Mindset|Writing Tips|Inspiration
Great Writers have the Best Listening Skills
Learning to listen better will bring improvement to your writing.
Want to accelerate AND sustain your writing success? Listen up.
To be a successful and effective communicator, you’ve GOT to be a highly active listener. As a leader, LISTENING skills are MORE IMPORTANT than your speaking or writing skills… No question.
1. Quiet your mind and make a space for you to listen.
2. Resist the need to be in charge of the conversation.
3. Listen to ideas and central themes. A great listener should be able to mine at least one great idea from every conversation.
4. Pay attention only to content, not the delivery. Teach yourself to focus on what a speaker is saying. Keep the message above the manner or method is at the time.
5. Be engaged and engaging. Use your skills to keep alert and aware of the conversation, so you do not tune out the speaker.
6. Avoid getting your exercise by jumping to conclusions. It’s easy to assume that you know the rest of a sentence or message after hearing the beginning. Much of the time, we are formulating our come-backs in our minds before someone has completed their full sentence. Get the whole message then respond.
7. Take notes if you are in an environment that will allow you to do that. This way, you can stay engaged, and the benefits are it will also enhance your memory, recollection skills, sharpen your reception, understanding, and retention of the information.
8. Concentrate and resist distractions — internal, as well as external things that are going on around you.
9. Summarize the message. Chunk down the ideas into smaller bits of information you can apply to what you could use in your life.
10. Control your emotions. Learn your emotional triggers and be alert. Try not to take what you hear personally unless, of course, it is content that impacts you directly or directed to you personally.
11. Stretch and exercise your mind. I have heard it said that the brain could only take on and comprehend one new thought a day.
12. Be an active listener — practice, practice, practice.
Then take what you are hearing or have heard and begin to see how you can use it to write or improve your writing.
If you have found this information helpful, you might also like the following ideas.
