12 Powerful Listening Skills to Improve Your Life at Work and Home

Despite how important listening is, a lot of us still find it difficult to invest the time and effort to become a better listener. Listening is a very valuable skill in the workplace and it has a huge impact on the growth of businesses and leadership. In this age, active listening is a challenge and an array of factors such as advancements in technology, social media, and ever-growing to-do lists tend to add to the perpetual distractions we face. As significant as listening is, the struggle to listen remains but there are a few steps you can follow and a couple of tips you can make use of to power your listening skills and improve both your home and work relationships

1.Listen to understand.
When it comes to active listening, this component cannot be shrugged off. You must not listen with a prejudged conclusion but with an open mind. Be intentional to understand. When you do this, you'll be able to ask questions that are well-timed and appropriate, instead of making several interruptions when the story is being told. When you listen and aim to understand, this means that you're going into the conversation genuinely and you'll be conscious of noting all the unspoken words such as nonverbal and verbal cues.

2. Use interruptions sparingly.
Many people are fond of this. Once someone is having a conversation with them, the only thing they've programmed in their mind is how to quickly “chip in” something, which is probably to disagree with what's said. Using interruptions sparingly is very vital when you're practicing active listening. Before you chip in your interpretation of what the speaker has said or come up with your questions, make sure you let the speaker finish his or her thought.

Oftentimes, we have an untamed eagerness to interrupt people because of the thoughts that have been sparked by their comments Little do we know that these interruptions tend to send a message like “I no longer have interest in what you're saying because you're taking too long” or “You don't know as much as I do.”...

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