Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Listening

Good listening is a quality of great men who have reached the pinnacle of glory and is very essential for succeeding in life. But there is a big misconception that is common among many of us that we are good listeners even when we are not. When lecturers lecture, your mind wanders away at least sometimes, if not most of the time. So, you do not generally listen attentively and actively. This creates an inability to understand the lesson. And if you are an employee, it creates problem in your work.
Most of the time we assume that we listen well, though really, we may not. One main reason for this is that more often we complete on our own the sentences of the speaker before he completes them. This is known as predicting. That is, we assume that the speaker is going to say what we expect him to say. This may not happen all time. It’s possible that the speaker will say something different from what we expect. As a result, difficulties in understanding the messages can occur, and misunderstanding will arise as a result. Proper training and control of your thoughts will help gain better concentration to listen well.