It's been part of our daily life to listen about what the world is saying. Listen and you will find the truth.
Listen so you can find the answer.
Listen to satisfy your curiosity.
Listen to gain wisdom and knowledge.
Listen to stand out from a crowd of arrogant beings.
If you are a great listener then I am congratulating you now. Some are merely hearing things, but doesn't understand the essence of what the person in front of them is trying to convey. Some are just hearing sound on their left ear then throw it away through their right ear.
I remember when there was still a face to face classes in school, one of our teachers in Elementary (I was in 4th grade that time) is always reminding us to listen carefully on the discussion by saying "pakinggan niyong mabuti itong sinasabi ko at hindi yung pinapasok niyo lang sa kanang tainga tapos labas sa kaliwa." As a kid that time, I always grin at her secretly because I found her statement funny maybe because I don't really understand the deep meaning behind it. But as I grow older, that's when I realized that listening really plays a huge part in our life especially in learning things and building a good rapport with everyone.
As we go through this article, I will share my thoughts about the five purposes of listening, written by Dan Rockwell, because I find this topic interesting especially because it is very relevant in every situation we are facing everyday.
Okay, so let's start enumerating the purposes.
1. Mattering.
Listen to let others know they matter. Have you ever found yourself sitting next to your crying friend, listening to her rants against her ex-boyfriend/girlfriend who dumped him/her? To at least show how much we love and care for someone, we all listen even to just random stuffs from them. Even though some are non-sense thoughts, we listen, why? Because we value them as a person. We don't want them to feel unworthy and unheard. We listen to know what's important? What are their hopes that are making them feel motivated everyday? And what are their fears that hinder them to do things they want? If we listen to someone with an open heart, it's like saying "come on, tell me something about you. My time's never been wasted, don't be shy, I value your words."
2. Humility.
Listen to humble yourself.
We don't have to talk all the time and let others listen to us without letting them speak out their mind and heart. We must humble ourselves by letting others speak and knowing what are their thoughts about something. Let's say for example when you are being a leader. It doesn't mean that as a leader you are the only one sharing ideas and just commanding your followers to do everything you say without hearing their opinions. Humble yourself by letting them share their thoughts and ideas and make them feel that you are one of them.
3. Clarity
Listen to help others find clarity.
We should provide an opportunity for someone to hear their own voice by means of leaning our ears to them. If we show to someone that we are not interested to listen to their thoughts or saying directly that we don't want to hear anything from them, there's a great tendency that they will not speak at all which may lead to them not finding clarity between what they think and what they are about to say. Sometimes, what our mouth says doesn't always corresponds to what our mind thinks. Let others speak by them knowing that there's someone ready to lean their ears on, so they can further understand what their mind is thinking.
4. Effectiveness
Listen to act effectively.
Through listening, we can gain some of the very important lessons that we can apply in real life situation for us to start or accomplish something effectively. This is one of the very essential purposes that we must keep in our minds especially because we are continuously learning even until our last breath. Listen not just to gain knowledge but to gain wisdom as well. If we are a great listener, we can further understand how things work and it seems like we are never a first timer anymore because we already heard the experiences of others that add up to our basic knowledge.
5. Curiosity.
Listen to ask a question.
How can we be able to ask for clarifications to fill our curiosity if we didn't listen at all? It's a must for us to listen first so we can later ask a follow-up questions to clarify the ambiguous thoughts in our minds. If we will arrive immediately into a conclusion we are not really sure of, then it will result to another problem again, so might as well listen first, analyze it, ask a question, make a hypothesis, then followed by our own judgment.
CONCLUSION
Listening is very essential to all of us. We shouldn't just always hear things out without understanding the essence of every word coming from someone's mouth. Wrong information is very dangerous along with poor comprehension. If you didn't understand what you just heard and you've gotten into a situation where you have to share it with others, then a chaos of misinformation will spread and no one can stop that when it already flew to everyone's ears and mouths.
Listen not just because you don't have something to say, but rather to make someone felt worthy knowing that there's YOU whose ready to lean an ear for them. Listen to be an effective doer, and listen because you have a good heart with so much humility.
Author's Note:
Listening is understanding, because listening enhances our ability to do better and can make us a better communicator.