When engaged in a conversation, discussion, or learning opportunity, fully listen.
To fully listen means to listen with both your ears, pay attention with your eyes, and focus your mind.
Use your ears to hear that is being said and the tone in which it is being said. Use your eyes to pay attention to the body language and facial expressions of the others. Focus your mind on actually listening to what is being said and focus on understanding what is being said. After you have done this then you can analyze what you are going to add to the discussion/conversation/learning experience. Be mindful and thoughtful in what you are going to say.
A lot of things can be misinterpret because of a lack of paying attention and really listening fully. Some tend to only have listen, not pay attention to body language and facial expression, and start to think about what they are going to say before what is being said has been completed. Specially during arguments people tend to focus on come backs and how they are going to up the other person without truly listening. They only hear what they want to hear. You cannot give a mindful response if you didn’t fully listen to what has been said and how it was being said.
We should be more thoughtful in the way we listen. It helps to build better relationships with one another. It could help cause less conflicts as well. So please try to fully listen when others are speaking.
Master Jonathan Field