Posted on October 4, 2006 - by Administrator

How To Listen In a Relationship

How many times has your attention wandered when listening to an unexciting speaker? How many times have you nodded your head in understanding even though you have really heard nothing? This is a common behavior, and there is nothing wrong with you for doing it. It happens to almost everybody. We may hear what someone is saying, but until we listen we can’t grasp what they are telling us.

How can we learn to listen? It is not a hard thing to achieve. All that you need is some self training and discipline. The first thing is to manage your thoughts. You cannot be a good listener if you permit your thoughts to roam. This happens to the majority of us when some word or sentence made by the speaker triggers your memory, and your mind goes in another direction. You will then need to control your thoughts, and refocus. This is not always easy, because the mind is very powerful. It moves in all directions, many times without you realizing it.

A great way to keep your mind focused is to train your mind to do so for extended periods of time. You can achieve this by listening to a radio or recorded speech. You run the speech for a fixed amount of time, five minutes to start with. If your mind wanders while the speaker is talking, restart the speech. Do it with different speeches until you can stay focused for five minutes. Once this is accomplished, increase the time to ten minutes, and repeat the exercise.

You will find that you will be able to concentrate better, and follow what the speaker is saying. You now can repeat the exercise using a video, where the speaker uses their hands for effect, or rattles off sentences. You will find that very frequently these minor things will send your mind wandering. You can stop you mind from doing this with practice. Train your mind to stop wandering due to the activity beyond what the speaker is saying in the video.

These exercises might seem a little far fetched, but they can and will train your mind to follow what people are saying in your day to day activities. And we all know listening is a major trait required for a relationship.