Active Listening

Think about the best conversations you've had in life -- conversations where everything else seemed to fade away and you were connecting deeply with someone. Think about what made those conversations so special. Chances are you may not even remember what you talked about, but you remember coming away feeling good. You remember feeling connected and heard and understood.

If you're lucky enough to have had these conversations in life then you understand the power of active listening. Whether they knew it or not, your conversational partner used active listening to make you feel important, validated, heard, and -- most importantly -- truly understood.

Active listening and making people feel understood is key to deepening relationships, both personally and professionally. When we actively listen to our partner or friends or family we can provide comfort and resolve conflict. When we actively listen to clients we can make them feel important and understood and move a sale or project forward. When we listen to colleagues and employees we can make them feel appreciated and get the best from them.

So what is active listening? First and foremost it's a mindset. And from that mindset is a set of skills and behaviors that allow you to truly listen to and understand others. Let's dive into it all.

The Active Listening Mindset

To be a good active listener you must approach conversations as a chance to learn about others. You must put your ego aside and be truly interested in hearing what others have to say.

I Understand You

When it comes to the three words people say they most like to hear, "I love you" probably ranks number one. And no knock on love, but love is pretty common. We feel love from our partners, our family, our friends, and even our coworkers. But how often do we truly feel understood? How well do we even understand ourselves? Being really and truly understood is an incredible feeling, and for some it is quite rare.

The active listening mindset is one in which you actively try to make people feel understood. You must think to yourself, "how can I make this person feel like I understand them not just at a surface level, but deeply? How can I help them to better understand themselves?" You must sincerely hold this mindset. If you don't all of your efforts will be for naught (and you probably aren't really interested in being an active listener anyway).

Be Interested, Not Interesting

Introverts, rejoice! So often we go into conversations thinking we have to be interesting. We have to hold others' attention and impress and perform. While the ability to tell a great story and hold an audience captivated is certainly a skill, it is a very different skill from active listening. So if you've ever kicked yourself for being "boring" or being unable to think of what to say in conversations, know that you may actually be at an advantage when it comes to active listening.

The active listening mindset is one in which you focus more on being interested than interesting. You put your ego aside and stop worrying about being impressive and stop worrying about how others see you. You see conversations as going well not when you're doing a lot of speaking, but when you're doing a lot of listening.

Deal In Feelings, Not Facts

Think again to the best conversations you've had in life. I know for sure that you went beyond facts (the "whats" and the "hows") and delved into feelings (the "whys" and the "how comes"). Despite those that would claim otherwise, humans are driven not by logic and reason but by emotion and feeling and intuition. In fact, without emotion people are incapable of making decisions.

The active listening mindset is one in which you go beyond the facts and dive deep into feelings. Your conversations center around the concepts of meaning and importance and reactions and interpretations to things rather than just the who, what, where, and when of it all. Even without explicitly asking "and how did that make you feel?" you elicit the feelings of those you converse with.

The Active Listening Strategies

Now that you understand the active listening mindset, there are specific strategies and tactics you can employ to really be an active listener.

Understand the Purpose of Small Talk

Small talk gets a bad rap, but it has a very important purpose. If you open a conversation with something like "tell me about your greatest fears, I want to make you feel understood" you're not going to get very far. You have to ease into conversations, and small talk is a great way to do that.

Small talk focuses on facts -- the weather, traffic, what you did last weekend -- which is why people tend not to like small talk. You discuss nothing of importance. No one comes away from small talk feeling understood. But small talk is a great way to start to show that you're interested:

Them: "I can't believe how hot it's been recently."

You: "I know, right? Sounds like you prefer the cold?"

In two sentences you can flip small talk into something a little more substantive. You've shown interest in the other person's preferences and given them a chance to talk about themselves.

"Oh, I actually don't mind the heat. I took my son to the beach this past weekend and..."

In this particular case we used the "sounds like" strategy. More on that later.

Hypothesize, Don't Assume

When you enter into a conversation with someone you will make assumptions about them, whether you realize it or not. The way they dress, the way they look, their educational level, the way they speak, the way they carry themselves -- it will affect how you think of them.

Assumptions are useful in life. We become good at making educated assumptions so that we don't have to learn everything from scratch in every new situation. But assumptions have a certain finality to them. We often make assumptions and then hold onto those assumptions, never re-evaluating and finding out if they're actually true.

Hypotheses are different. A hypothesis -- like an assumption -- comes from an educated guess. But hypotheses are meant to be tested and proven right or wrong. When it comes to people and active listening, reframe your mind to operate in terms of hypotheses rather than assumptions. Think about the hypotheses you create before and during a conversation. How do you think they feel? Why do you think they act the way they do? And then ask yourself "how can I figure out if I'm right or wrong? What do I have to ask to find out?" Be prepared to be proven wrong. Take joy in being proven wrong! Learning that you're wrong means that you're learning.

