Michelle Taylor, LPCC Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor
Active Listening: How to be a good listener
Ever wonder how to improve your relationship? Being a good listener! Active listening is something I wish I knew how to do as a child. And then a teenager. You may consider yourself a good listener, but active listening takes practice. It’s complete engagement in the other person.
How do I become a good listener? Active listening
I have three simple tools to become a great active listener. If you can practice and master these tools, you will improve your relationships 100%. Think about your children, teenagers, parents, coworkers, employees, bosses… all of these relationships will improve. And people will want to be around YOU.
1. BE CURIOUS
This is the most important tool in order to be a good active listener. Think about how two people are when they start dating… they are curious about each other. They want to know more and more and more about each other. If you stay curious about the other person, the next two tools will fall in line naturally.
2. Have engaged body language and non-verbal cues
When you are curious, this will naturally happen. First, make sure you are not distracted. Get off your phone, turn the TV off. The message you send when you are on your phone while “listening” is that you are 50% interested in what the person is saying and 50% interested in your phone. That is not active listening. So, get the distractions away.
- lean in
- eye contact
- nod in agreement/shake head in disagreement
- mirror the emotion in your face
- use “mmmhmm”, “yes”, “oh” and other sounds to stay engaged
3. Find the root emotion and reflect it
Mad, Glad, Sad, Fear- This is as basic as it gets, folks. The root emotions. When you are doing step 1 and 2, try to also get in their shoes and see what emotion/s they are feeling. You can feel more than one at a time. Are they mad, glad, sad, scared?
Then you reflect it back when the time comes to say something.
“Wow, you must feel so angry that happened. I would. How did you handle that?”
“That sounds so amazing! You must be so glad you did that!”
“I wonder if you were scared when that happened?”
Whether you get the feeling right or wrong, you’re engaged…and they will appreciate you making them feel seen, heard, important and valued. They will either agree or correct you. And you continue to stay engaged and CURIOUS.
Practice these things and I guarantee you will have 100% a better relationship with that person.
Contact me for a free 15 minute consultation to learn the tools for communication!
Michelle Taylor, LPCC
For online therapy, email me at michelletaylorlpcc@itherapymail.com