05-21-2024- Most persons you talk to would admit that listening skills are critical in successful relationships. They also would indicate many of the persons they interact with do not listen to them. The one element that is often lost is that the person agreeing to this is often not a good listener or is someone who could be a far more effective person with better relationships if they could find a way to become a better listener. The positive thing is that one can develop better listening skills by simply trying to pay better attention to persons they talk to and with intentionality respond with caring, understanding and empathy. Too often in this busy electronic based society,people have lost the skills of in person interaction that is made even worse with persons so busy leading their own lives that they have little desire to interact with others; and if so,often simply only want to talk about themselves and their areas of concern. A good way to improve your listening skills would include such basic things as making direct eye contact and showing the person verbally and with body language that you care. This means you need to take a time out from whatever you were thinking about and try to give attention to the person you are talking to. You need to let the person get out their whole message and try to understand it. If concerned you can go back and reframe what the person says to make sure you fully understand it and let them know you are paying attention and trying to understand what is being said. You show the person you care about them and what they are saying when you respond to what they are saying and give feedback. Not enough to interfere with their decision-making, but in the form of understanding and trying to help the person get out whatever they are trying to say. This may seem simple enough, but it is an area that a large percentage of persons fail. You can just randomly talk to people you know and they will tell you how hard it is to find someone they can talk to with empathy and desire to understand their feelings. We all need validation of who we are, what we think about and what is important to us. When we validate the concerns of the person, make an effort to understand what they are saying and try to be helpful as they make decisions or express feelings that are important to them, you are then better developing listening skills. This is often called active listening when a person listens intently to another person to try to fully understand what they are saying. They do not have to fully agree with what the person is saying, but are willing to totally listen to what is being said in an attempt to understand what the person is saying. They do not judgmentally enter into the discussion and often end it with statements like, “You should do this” or “Quit thinking that way”. Good listening requires a person not to squelch the opinions persons talk about but give every attempt to understand what is important to them. A complaint a person might have in hearing this is that other persons never listen to them. They can use that as an excuse not to listen to others. The important thing to remember is that successful relationships require that each person effectively listen to the other person. If each person makes every effort to try to understand the views of those we interact with, we will not only be a more empathetic and caring person, but we will have far more successful relationships with human beings which we all need to have good self-esteem and lead happy lives.