Here is a quick question for you….
What is the one skill that can change relationships for the better in the shortest amount of time?
Don’t worry, almost everyone gets it wrong.
It’s a simple communication skill that everyone thinks they’re really good at, but they’re not…
Sounds.
Before you click on this article and move on to something else, consider THIS…
What if you’re not as good a listener as you think you are?
And if you’re so fed up with the people in your life because they don’t listen to you…
That you stopped listening to them?
How would it affect your love life, your relationships with your children or your friends, your ability to get the job you want and the income you deserve, or even how much inner peace you feel at the end of each day…
If everyone around you, including yourself, listened with an open, loving heart?
For example, take Sherry who had broken an important “rule of communication” without even knowing it…
She thought she was a very good listener, but her friends, her husband and especially the people she worked with thought otherwise.
You’d be talking to her and suddenly she’d interrupt you and start trying to solve your biggest life problems…
Without even asking!
Other times she took the conversation to the side and interrupted with stories from her life…
Leaving the person they were talking to feeling unheard, unappreciated and unimportant.
In these situations, it was obvious that he really wasn’t listening.
The people in her life found this completely disturbing to the point where they no longer wanted to talk to her.
We could go on and on about what Sherri did wrong in her communication to alienate her friends, family and pretty much everyone else close to her…
But when she came to us for help, one of the biggest things she discovered was that she was a lousy listener.
And he constantly broke an important “communication rule” of not “fixing” someone who hadn’t asked to be corrected.
At first, it was painful for her to see.
She didn’t want to consider this as a possibility for her relationship issues.
She didn’t want to look at “listening” or her lack of listening skills was creating problems in her relationships and life.
When he finally found the courage to face the truth, he felt ashamed and embarrassed.
She truly loved and cared for the people in her life.
All he wanted to do was help them by telling them all the ways he thought their lives could be better.
Here’s something Sherry was shocked to learn about her efforts to “help” or “fix” the people in her life…
Unless you’re some kind of therapist, coach, or they actually ask for help…
The people in your life don’t want you to change or fix them.
Most of the time they just want you to listen and love them when they talk to you.
This is.
So how do you listen to someone else and make them truly feel heard, felt and seen in that moment?
You just listen.
It’s like what one of my coaching clients recently said when they were talking about the art of listening more deeply…
He said, “You mean the secret to better listening is to just listen when the other person is talking and keep quiet?”
I said, “That’s right, you got it!”
What almost everyone gets wrong when listening is that they think listening is about rushing to fix, change, or solve a problem for them in some way.
People think it’s their job to lighten each other’s load which may include entertaining stories.
And while all of these things may be helpful to that other person, most people, in situations like this, forget to do the most important thing of all.
And that is to ask if the other person wants your help or not.
To ask if they just want you to stand there, listen and be their friend in their time of need or if they really want or need your help?
Something like that…
“Would you like some ideas (or comments) on this or just want me to listen?”
Too often, we all forget (ourselves included) that the people in our lives are much stronger than we think, much wiser than we give them credit for, and still tap into the creative energy of all things.
Often, we are so busy with what we want to say that we become empty when the other person shares what is on their mind.
All we need to understand is that most of the time, people don’t want to be saved.
They just want to be heard, loved and listened to.
Deep listening is said to be the highest form of respect for another.
When you start listening on a deeper level, others feel it.
They feel your attention and it helps create a sense of ease that can translate into a greater openness to hearing you as well.
Love is always available. We just have to get out of our way.
