i am a good listener essay

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

What Great Listeners Actually Do

• Jack Zenger
• Joseph Folkman

It’s about more than keeping quiet.

What makes a good listener? Most people think is comes down to three components: not interrupting the speaker, following along with facial expressions, and being able to repeat back almost verbatim what the speaker has just said. According to research from Zenger and Folkman, however, we’re doing it all wrong. Instead of thinking of a good listener as a sponge —absorbing everything but providing little feedback — a skilled listener should be thought of as a trampoline who amplifies and supports a speaker’s thoughts by providing constructive feedback. Engaging in a two-way conversation is essential, according to data, and Zenger and Folkman define six levels of listening, all meant to help listeners develop this skill.

Chances are you think you’re a good listener.  People’s appraisal of their listening ability is much like their assessment of their driving skills , in that the great bulk of adults think they’re above average.

• Jack Zenger is the CEO of Zenger/Folkman, a leadership development consultancy. He is a coauthor of the October 2011 HBR article “ Making Yourself Indispensable ” and the book The New Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders (McGraw Hill, 2019). Connect with Jack on LinkedIn .
• Joseph Folkman is the president of Zenger/Folkman, a leadership development consultancy. He is a coauthor of the October 2011 HBR article “ Making Yourself Indispensable ” and the book The Trifecta of Trust: The Proven Formula for Building and Restoring Trust (River Grove, 2022). Connect with Joe on LinkedIn .

Partner Center

Effective Listening Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Importance of listening, barriers to effective listening, strategies for effective listening, reference list.

Listening is an important element in the process of communication. Communication is basically about sending and receiving information. The most basic thing in communicating is ensuring the right message is received exactly as intended.

Both sender and receiver have to take proactive measures to ensure they send and receive the right messages. People use different media to communicate.

However, whether on the telephone or any other media, I am personally convinced that listening is necessary for any two people to understand each other.

This is a reflective paper in which I am going to share views on the importance of listening in communication, barriers to listening, and strategies of perfecting listening skills.

Many mistakes happen in individual’s lives just because they did not listen effectively. When it comes to business, getting exactly what the client, customer or supervisor is saying is very poignant. It is only through listening and getting the information right that one can respond appropriately.

Relationships are built on reciprocity in communication. A true interpersonal relationship is one in which people react and respond to each other appropriately.

Therefore, listening is important in personal communication, for success at work and in building interpersonal relationships (Battell, 2006, p. 2).

Language use could be very intriguing if one took the time to think about words and their usage. I realize that due to equivocal qualities of given words; one can say one thing and mean completely a different thing.

Unless the context of words is well understood, words can seriously affect communication. Apart from equivocal words, there are words with similar sounds, e.g., cap and cab. I had a cousin who had many fights with his dad due to mishearing the words used.

Uncle would send him for the gardener, and my cousin would come back with a kitten. The issue was not with his ears; my cousin was just hyperactive and never listened enough.

Due to not listening keenly, he would often respond wrongly, and people around him interpreted it for mischief. However, he was a simple obedient boy who just had too many things going at every one given time.

Good interpersonal relationships are built on effective listening to each other. Sometimes, a relationship can go on for years simply because one of the parties is a good listener. The moment he or she also chooses to give up on listening, such relationships end.

I once had a very close friend. We did many things together and enjoyed each other’s company. We never argued much, but on the few occasions we would disagree, she would say to me “the only problem is that you never listen.”

To this, I would retort with more angry words to the effect that I listen but cannot entertain crap in the name of listening. This friendship died years back but going through literature on listening; I have learned a lot that would have made my time with the friend even more awesome.

I realize that most arguments between us resulted from lack of effective listening on my part. My friend was somehow submissive, and I now notice that the relationship worked only as long as she was submissive and took in all my crap.

I never listened to her seriously because whenever she would raise a concern, I always had a hand-offish response ready. Therefore, we were in a friendship but, in essence, I did not relate to her. I simply never gave a chance to her perspective.

I was always the one with plans, and she only followed and supported me. This kind of arrangement fed my ego and made me feel like the controller of sorts.

