Jan. 22, 2021

Listen To Hear

Listen To Hear

Most people are guilty of listening to respond, and not listening to hear. You know when someone might be telling you how they feel and you’re hearing them but you’re really anxious to reply and sometimes so much so you miss valuable information. You see we all hear things very differently. Sometimes it could be tone, sometimes it can be body language, but the biggest issue though is your self talk! Let me explain what I mean.

Let’s say you have had a trying day, you might have been in the office all day and in that very office you feel under appreciated. You have great ideas but every time you say them, they go unnoticed or even worse, they don’t respect it when you say it, but when someone says the very same thing, people act like it is the best thing they have heard. You begin to be reluctant to even say your ideas anymore, you begin to question your worth, you feel like a car that is being driven without direction.

Now to anyone that knows you, you seem to have it all together, you’re come off strong, you have no fear, but deep down inside your miserable. So you go home to your significant other, or you pick up the phone to call a friend or family member and you just want to vent. You begin to explain how your day went and what your feeling but there is two major problems that you encounter;

  1. Your partner or friend down plays what you’re saying because you present yourself as always having it together, and they feel like they wish they had your problems compared to theirs so they basically are only listening with the intent to respond.
  2. Because of what you have been speaking to yourself your own guard and you instantly are feeling away because you feel like you’re not being heard.

The conversation was doomed before it even began. Now you can’t control what someone else does, but you can control what you do! That is why it is so important that you are mindful about what you say to yourself! The power of life or death are in the tongue. What you say to you can shape everything about you including what you hear! I often use this an example; You are walking down the street and someone yells out “look at that fat ugly dude over there.” Now if your self talk to yourself has always been that you’re fat and ugly, you instantly take offense. Now there could be 10 other people that might fit that description BUT because this is how you view yourself you are offended. Now if your self talk has always been uplifting and with confidence, you wouldn’t even break stride because you know that those words weren’t intended for you.

Listen the bottom line is this, when listening to someone, make sure your intent is pure! You have to have empathy and not always be so quick to respond. That person picked you for a reason to come too, and you know never know, your ear could be the very thing that helps save their life!