I’ve talked a bit about the power of reflecting listening and why we listen, but have not talked much about how to listen. Let me remedy that.

First, though, the difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is the physical act of listening; hearing begins the moment the auditory signal enters the ear and ends when the brain receives the notification that a sound has been heard.

Listening involves “interpreting and understanding the significance” of what you heard.

Listening involves twelve skills:

• Attending Skills
  • A posture of involvement
  • Appropriate Body Motion
  • Eye Contact
  • Non-distracting environment
• Following Skills
  • Door openers
  • Minimal encourages
  • Infrequent Questions
  • Attentive Silence
• Reflecting Skills
  • Paraphrasing
  • Relfecting Feelings
  • Reflecting Meanings
  • Summative Reflections

Seems daunting. Fortunately, you already know most of the skills—at least, you know about most of the skills. If you’re like most people, you’re not actively nurturing them. Most of us spent much of our childhood learning how to speak and not much time learning how to listen. (The most I got from my parents and teachers was “Pay attention!” But what does it mean to “pay attention”?)

Over the next few days, I’ll review each of the listening skills. If you’re really anxious to learn about listening, you can purchase People Skills by Robert Bolton, which is where I learned my listening techniques, and where much (if not all) of this information comes from.