Having learned from the described cases, I realize how critical listening is in families, marriages and at the workplace. Listening to each other at the workplace is crucial for several reasons. The people we meet at the workplace come from very different backgrounds.

Their way of self-expression or generally how they speak may be somehow different from what we are used to. Organizations are about customer delight to make profits.

Customer delight is built on internal synergy in the organization. Internal synergy is only achieved through good communication among employees. Successful companies know how to rally their employees into powerful teams that deliver on organizational objectives.

At the heart of any effort at rallying people is persuasion. Persuasion requires recognition of specific needs that information should address. For managers to understand employees under them, they have to learn to listen (Adair, 2009, p. 158).

Some employees may be good at technical work but very poor when it comes to self-expression; only patient listening can help such employees to tell exactly what they want or need.

Through active listening to employees, managers can create programs that optimize the usage of human resource in the organization.

Apart from internal synergy, successful organizations are those that manage to form lasting relations with customers, suppliers and other partners (Adair, 2009, p. 211). Once again, to connect with a customer, one has to identify the real need of the customer.

I once witnessed a very amusing case in a certain customer care center. I entered the care center, and one customer care agent was in a heated engagement with an enraged customer. Realizing, he was not going to find the help he needed; the customer made to leave.

But then some other customer agent motioned to the customer to go to his desk. After a few minutes, I overheard the customer saying “that is all that I wanted,” and he was smiling. I also smiled knowing too well what had happened.

In my opinion, the first customer care agent did not listen to the customer and did not identify where the problem was. If the customer had gone with the unresolved problem, most likely he would have switched product providers or badmouthed the company.

There are two major categories of barriers to effective listening, i.e., an individual’s disposition and distractions in the external environment (Brown, 2010). While writing about effective listening, I thought seriously about my interaction with friends.

I notice that some of my friends are better listeners than others. I also notice that in some instances I have been a better listener than others. Thinking about it all, I tend to think that personal insecurities are the biggest inhibitor to effective listening.

In most cases, we argue with our friends because we want to prove that our point of view is right (Brown, 2010). On their part, they also argue vehemently, because they want to prove that their point of view is right.

On close inspection, it is clear that arguments are often not about the rightness of view per se but something to do with me as a person is right.

Given an individual’s we are often too keen on being right, we focus on what we are saying to others and forget completely about what others are saying to us.

It is very interesting to be a bystander in a heated debate. In often cases, the heat is not about the rightness of views or ideas but the people themselves; they desire to appear superior or more right in themselves.

The second barrier to effective listening is distractions. In the world of today, people want to do a hundred things at the same time.

They are sharing serious issues with a friend while at the same time they are fully concentrated on a computer game or busy chatting on facebook or some other social network. Multitasking is a good skill, but it has to be managed properly.

The environment matters a lot when it comes to listening. If two people have to talk seriously, a noisy environment will bar proper communication.

There are two major barriers to effective listening i.e. a person’s disposition and distractions in the external environment; therefore, strategies employed for effective listening have to address both.

Secondly, although it is often assumed that only the receiver should listen, effective listening should be mutual between sender and receiver.

People’s attitude or disposition matters a lot when it comes to how they interact with others (Battell, 2006, p. 3). As indicated, personal insecurities and desire to win arguments often make individuals focus on what they are saying and forget what the other party is saying.

In actual sense, even before someone completes explaining what he or she is saying, the other will already be busy formulating his or her next line of attack. In arguments with friends, I have often found myself very frustrated.

And in some other cases, after a real heated argument, I find myself laughing when it is all over. Post-argument analysis often reveals that each of us had his or her position. We both tried to help each other see a point and how right it is.

Along the way, there was excruciating evidence showing that either all positions are right or one is more right than the other, but we all hold our ground because of deep-seated desire to be the right one; to win.

From the communication literature, I have read, it is clear that interpersonal interactions should not be about winning and losing. Rather, they are opportunities for mutual improvement through learning from one another.

Even in situations when one is outrightly wrong, and the other is outrightly right, the one with the right perspective should be able to learn from the wrongness of the other (Cohen, 2002, p. 96).

