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3 things all great listeners do

We can get distracted sometimes. Here’s how to make your loved ones feel truly heard.

Most of us would like to believe we’re good listeners — but the truth is, we all struggle to really pay attention when someone else is talking.

“Most of the time when you ask people, ‘How well do you think you’re doing at listening to people?,’ they’re going to say, ‘Really well,’” Graham Bodie, a media and communication professor at the University of Mississippi, tells Vox. “But then when you ask about other people, they tend to say, ‘People are bad.’”

One study found that we recall more of what we said to someone compared to what was said to us. At best, people remembered 44 percent of any one conversation; other research has shown listeners’ minds wander nearly a quarter of the time while conversing. Amid the cacophony of devices dinging, children interrupting, and to-do lists haunting, your friend’s story about their vacation can quickly become background noise. Or you end up focusing more on what you’re going to say once they’re finished than on really hearing them.

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Many times, it’s those closest to us whom we hear the least. As your mom complains about her neighbor again and your mind wanders to your to-do list, you might subconsciously signal listening behaviors — a nod, smiles, a few “mhm”s — effectively fooling her into thinking you’re paying attention. But this is the worst sin of all, according to Christian van Nieuwerburgh, professor of coaching and positive psychology at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and co-author of Radical Listening: The Art of True Connection. “This half-listening is actually really detrimental to relationships because it damages expectations,” he tells Vox. “It can be hurtful to people when they’re expecting us to listen and suddenly we don’t.”

On the other hand, when people feel heard, they report feeling more positively about their relationships, safer with their conversation partners, and more open to compromise, which could encourage them to open up more. Listening to someone is one way to make them feel loved, according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, the author of How to Feel Loved: The Five Mindsets That Get You More of What Matters Most, the book she co-wrote with social psychologist Harry Reis. “When was the last time someone was really curious about you, just couldn’t wait for you to finish your story?........

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