Successful Listener

Listening and hearing are often related to each other. Many people claim that both carry the same meaning. However, both differ from each other. To begin with the compare and contrasting, let's evaluate what listening is. Listening basically means the act of listening or being attentive to something soundly. On the other hand, hearing means being able to perceive sounds. It might sound very much similar. Listening involves messages that being received by our ears to be transmitted to the brains for further evaluation. Hearing can be just hearing a sound but not evaluating it. So, this is how they vary from each other.

Listening can be divided into many more sections.For example, content oriented, people-oriented, action oriented and time-oriented listeners. Content-oriented listeners are listeners that are very much interested in the quality of the message they hear rather than anything else as they only seek for important details to analyze the whole listening process. Besides that, people-oriented listeners are only focused about maintaining positive relationships and nothing else as they relate their speech with moods and feelings of others. Action oriented listeners who are only focused about their task at hand and they tend to spend time figuring out and evaluating messages while time-oriented listeners are always with efficiency. They are more particular about time issuess. Listening has a huge dimension if it is looked into.

Listening to someone's speech or talk isn't an easy task. The brains needs a high concentration as well as focus to evaluate and trasmit messages back to the brains. There are few steps that can be taken to be a great listener. First of all, don't judge prematurely. If you are not sure about what is being spoken, try to reconfirm it and not jumping into conclusions right away. Assuming things or arguing without appropriate facts will lead to embarassment to ourselves. If you are a hundred percent sure about what you are speaking and have a strong standing to it, then it is encouraged to argue on it if whatever being spoken goes against the actual correct facts.

Secondly, ask question. Being afraid is the main factor why many people have misconceptions about things. They are afraid to ask and later on they evaluate stuff without having the actual facts by putting in their own knowlegde to it. Ask questions doesn't disintegrate anyone or make you stupid. Infact, it makes you smarter because it adds to your knowledge level. Also, before asking, make sure it is a relevant questions. Asking questions without having any meanings will confuse the person who is being asked and you will definitely confuse yourself as well.

Finally, when listening to someone speak, make sure he/she finishes the speech or statement before you get into poking your nose. Interrupting into someone elses speech is also an act of being really rude. In the western culture, interrupting is very offensive. The speaker might feel discriminated when it is done so. Also, examine the speaker's evidence and reasoning before accepting to his/her facts. At times, whatever is being spoken might not be 100 % right. There might be error. After all, we are humans and its completely fine to make mistakes.

Therefore, I would like to conclude that being a succesful listener isn't a difficult task only if full concentration, effort and dedication is given to it. The secret to it is simple, if you know how to use it well.

Compiled by Jasneeta Kaur Bhullar