Communication should be about persuading others while at the same time giving them a chance to persuade you. Therefore, the right disposition should be assertiveness and humility as opposed to aggressiveness or boisterousness.

This approach to communication is well illustrated in the process of bargaining in business. There are people who approach negotiating or bargaining in business as aggressors while others approach the process as consensus seekers (Cohen, 2002, p. 84).

The two approaches merit in given situations. However, cohesive seeking negotiations or bargaining helps build more long term relationships.

A cohesive approach means that both parties state their terms and they amicably, on a win-win basis, seek the position that is mutually satisfying. Whenever any party adopts a defensive position, the chances of listening to each other become compromised.

Effective listening requires that the parties be interested in what the other is saying. When something is interesting, e.g., when an interesting soap opera is on air, we normally switch off everything else to concentrate.

Therefore, if we are truly interested in what others have to say to us, we have to switch off everything else and focus. By doing this, we are more likely to hear exactly what they have to say to us and even note how they say it. Concentration is a very important element in listening.

The purpose of listening is to get what the other means; as he or she says it. This can only be achieved through proper preparation to concentrate and listen.

Preparation to listen to starts with choosing the right place and time. This means that for every kind of communication, parties have to know the right where and when.

Choosing to tell someone something very important in a crowded place and expecting the other person to listen is counter-productive. The place has to warranty the possibility of capturing the full attention of the receiver.

The listener has also to know where there are too many distractions and either move away or choose another time when he or she can listen without interference.

When in an interaction, good listening requires that we digest the information from others. Digesting or evaluating takes time; thus one needs to refrain from quick responses or gut reactions to whatsoever others say (Wilson, 1998, p. 17).

However, as we listen and digest, it is advised that we show how alert we are; none verbally. One classic way that people use to show that they are listening is to nod their head or maintain eye contact.

The easiest way to know someone is not listening is by noting nonverbal clues, e.g., playing with things, shifting in the chair uncomfortably or not maintaining eye contact (Wilson, 1998, p. 17).

Secondly, a speaker can know when one is not listening from how fast he or she interjects or cuts others off. Interrupting what others are saying is a sure way of telling them that what they are saying is not of interest.

If it is very necessary that one has to interject, he or she has to explain why he or she is interrupting. Listening requires that once in a while we interrupt the speaker for clarification, to note something, to offer some additional information or to beg for more details (Wilson, 1998, p. 32).

One way of interjecting politely is by first illustrating that what the speaker has just said is clear. Therefore, paraphrasing helps the other to know that you are keenly following everything.

A polite question is also an acceptable way of interrupting a speaker. Great conservationists are good at asking questions. I tried this trick on my friends, and it works just fine.

When I do not have much to say to friends, I realized, the best way to having a great conversation is by asking them about issues that are of real interest.

In interpersonal interactions, individuals are always eager to get their views and arguments out; they seek to be understood. What many of us do not realize is that others can only understand us if we are also keen on understanding them.

To understand others, i.e., what they mean to say, we have to listen to them. Listening is an art that is developed with practice. The first step to listening is appreciating that what others are saying to us is of value.

Showing interest or being interested and encouraging others to say what they want to say is critical to understanding them.

From my observations, I realize that when we show interest and understanding to others, they are more likely to reciprocate by also showing interest or trying to understand what we say to them. Therefore, in whatsoever context, listening is pivotal for any meaningful interpersonal interaction.

Adair, J. (2009). Effective Communication: The Most Important Management Skill of All Sydney: Pan Macmillan.

Battell, C. (2006). Effective Listening . Chicago: ASTD Press.

Brown, J. (2010). Ten Obstacles to Empathic Communication . Center for Non-Violent Communication. Web.

Cohen, S. (2002). Negotiating Skills for Managers. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.

Wilson, D. (1998). Listening Skills. Illinois: Mark Twain Media Publishing Inc.

