Ask yourself: In conversations, are you hearing what the other person says, or waiting for your turn to talk (or butting in before they finish their thought)?
I am guilty of all three. Of course, the goal is active listening. But sometimes it is hard to sit and listen when all you want is to get your point across.
To master active listening without it feeling like a chore, you need to reframe how you think about the purpose of conversations and what you are trying to gain from them.
In daily conversation:
Sometimes, people talk about things you aren’t interested in or that you don’t agree with. Does that mean you shut down, stop listening, and wait for the conversation to come to an awkward end? No.
The best thing to do is to hear the other person out and try to understand where they’re coming from, not so you can decide that you agree with them, but so you learn how to interact with people who are different than you in a way that is more than surface-level.
If someone is discussing something that bores the life out of you, find something about it that makes you curious. Why is this topic so interesting to this person? Did something happen in their past that makes this topic keep coming up for them? What is their thought process?
Or, if you can’t find any interest or common ground in what they’re saying, take control and redirect the conversation to another place.
When casual conversations stop being about filling the silence or fulfilling societal expectations, true interest and understanding can arise.
When you enter a conversation with a limited perspective, anytime the person you’re talking to doesn’t mirror you, it can feel like you’re in a conversation that just isn’t for you. If they don’t agree with me, they must think I am wrong/dumb/mean/etc. If they aren’t like me, I don’t like them or we can’t get along. But oftentimes, that is not the truth.
People are different. We all have different life experiences, goals, and perceptions of the world. Welcome new perspectives; they will make you a more developed person.
In deep conversation:
In these situations, it is much harder not to take disagreement personally. This conversation matters to you. You want the other person to understand you. But are you trying to understand them? Or have you already made up your mind? If you’re just trying to make things a matter of right vs. wrong, they will probably do the same.
Tough conversations require patience. You have to fully take in their words without jumping to conclusions or reading too far between the lines. Sometimes, people really do mean what they say; they have no hidden agendas or insults hiding behind what they’re telling you. Try not to get defensive; nothing kills the possibility of a mature conversation faster.
Disagreement is not an attack. Most of the time, disagreement comes from misunderstanding. The goal of conversation is not to recruit the other person to your side or to have them tell you you’re right. The goal is mutual understanding.