She looks away as I begin to talk again. The words are coming out of my mouth but begin to fade out of my consciousness as I start thinking about why she isn’t engaged in the conversation anymore. It was going so well but slowly I started losing her, now she seems distant and uninterested. Another open-ended question rolls off my tongue as I prepare to answer my own question to re-engage her commitment to the conversation. I listen to her brief answer and move into my statement hoping something I say she will relate with and want to get back into the conversation more fully. Instead she listens distractedly and ends up excusing herself even before I finish.
My issue here is not a conversational problem but a listening problem. When I began working on my conversation skills I found I had a lot of trouble spots, listening was my main one. Listening is the issue that has one of the strongest affects on the conversation.
Multiple choice, which displays to someone you are actively listening and engaged in a conversation:
A) Interrupting a person on a key point you want to relate to.
B) Breaking eye contact right as someone starts responding.
C) Relating on something you wish to talk about in their statement rather than the point of their story.
D) Waiting a full second after someone finishes talking before responding.
That’s right try the last option and avoid problems A-C.
Interrupting is one of the surest ways to show someone you aren’t listening. It does show your excitement to respond, but also shows that you are unwilling to fully let someone express themselves.
Have you ever had a waitress ask you how everything is and right as you respond or before you are finished she looks away at her next table? I have, and it feels like she could care less about what I say. Keep eye contact at beginnings and endings, of both your statements and questions as well as theirs.
I am pretty excitable and enjoy talking. I find when I listen I often get caught on certain things another person says and want to comment on it. If I resist the urge to interrupt, I often get lost in my head about what I am going to say when the other person stops talking. The problem with that is that I am not listening to what they are saying the rest of the time, and when I do respond it is often on something they are no longer talking about. I constantly remind myself to listen and forget what I was thinking about saying, and just listen. One trick that helped me is to listen for the conclusion or end of someone’s statement. When it finally comes, I have listened to the whole thing and can respond at that point because I actually heard what they said.
Try waiting a full second after someone stops speaking. This is one technique I use that really imparts a strong message that I am listening. It shows them that I care enough to let them finish and that I want to hear if there is any more. The only challenge to all this listening is that once I do want to speak, I haven’t thought about what I am about to say. Even that is good because now I actually pause and think about what I am going to say, and when I do speak they know I actually care enough not only to listen, but also to think about what I am saying.
Listening is the most important part of showing someone appreciation. Verbally showing appreciation is important but being listened to is a powerful thing. I’d bet you if women made a list of desired traits in a partner a good listener would be somewhere on that list. Be that powerful listener and see the results in your interactions intensify.