• Jay Lacouture' Effective Communication
• Effects of Social Networking on Privacy
• Interpersonal Communication and Improving Listening Skills
• Psychological Disposition in Sylvia Plath’s Poems
• Children's Disposition to Bullying and Influential Factors
• Communication: The Coordinated Management of Meaning
• Technical Communication: Texting and Mobile Phones
• Communication Strategies: Good Listening Skills
• Communication Strategies: the UAE Oral History
• Nonverbal Aspects and Communication Climate
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, March 31). Effective Listening. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-listening/

"Effective Listening." IvyPanda , 31 Mar. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/effective-listening/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Effective Listening'. 31 March.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Effective Listening." March 31, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-listening/.

1. IvyPanda . "Effective Listening." March 31, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-listening/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Effective Listening." March 31, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/effective-listening/.

• Login/Signup
• Gift a Subscription
• Best Sellers
• Cards & Games
• For Children
• Book Socials
• Therapy Retreats
• Career Counselling
• Couples Therapy
• Group Therapy
• All Therapy Services
• What We Offer
• Our Clients
• Brand Partnerships
• Hear From Us
• View All Themes
• Self-Knowledge
• Relationships

Sociability

Page views 90115

Sociability  • Communication

How to Be a Good Listener

Being a good listener is one of the most important and enchanting life-skills anyone can have. Yet, few of us know how to do it, not because we are evil, but because no one has taught us how and – a related point – few have listened sufficiently well to us. So we come to social life greedy to speak rather than listen, hungry to meet others, but reluctant to hear them. Friendship degenerates into a socialised egoism.

Like most things, the answer lies in education. Our civilisation is full of great books on how to speak – Cicero’s Orator and Aristotle’s Rhetoric were two of the greatest in the ancient world – but sadly no one has ever written a book called ‘The Listener’. There are a range of things that the good listener is doing that makes it so nice to spend time in their company.   

Without necessarily quite realising it, we’re often propelled into conversation by something that feels both urgent and somehow undefined. We’re bothered at work, we’re toying with more ambitious career moves, we’re not sure if so and so is right for us; a relationship is in difficulties; we’re fretting about something or feeling a bit low about life in general (without being able to put a finger on exactly what’s wrong); or perhaps we’re very excited and enthusiastic about something – though the reasons for our passion are tricky to pin down.

At heart, all these are issues in search of elucidation. The good listener knows that we’d ideally move – via conversation with another person – from a confused agitated state of mind to one that was more focused and (hopefully) more serene. Together with them we’d work out what us really at stake. But, in reality, this tends not to happen because there isn’t enough of an awareness of the desire and need for clarification within conversation. There aren’t enough good listeners. So people tend to assert rather than analyse. They restate in many different ways the fact that they are worried, excited, sad or hopeful, and their interlocutor listens but doesn’t assist them to discover more.

Good listeners fight against this with a range of conversational gambits. They hover as the other speaks: they offer encouraging little remarks of support, they make gentle positive gestures: a sigh of sympathy, a nod of encouragement, a strategic ‘hmm’ of interest. All the time they are egging the other to go deeper into issues. They love saying: ‘tell me more about …’; ‘I was fascinated when you said ..’; ‘why did that happen, do you think?’ or ‘how did you feel about that?’

The good listener takes it for granted that they will encounter vagueness in the conversation of others. But they don’t condemn, rush or get impatient, because they see vagueness as a universal and highly significant trouble of the mind that it is the task of a true friend to help with. The good listener never forgets how hard – and how important – it is to know our own minds. Often, we’re in the vicinity of something, but we can’t quite close in on what’s really bothering or exciting us. The good listener knows we hugely benefit from encouragement to elaborate, to go into greater detail, to push a little further. We need someone who, rather than launch forth, will simply say two magic rare words: Go on…

You mention a sibling and they want to know a bit more. What was the relationship like in childhood, how has it changed over time. They’re curious where our concerns and excitements come from. They ask thing like: why did that particularly bother you? Why was that such a big thing for you? They keep our histories in mind, they might refer back to something we said before and we feel they’re building up a deeper base of engagement.

It’s fatally easy to say vague things: we simply mention that something is lovely or terrible, nice or annoying. But we don’t really explore why we feel this way. The good listener has a productive, friendly suspicion of some of our own first statements and is after the deeper attitudes that are lurking in the background. They take things we say like ‘I’m fed up with my job’ or ‘My partner and I are having a lot of rows…’ and help us to concentrate on what it really is about the job we don’t like or what the rows might deep down be about.

