Difficulty listening to what people are saying

Post Reply New Topic

Maybe I am being too hard on myself, but no matter how hard I focus and listen, I miss out on things people are telling me in conversations.

Does anyone have any tips to improve listening skills?

Yep. For me it's a combination of auditory processing disorder and not being able to focus on subjects that bore me.

No advice to give, sadly. Wish I did.

There is no concern as long as you are not remotely interested in the conversation. If that's the case, it's only natural for you to have difficulties listening since it doesn't catch your attention at all.

The process of listening is mostly automatic if the conversation draws your interest in.

The first step is to create an environment that can provide a healthy communication. Unhealthy communication environments include conversations you are not interested in and conversations with people whom you wouldn't probably miss. Do you have this problem with every single person you know? I am sure you have people whom you are close to who can provide you a healthy communication environment.

The second step is to actually listen to the person. The person expresses his/her feelings when you needed there to listen, so all you have to do is to understand those messages and feelings.
Trying to change the person's feelings ("Don't feel sad", for example) will only make the other person feel weaker since you invalidated their feelings. "I know how you feel"; "I understand that" are examples that you can use to turn the tides in a conversation.

I'm sure this can help you.

I to have a hard time understanding people sometimes. One of the previous posters mentioned loosing loosing attention of what someone is saying or talking about but i don't exactly feel this way. I work with a bunch of guys from Newfoundland and i can hear them clearly and I want to understand what they are saying but i can't always. They have a very strong acent and speak alot faster since they are from the east coast so i think thats part of it, also it would help if they enunciated. I know i can feel mentally drained after a long day of talking with people that i have a hard time understanding because i have to "process" what they are saying so much more than normal. Although i can tell what a good friend is thinking/mumbling no problem.

My only help would be to remove any background noise possible and to infer you are hard of hearing and occasional comment about how someone doesn't enunciate jokingly.

I usually ask them to get to the point and then they get offended and storm off. I've tried explaining that I can't follow long winded stories but that's not sticking.

I understand what you are saying...like I'll be listening to a convo and then someone will ask a question about what they said and I'll be like: what?

Maybe listen for key words so if they do ask, you can at least get the gist of the conversation.

I don't miss a whole lot of things, But I really just purposely disregard what people say. Often because they attempt to make up ridiculously fake stories or their "morals" just to make me feel better or to 'help' me.

That, and that I'm also a lazy bum basement dweller literally living in my mothers basement.