily be learned and indeed built upon by anyone willing to apply themselves to the task with a little extra effort and enthusiasm and a genuine willingness to believe that everyone has a worthwhile contribution to help make the world a much more interesting and indeed better place.