They’re bringing to listening an ambition to clear up underlying issues. They don’t just see conversation as the swapping of anecdotes. They are reconnecting the chat you’re having over pizza with the philosophical ambitions of Socrates, whose dialogues are records of his attempts to help his fellow Athenians understand and examine their own underlying ideas and values.

A key move of the good listener is not always to follow every byway or sub-plot that the speaker introduces, for they may be getting lost and further from their own point than they would themselves wish. The good listener is helpfully suspicious, knowing that their purpose is to focus the fundamental themes of the speaker, rather than veering off with them into every side road. They are always looking to take the speaker back to their last reasonable point – saying, ‘Yes, yes, but you were saying just a moment ago..’. Or, ‘So ultimately, what do you think it was about…’ The good listener (paradoxically) is a skilled interrupter. But they don’t (as most people do) interrupt to intrude their own ideas; they interrupt to help the other get back to their original more sincere, yet elusive concerns.

The good listener doesn’t moralise. They know their own minds well enough not to be surprised or frightened by strangeness. They know how insane we all are. That’s why others can feel comfortable being heard by them. They give the impression they recognise and accept our follies; they don’t flinch when we mention a particular desire. They reassure us they’re not going to shred our dignity. A big worry in a competitive world is that we feel we can’t afford to be honest about how distressed or obsessed we are. Saying one feels like a failure or a pervert could mean being dropped. The good listener signals early and clearly that they don’t see us in these terms. Our vulnerability is something they warm to rather than are appalled by. It is only too easy to end up experiencing ourselves as strangely cursed and exceptionally deviant or uniquely incapable. But the good listener makes their own strategic confessions, so as to set the record straight about the meaning of being a normal (that is very muddled and radically imperfect) human being. They confess not so much to unburden themselves as to help others accept their own nature and see that being a bad parent, a poor lover, a confused worker are not malignant acts of wickedness, but ordinary features of being alive that others have unfairly edited out of their public profiles.

When we’re in the company of people who listen well, we experience a very powerful pleasure, but too often, we don’t really realise what it is about what this person is doing that is so nice. By paying strategic attention to our feelings of satisfaction, we can learn to magnify them and offer them to others, who will notice, heal – and repay the favour in turn. Listening deserves discovery as one of the keys to a good society.