You have to be very curious about -- and interested in -- a person to test hypotheses.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions are those that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no". These get someone to speak in more detail and allow you to better understand them and their feelings. Typically, open-ended questions start with "who", "what", "where", "when", and "why".

For instance:

Instead of asking, "Does this meet your expectations?"

You can try, "How does this compare with your expectations?"

Answers to open-ended questions generally give you far more information that yes/no questions. And the person speaking feels much more understood.

Mirroring and the "Seems Like / Sounds Like" Strategy

Mirroring in its simplest form is repeating the last 1-5 words a person says back to them. It shows that you're listening at least a little bit. When done correctly, you can form those words as a question back to the other person. It gives them a chance to delve deeper and clarify what they're saying. Consider the following example:

Them: "I'm really struggling with this project I'm on. The client isn't listening and I feel so lost."

You: "You feel lost?"

It doesn't have to be literally the exact last few words that you repeat. It may actually be better if you rephrase it slightly. But by mirroring the other person you indicate that you're listening and you give them a chance to dive deeper into the conversation. In this case, they may explain what they mean by "lost" and how being lost really feels.

The "seems like / sounds like" strategy goes a step beyond this simple mirroring and requires more thought and empathy on your part. In this strategy, you very simply summarize your hypothesis for how someone is feeling based on what they've said:

Them: "I'm really struggling with this project I'm on. The client isn't listening and I feel so lost."

You: "It sounds like you're frustrated with how this client is treating you."

In one simple sentence you're doing a few things:

• You're showing that you're listening by mirroring their words.
• You're showing that you're tuning into their emotions by sharing a hypothesis about how they feel.
• The "sounds like" phrasing is gentle and allows the other person to confirm your hypothesis and talk more about it or correct you and explain how they really feel (which they might not be as willing to do if you used an "I think" statement like "I think that you're frustrated with how this client is treating you").

The "Tell Me More / Help Me Understand" Strategy

You may believe that asking someone to clarify themselves shows that you're not paying attention and that you're not being a good active listener. The opposite is actually true. Asking for clarification shows that you are interested in what the other person has to say and helps you to test your hypotheses. And when the person dives further into the topic to tell you more they feel heard and understood.

Asking for clarification can be as simple as saying to the person, "tell me more." Some people may believe that they are boring you with what they're saying so by asking them to tell you more you show them you care and make them feel safe to continue talking.

You could also use the phrase "help me understand." People like to feel helpful and so you're giving the other person the opportunity to be helpful and to discuss themselves.

The "Go On" vs. The "Take Your Time" Approach

If you are deep into a very intense conversation -- one where the other person needs to wrestle with tough or emotional topics -- they may struggle to speak. They may need time to put their words together.

In times like these it is common to tell someone to "take your time". The thought behind this is a good one -- you want to give the person space and time to put their words together. The issue is that it separates you from them; take your time and I'll be here when you get here.

Think instead of the meaning of the statement "go on". It's not meant to rush the person, but to assure them that you are right there with them. It's safe. It's safe to go on. The difference is incredibly subtle but important. Try encouraging people to "go on" rather than "take your time".

The Just Shut Up Strategy

Sometimes you do need to let people take their time. You need to give them space to think and collect their thoughts. This often happens after you ask an open-ended question. The person might go silent for a moment or two. Or more. You may have an urge to clarify your question or suggest an answer to cut the silence. Fight that urge. Let the silence hang for a bit.

A neat "trick" to help you just shut up is to take a drink of water if you have it available. This forces you to shut up, decreases any feelings of awkwardness about the silence, and signals to the other person that they can speak.

Don't Get Caught Up Thinking About Your Responses

We've all done it. We've all heard someone say something that triggered a memory or a thought within us, and we feel the urge to talk about that memory or thought the next time we have a chance. We hold onto that urge and even though the other person continues talking all we can think about is what we're going to say next.

DON'T DO THIS.

When you catch yourself stuck on the thought of what you're going to say next, let that thought go. If you don't, you will be unable to listen to and understand the other person because you'll be so busy thinking about yourself. A good trick is to remember that you'll likely want to mirror or use the "seems like" strategy, and that if you're not listening it'll be impossible to mirror or make a "seems like" statement.

Don't Be Critical

Finally, don't be critical. As soon as you come across as critical or judgmental the other person will shut down. You should even avoid being judgmental of others while speaking to the other person -- their family, friends, partner, ex, coworkers, etc. When you're critical of other people you cause the person you're speaking to to wonder if there's a point at which you'll be critical of them. So don't do it.

Conclusion

Active listening is a real skill. And it's a skill that when put to good use can really improve your relationships with others and improve the lives of others. You can make those around you feel understood and important. You can make them feel validated. In professional settings you can motivate others who feel that you have their best interests in mind. In personal settings you can truly get to know someone and connect in a deep way.

So take the active listening mindset and practice the active listening strategies. You'll find your relationships and your own sense of fulfillment grow and flourish.