Dear Lifehacker, I'm a terrible listener. I want to do better, but I have trouble paying attentio n.

I miss what people say a lot and end up embarrassing myself and offending the m. How can I become a better listener for everyone's sake?P Sincerely, Hard of HearingP Dear HH, The lack of an ability to listen well stems from either the lack of a decent att ention span or the desire to actually pay attention. Since you want to change an d concentrate on what people say, let's assume you do care about the words that come out of other people's mouths. When other people talk, the mind has an oppor tunity to wander because it doesn't have to process any specific actions. You ha ve to trick it into believing it actually has something to do. That takes some w ork, but a few tricks can help you out.P Look InvestedP How Can I Improve My Listening Skills? People who listen well look a certain way. They appear engaged by making eye con tact. They communicate listening mode with body language that covers their mouth (e.g. steepled fingers or just a hand placed gently in front of it). You want t o fake this body language as naturally as possible. You want to make eye contact , but don't give the speaker a death stare. You don't want to look like you've t rained your eyes on them. If you can't make constant eye contact right away, jus t look at the bridge of their nose or a little below. You can also get away with looking at their mouth because they're talking. Eyes move naturally all the tim e, so look at them for most of the conversation but feel free to momentarily bre ak contact now and again.P RELATED Fidget Less to Listen More Effectively If you're trying to improve your listening skills or impress upon the speaker th Read at they have your undivided attention it's better to err on While it helps to cover your mouth a little to communicate your "listening mode, " you don't want to go in and out of this body language like a robot. If you sta re at them when you listen and immediately cover your mouth, you'll look like a machine. The listener probably won't realize your goal and just think you have s ome peculiar mannerisms. Let them start, and if you think they'll talk for awhil e just shift your weight a little like you're seeking a more comfortable positio n. When doing this, you can cover your mouth to demonstrate interest and lack of desire to interrupt. If you have trouble integrating this right away, put your focus on not fidgeting first. That'll help you gain some concentration that you can put towards better body language.P This may seem like advice to a sociopath who needs to learn how to pass as a reg ular human being, but everyone has a few social skills that leave a little (or a lot) of room for improvement. When you don't really know what to do or how to a ct, you have to fake it. Eventually you'll get used to it and become it, downpla ying any anxiety listening had caused. It seems kind of ridiculous, but it reall y helps. Once you start to act like a good listener, you will come to believe yo u are a good listener.P Watch the Speaker's Body LanguageP How Can I Improve My Listening Skills? RELATED

How to Read Body Language to Reveal the Underlying Truth in Almost Any Situation You've likely heard that body language accounts for up to 55% of how we communic ate, but reading non-verbal cues isn't just about broad Read Your body language matters to the speaker, but you have to watch them as well. M ost of our communication comes from our bodies, so when you fail to actively lis ten it helps to understand body language cues so at least you'll gain some conte xt.P What do you want to watch out for? Start with the facial expression, because tha t's easy. It'll give you a road map of the speaker's emotional state and you won 't have to hear a word. We all understand the basics: smiles and laughs point to joy, frowns don't, and averted eyes signal discomfort. Closed body language (e. g. crossed arms) also disclose discomfort. Watch people as they talk without lis tening and you'll start to get used to hearing with your eyes. These clues make it easier to figure out what you missed in a conversation, so practice looking f or them. When you make a habit of it, you'll naturally pick up on body language and won't have to try anymore.P Learn to Speed-ListenP How Can I Improve My Listening Skills? Speed readers blow through paragraphs using a pretty specific technique. They st art in the middle of a sentence and read every third word or so. How are they ab le to skip so much text and still comprehend what's going on? Thanks to our peri pheral vision and a little fill-in-the-blanks trick our brains naturally provide , we can glean the meaning from text without reading most of it. Try reading thi s sentence in full:P I can raed tinghs out of oderr.P You most likely understood that sentence says "I can read things out of order" e ven though the letters in many of the words sit in the wrong position. When we r ead, we really only look at the first and last letters of a word and our brain a ssumes the rest based on what we sort of see. We also fill in words based on oth er words in a sentence. This causes mistakes from time to time, but usually it w orks so well we never even notice it.P So what does this have to do with listening better? While you can't employ your peripheral vision to hear better, you can let your brain fill in the blanks. You 'll need to practice in order to get better, but once you do you won't need to p ay attention to everything a person says to understand them properly. You'll onl y need to listen to the first sentence, the last sentence, and chunks of words i n between. With that small amount of information you'll know the following:P The topic the speaker brought up and what to expect as they continue to talkP Key words relating to their overall pointsP What they expect from you when they finish talking.P You obviously can't do this in a lecture or anywhere that requires you to listen to lots of details, but you can pull it off in a conversation. To accomplish th is, you'll need to practice these things:P Put all your concentration into hearing the first sentence and understand what w as said. In the beginning, you may want to try and keep your mind invested in a little bit of what comes after, too.P Allow your mind to wander, but bring it back to the conversation whenever possib le. Most people think the way they speak, so you'll likely have pauses between t houghts and can quickly tune back into the conversation. You have to train yours elf to pay attention briefly during these pauses. Even if you struggle to contro l your attention, your mind wanders because it enjoys that fragmentation. Use th at to your advantage and switch out of your thoughts to focus on the speaker's w henever you have a chance. Eventually it will become second nature.P

