Benefits of habit “Be a good listener”
✓ Helps form and maintain meaningful relationships
✓ Improves your social skills
✓ Helps maintain a good social network
✓ Helps to pick up on opportunities
First step:
Have 1 listening conversation
Progress:
1. This week, have 1 social interaction where you mostly listen to other person talk. Lightly encourage them to go on, but keep listening to them talk
2. Next week, have 2 such listening conversations
3. Keep increasing the number until most of your conversations are listening
Helpful tips to make it a habit:
✓ Trigger your mind. Even though the best way to develop a habit is to do it at the same time, conversations are not something that can be planned so routinely. Instead, try actively remembering that you need to listen before every social interaction. Eventually, your brain will learn to do it automatically, but help it learn at the beginning.
✓ Let the app help. Before a meeting, be it work related or social, set a reminder to be interested in the words of the other person you’re meeting. It will be a great way to get into the mindset of listening.
✓ Reward yourself. Once you’ve gone through at least 5 social interactions successfully listening to the other party, reward yourself by taking a group of friends out for dinner and keep listening. Enjoy the benefits of your new habit.
Tips for beginners:
✓ Take interest. There is passive listening, when you let the information flow into you. But then there is active listening, where you respond to the topic at hand, mirror other person’s information, empathize with them, ask them probing questions, deepening the subject. When you’re being the listener, don’t change the subject, let it evolve on its own.
✓ Body language is important. When listening, watch for body language, changes in tone of voice and respond accordingly. Learn to observe the person in front of you.
✓ With every response you make to the topic, think before you say anything. Ask yourself if it’s something the other person wants or should hear. Be sympathetic to everything they say and patient if they want to talk more. Patience is key here.