ELIZABETH ODUWAIYE LIFESKILLS COUNSEL

One of the hardest things you can tell a human being to do is to listen. Most people hear but they don't listen. Listening is a skill. It has to be learnt. But very few people see the need to acquire this skill. Listening is a communication skill.  The listening akill is often overlooked but it is essential in relationships, learning, leadership, and everyday life.  For you to hear, you need your ears, but listening is much deeper because it requires more than ears to achieve. It involves the use of other senses like the eyes, touch and so on. This goes to show that listening is far beyond hearing.  I would say one of the best (if not the best) definition of listening is, 'the ability to correctly perceive and interpret the message transferred by the other party in the process of communication.'  Listening has to do with accuracy, assimilation and understanding. So it is different from hearing. Someone once said "Hearing is through the ears, but listening is through ...