Use the eye contact you developed in the previous section to watch for changes i n body language. When people get ready to wrap up their point and expect a respo nse, they have a tell. That tell varies between people, but in my experience it regularly involves a slight shift in weight and attention directed back at thems elves. For example, this can manifest itself as a scratch on the head (or elsewh ere on the body). Watch people as they talk and you'll start to notice when they 're finishing their final lap. When you do, start to focus and make sure you hea r the last sentence. This sentence will tell you how they want you to respond.P You will make a lot of mistakes learning to do this, but you can recover easily. Keep these phrases in mind as you fail:P "I'm so sorry, my brain just went on autopilot and I completely spaced out there for a second. What was the last thing you just said?" You don't have to ask the m to repeat everything, just the tail end. You'll get enough from that to provid e a response to move the conversation forward.P "Sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. There's a lot of noise right behind me. Can you say that again?" Obviously you need a noisy environment to make this one believable.P "Sorry, I don't think I understood that last part. Sometimes my brain jumbles th ings up for no reason. Try me again?" Use this if you missed a lot and they'll g ive you a quick summary. It helps a lot with people who tend to go on and on wit h minute detail (e.g. people like me).P As you get better at speed listening, you won't need to bother with these recove ry statements too often. When you gain the ability to listen selectively yet still productively despite your poor focus, you can use a better recovery method: ask a question. If someone decides to launch into a monologue about how they adopted a dog and the resulting stress, listen for those key words and the closing sente nce. They may expect a statement out of you, but that doesn't mean you can't ask them a related question. For example, you could say this:P "Wow, that does sound stressful. What do you think you're going to do about it?" P With that, you barely used any information they gave you but you responded to th e emotional core of their speech. They feel stressed out, so you justified their feelings with an agreement. Most people crave this and will overlook the vaguen ess of a response because they essentially got what they wanted anyway.P Asking a followup question one that doesn't even have to directly relate to anythi ng they said helps in two significant ways. First, it redirects the topic to them so they have to think about what they just said. (Therapists use this all the ti me to help you make self discoveries, so why not pass that benefit along to your friends?) If you have them thinking about themselves and not your incredibly va gue question, they won't consider that you probably didn't pick up much of what they said. Furthermore, they'll actually repeat a lot of the information you mis sed as they give you an answer. You can use their answer to fill in more blanks and make it look like you heard what they said as the conversation continues.P Once you get these skills down you'll just keep getting better and better at gle aning information from conversations you only listen to in part. While that may seem kind of horrible on the surface, as these methods allow you to mostly ignor e people and let your minder wander instead, we're trying to solve an unfortunat e problem here. Your mind will wander anyway, whether you like it to or not, so you have to make the best of the situation and get as much information as you ca n despite your lack of listening ability. I've found that I can concentrate a lo t more in a conversation now because I've employed these techniques, so your lis tening skills may actually improve anyway. If you want to listen better, you hav e to take baby steps even ones that might seem a little unfair to the people talki ng to you.P Love,

LifehackerP