Full Article Index

• 01. Ostracism Anxiety
• 02. The Need For A Modern Monastery
• 03. Why the world can seem so frightening - and how to make it feel less so
• 04. Four Ways of Coping With Anxiety
• 05. Might You Be Hypervigilant? A Sombre Questionnaire
• 06. A Question to Ask Ourselves When We're Feeling Low and Paranoid
• 07. The Importance of Not Knowing
• 08. Why We May Be Addicted to Crises
• 09. The Causes of Obsessive Thinking
• 10. What Our Bodies are Trying to Tell Us
• 11. Anxiety-as-Denial
• 12. Our Anxious Ancestry
• 13. Auditing Our Worries
• 14. Why We May Need a Convalescence
• 15. Don't Hope for the Best; Expect the Worst
• 16. The Age of Agitation
• 17. How to Sleep Better
• 18. How and Why We Catastrophise
• 19. On Being 'Triggered'
• 20. OCD — and How to Overcome It
• 21. How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
• 22. Signs You Might Be Suffering from Complex PTSD
• 23. On Skin Picking
• 24. Stoicism and Tigers Who Come to Tea
• 25. The Seven Most Calming Works of Art in the World
• 26. After the Storm
• 27. Thoughts for the Storm
• 28. Emotional Maturity in a Crisis
• 29. Preparing for Disaster
• 30. How to Stop Being Scared All the Time
• 31. The Ultimate Dark Source of Security
• 32. What Everybody Really Wants
• 33. Simplicity & Anxiety
• 34. A Way Through Panic Attacks
• 35. Self-Hatred & Anxiety
• 36. The Question We Should Ask Ourselves When Anxious
• 37. On Anxiety
• 38. The True Cause of Dread and Anxiety
• 39. On Being Scared All the Time
• 40. The Importance of Having A Breakdown
• 41. On Asking for Help
• 42. The Normality of Anxiety Attacks
• 43. On Panic Attacks
• 01. Might I Be Feeling Lonely Rather Than Worried?
• 02. A Place for Despair
• 03. On Being Gaslit In Our Childhoods
• 04. How to Make It Through
• 05. When Our Battery is Running Low
• 06. The Many Moods We Pass Through
• 07. When I Am Called to Die
• 08. If You Stopped Running, What Would You Need to Feel?
• 09. Can We Live With the Truth?
• 10. Five Questions to Ask Yourself Every Evening
• 11. Why Things May Need to Get Worse Before They Can Get Better
• 12. The Limits of the Conscious Mind
• 13. Why Life is Always Difficult
• 14. What is a Transcendental Experience?
• 15. Building the Cathedral
• 16. Rewriting Our Inner Scripts
• 17. What Sleeping Babies Can Teach Us
• 18. How to Endure
• 19. Everything Is So Weird
• 20. Escaping Into History
• 21. The Inevitability of Choice
• 22. What Would Jesus Do?
• 23. Stop Worrying About Your Reputation
• 24. You Still Have Time
• 25. I Will Survive!
• 26. On Trying to Control the Future
• 27. A Few Things Still to Be Grateful For
• 28. No One Knows
• 29. There is No Happily Ever After
• 30. The Catastrophe You Fear Will Happen has Already Happened
• 31. There is Always a Plan B
• 32. The Consolations of History
• 33. The Lessons of Nature
• 34. What Others Think of You - and The Fall of Icarus
• 35. On the Sublime
• 36. Gratitude for the Small Things
• 37. Why ‘Earthrise’ Matters
• 38. On Flowers
• 39. The Valuable Idea Behind the Concept of the Day of Judgement
• 40. The Wisdom of Animals
• 41. The Lottery of Life
• 42. Untranslatable Words
• 43. The Wisdom of Rocks: Gongshi
• 44. Wu Wei – Doing Nothing 無爲
• 45. The Faulty Walnut
• 46. Perspectives on Insomnia
• 47. On the Wisdom of Space
• 48. Memento Mori
• 49. On the Wisdom of Cows
• 50. On Calming Places
• 51. Why Small Pleasures Are a Big Deal
• 52. The Consolations of a Bath
• 53. The Importance of Staring out the Window
• 54. Clouds, Trees, Streams
• 55. On Sunshine
• 01. The Ecstatic Joy We Deny Ourselves
• 02. Why Illusions Are Necessary to Achieve Anything
• 03. Preparing for a Decent Night of Sleep
• 04. Returning Anger to Where It Belongs
• 05. Controlling Insomnia – and Life – Through Pessimism
• 06. How to Be Cool the Yoruba Way
• 07. Why We Should Refuse to Get into Arguments
