To 2022: The Year We Listen & Learn
To 2022: The Year We Listen & Learn
While 2022 may throw a few curveballs, the beginning of the new year is still a perfect time to focus on personal growth. Putting things into motion, however, gets a little thornier because that requires change and change often puts you on the path of most resistance, which is an easy deterrent.
And so we’re taking a step back and changing our approach towards New Year resolutions and goal setting. A simpler, exploratory approach is to replace habits with skills, the words “how” with “what”.
As bestselling author and internet entrepreneur Mark Manson cleverly puts it: “Instead of thinking about what you want to achieve in the new year, ask yourself …’What skills do you want to develop this year? The beauty of focusing on skills is that it’s never done. The old cliché is that we all set goals in January and give up on them by February. But if you focus on a skill, no matter how bad you are at it, you can still work on it in February, and March, on through the year.”
Learning is a big part of innovating, and so, at Himêya, we’re focusing on the skill of listening better. There’s an ancient and well-known philosophical riddle that asks,
“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?”
We believe that listening is the missing half of communication. It is absolutely necessary, especially in the “Age of Communication,” but often overlooked.
William Ury, author, academic and negotiator, explained the key elements of active listening in his TED Talk:
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Understand: Listening is key to understanding where someone is. What drives them? How they deliver the message can frame who they are as a person.
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Connect: Listening makes us respect each other and makes it easier to connect with others. Taking the time to listen in a respectful way and empathise enables connecting with another person.
- Get To Yes: Listening to somebody else is one of the best guarantees to have them listen to us. Success amounts to a consensus on what you both want as a result of your communication, meeting and negotiation.
Try this essential practice: Buy or borrow a copy from your local library of Eric Fromm’s book The Art of Listening and carve out a few minutes each week to read a different rule aloud to yourself, a friend, partner or family member. As each person reads a passage, the other can practice deep listening. You can choose simply to listen or to discuss it afterward.
