Safe shopping
Cheap and fast delivery
Free shipping on orders over $30.00
90 Days Easy Returns View More Return Policy
You can show and tell the speaker that you’re listening with affirmations. These include spoken words or phrases, gestures, facial expressions, and more. With these tools at play, you seem more empathetic and intrigued. Appearing engaged makes the speaker feel more welcome to share openly. It’s a comforting sight. Just think about the way you’d want someone to react to you as you share a story. Would you rather they stare blankly, in silence, while checking their phone or engage with you? Of course, you’d choose the latter.
Have you ever accidentally killed a conversation with “yes” or “no” questions? Closed-ended questions like those aren’t exactly inviting. If you want to connect more with someone, opt for open-ended questions instead. These questions start with interrogative words, which are as follows: How, what, when, where, why, and who.
Paraphrasing involves restating what the speaker said in your own words, while summarizing means condensing the main points or ideas of the speaker in a concise and clear way. These techniques can be beneficial in a variety of ways: verifying your understanding, demonstrating your interest, validating the speaker's perspective, and encouraging further conversation. Paraphrasing and summarizing can help you check your understanding, show your interest, encourage the speaker, and enhance the conversation.
Active listening is comprised of four building blocks: focus, feedback, emotional attunement, and intent. Listeners interact with these tools in unique ways.
Active listeners become completely immersed in the speaker’s words. They put themselves in the present moment and carefully consider every aspect of the speaker’s message, including body language and tone.
It's basically a way for active listeners to stay fully engaged in the conversation. Active listening also incorporates feedback as a way to clarify the listener’s comprehension. For instance, if an active listener summarizes the speaker’s point and asks if they understood it correctly, the speaker has the opportunity to smooth over any misinformation.
Acknowledging, understanding, and engaging with someone’s emotions is emotional attunement. Consider how a parent responds to their baby’s needs. The baby can’t speak but can convey meaning through emotive cues. Attentive caregivers recognize and address a baby’s needs. This principle translates to active listening because you must account for the whole state of the speaker.
Passive listeners simply don’t have the intent or purpose necessary for active listening. Active listeners choose, moment by moment, to engage in meaningful conversation. It’s not a nonchalant activity. Listening requires deliberate action and a sense of eagerness to understand the speaker. Intention to listen means that the listener doesn’t brush off someone’s statement. Rather, the listener chooses to genuinely be part of the conversation.
Focus
Feedback
Emotional Attunement
Intent