• 08. The Perils of Making Predictions
• 09. Making Peace with Life's Mystery
• 10. The Promise of an Unblemished Life
• 11. Daring to Be Simple
• 12. Haikus and Appreciation
• 13. The Call of Calm
• 14. What Would Paradise Look Like?
• 15. How to Process Your Emotions
• 16. The Wisdom of Dusk
• 17. The Appeal of Austere Places
• 18. How to Go to Bed Earlier
• 19. Why We All Need Quiet Days
• 20. The Benefits of Provincial Life
• 21. How to Live in a Hut
• 22. For Those Who (Privately) Aspire to Become More Reclusive
• 23. The Hard Work of Being 'Lazy'
• 24. Expectations - and the 80/20 Rule
• 25. Taking It One Day at a Time
• 26. Spirituality for People who Hate Spirituality
• 27. How to Spill A Drink Down One’s Front - and Survive
• 28. How To Stop Worrying Whether or Not They Like You
• 29. On Soothing
• 30. What Is Wrong with Modern Times - and How to Regain Wisdom
• 31. The Disaster of Anthropocentrism - and the Promise of the Transcendent
• 32. On Needing to Find Something to Worry About — Why We Always Worry for No Reason
• 33. How We Are Easily, Too Easily, 'Triggered'
• 34. Hypervigilance
• 35. If The Worst Came to the Worst...
• 36. The Wonders of an Ordinary Life
• 37. In Praise of the Quiet Life
• 38. The Pursuit of Calm
• 39. Insomnia and Philosophy
• 01. African Proverbs to Live By
• 02. Why We Are Haunted by Ghosts of the Past
• 03. How to Be Cool the Yoruba Way
• 01. What Goes With What
• 02. Eight Rules to Create Nicer Cities
• 03. The Secret Toll of Our Ugly World
• 04. Henri Rousseau
• 05. Albrecht Dürer and his Pillows
• 06. On the Consolations of Home | Georg Friedrich Kersting
• 07. Francisco Goya's Masterpiece
• 08. How Industry Restores Our Faith in Humanity
• 09. Rembrandt as a Guide to Kindness
• 10. Buildings That Give Hope - and Buildings That Condemn Us
• 11. Katsushika Hokusai
• 12. Agnes Martin
• 13. The Importance of Architecture
• 14. The Secret of Beauty: Order and Complexity
• 15. Le Corbusier
• 16. Two World Views: Romantic and Classical
• 17. Oscar Niemeyer
• 18. Against Obscurity
• 19. Why Do Scandinavians Have Such Impeccable Taste in Interior Design?
• 20. Art for Art's Sake
• 21. Why We Need to Create a Home
• 22. Why You Should Never Say: ‘Beauty Lies in the Eye of the Beholder’
• 23. Andrea Palladio
• 24. Why Design Matters
• 25. On Good and Bad Taste
• 26. On How to Make an Attractive City
• 27. Art as Therapy
• 28. On Ugliness and the Housing Crisis
• 29. Johannes Vermeer
• 30. Caspar David Friedrich
• 31. Henri Matisse
• 32. Edward Hopper
• 33. Louis Kahn
• 34. Coco Chanel
• 35. Jane Jacobs
• 36. Cy Twombly
• 37. Andy Warhol
• 38. Dieter Rams
• 39. A Therapeutic Approach to Art
• 40. Christo and Jeanne-Claude 
• 41. On the Importance of Drawing
• 42. On Art as a Reminder
• 43. On the Price of Art Works
• 44. Secular Chapels
• 45. Relativism and Urban Planning
• 46. What Art Museums Should Be For
• 47. On Fakes and Originals
• 48. The Museum Gift Shop
• 01. What We Might Learn From The Dandies of The Congo
• 02. The Beauty of Komorebi
• 03. The Past Was Not in Black and White
• 04. The Drawer of Odd Things
• 05. Why Middle-Aged Men Think So Often About the Roman Empire
• 06. The Consolations of Catastrophe
• 07. What is the Point of History?
• 08. What Rothko's Art Teaches Us About Suffering
• 09. The Value of Reading Things We Disagree with
• 10. Easter for Atheists
• 11. The Life House
• 12. Why Philosophy Should Become More Like Pop Music
• 13. Why Stoicism Continues to Matter
• 14. The School of Life: What We Believe
• 15. Cultural Mining
• 16. Lego – the Movies
• 17. Philosophy – the Movies
• 18. History of Ideas – the Movies
• 19. Sociology – the Movies
• 20. Political Theory – the Movies
• 21. Psychotherapy – the Movies
• 22. Greek Philosophy – the Movies
• 23. Eastern Philosophy – the Movies
• 24. Art – the Movies
• 25. On Aphorisms
• 26. What Comes After Religion?
