How is your listening?
The way you listen to others has a massive impact on how you communicate and relate with them.
Listening is not just about paying attention to the message.
Listening is not just about giving an opinion or being right or wrong.
If you want to have good communication and relationship with others, you need to in my opinion add two elements in the whole mix of listening.
The first one is to remind yourself that the human brain is designed to adapt and learn but it does that in different ways.
The second one is that each one of us experiences reality in different ways.
In other words, we navigate and negotiate reality in different ways. There may be some similarities with other’s reality but at large we see reality from a different perspective and from a different experience of it.
With these two elements in mind, the next time you listen to the other you will listen with the understanding that the way they communicate with you comes from their experience of reality, the same way that the way you listen to them comes from your experience of reality.
In short, with that in mind, you have a broader understanding of the message.
You listen with clarity to decide whether you agree or disagree. The clarity to give an informed opinion.
Perhaps you even listen with the flexibility to find a middle ground as opposed to just disagreeing.
You listen with kindness and respect in case the other has a completely different view from yours.
By the way, different doesn’t mean being right or wrong.
Different means just that, different.
If by now you are wondering why you should consider all these elements, well when you listen to the other from the perspective that both of you have different experiences of reality and when you check your internal thermometer that gauges the temperature of your emotions you will find that all your emotions are quiet, calm and in neutral.
Moreover, you eliminate the need to point fingers at each other claiming that one is right or wrong; there is just agreeing to disagree.
So, here’s a challenge for this week: next time you listen to the other have in mind that we all experience reality in different ways and see what happens; notice how you feel; notice how the other response.
Now if when communicating with anybody you have the need to be right all the time, then get in touch with me.
Let’s have a chat.
Go on my website and sign up for a Free Consultation.
I’m to support you knowing that we both have a different perspective of reality.
Please share this blog with others so they too can the opportunity to perhaps change their listening and the way they communicate with others.