• 27. The Serious Business of Clothes
• 28. What Is the Point of the Humanities?
• 29. Why Music Works
• 30. The Importance of Music
• 31. The Importance of Books
• 32. What Is Comedy For?
• 33. What Is Philosophy For?
• 34. What Is Art For?
• 35. What Is History For?
• 36. What Is Psychotherapy For?
• 37. What Is Literature For?
• 38. The Joys of Sport
• 01. Following in the Buddha's Footsteps
• 02. Six Persimmons
• 03. The Four Hindu Stages of Life
• 04. Rice or Wheat? The Difference Between Eastern and Western Cultures
• 05. Eastern vs Western Views of Happiness
• 06. Four Great Ideas from Hinduism
• 07. Zen Buddhism and Fireflies
• 08. Six Ideas from Eastern Philosophy
• 09. Wu Wei – Doing Nothing 無爲
• 10. Kintsugi 金継ぎ
• 12. Lao Tzu
• 13. Confucius
• 14. Sen no Rikyū
• 15. Matsuo Basho
• 16. Mono No Aware
• 17. Guan Yin
• 18. Gongshi
• 20. Kintsugi
• 22. Why so Many Love the Philosophy of the East - and so Few That of the West
• 01. It Isn't About the Length of a Life...
• 02. On Luxury and Sadness
• 03. On Not Being Able To Cook Very Well
• 04. Food as Therapy
• 05. What We Really Like to Eat When No One is Looking
• 06. What Meal Might Suit My Mood? Questionnaire
• 01. Charles Dickens's Secret
• 02. Giuseppe di Lampedusa — The Leopard
• 03. Sei Shōnagon — The Pillow Book
• 04. Kakuzo Okakura — The Book of Tea
• 05. Victor Hugo and the Art of Contempt
• 06. Edward Gibbon — The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• 07. How to Read Fewer Books
• 08. The Downfall of Oscar Wilde
• 09. What Voltaire Meant by 'One Must Cultivate One's Own Garden'
• 10. James Baldwin
• 11. Camus and The Plague
• 12. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• 13. Charles Dickens  
• 14. Gustave Flaubert
• 15. Fyodor Dostoevsky
• 16. Marcel Proust
• 17. Books as Therapy
• 18. Jane Austen
• 19. Leo Tolstoy
• 20. Virginia Woolf
• 21. James Joyce
• 01. Machiavelli's Advice for Nice Guys
• 02. Niccolò Machiavelli
• 03. Thomas Hobbes
• 04. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• 05. Adam Smith
• 06. Karl Marx
• 07. John Ruskin
• 08. Henry David Thoreau
• 09. Thoreau and Civil Disobedience
• 10. Matthew Arnold
• 11. William Morris
• 12. Friedrich Hayek
• 13. John Rawls
• 01. What Should A Good Therapist Do For Us?
• 02. The Usefulness Of Speaking Your Feelings To An Empty Chair
• 03. What's the Bit of Therapy That Heals You?
• 04. Why We Need Therapy When We Give Up on Religion
• 05. How Psychotherapy Might Truly Help Us
• 06. Why You Should Take a Sentence Completion Test
• 07. Carl Jung's Word Association Test
• 08. Freud's Porcupine
• 09. How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
• 10. How the Modern World Makes Us Mentally Ill
• 11. Twenty Key Concepts from Psychotherapy
• 12. Why Psychotherapy Works
• 13. The True and the False Self
• 14. What Happens in Psychotherapy? Four Case Studies
• 15. The Problem of Psychological Asymmetry
• 16. Freud on Sublimation
• 17. Sigmund Freud
• 18. Anna Freud
• 19. Melanie Klein
• 20. Donald Winnicott
• 21. John Bowlby 
• 22. A Short Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
• 23. Jacques Lacan
• 01. You Are Living in the Greatest Museum in the World
• 02. When Something is Beautiful...
• 03. Albrecht Dürer and his Pillows
• 04. How Giraffes Can Teach Us to Wonder
• 05. Sun Worship
• 06. The Importance of Dancing Like an Idiot
• 07. Walking in the Woods
• 08. Getting More Serious about Pleasure
• 09. On Going to the Zoo
• 10. The Fish Shop
• 11. On Small Islands
• 12. On Stars
• 13. On Grandmothers
• 14. Up at Dawn
• 15. On Crimes in the Newspapers
• 16. Driving on the Motorway at Night
• 17. On Sunday Mornings
• 18. A Favourite Old Jumper
• 19. Holding Hands with a Small Child
• 20. Feeling at Home in the Sea
• 21. The Book That Understands You
• 22. Old Photos of One’s Parents
• 23. Whispering in Bed in the Dark
• 24. On Feeling That Someone Else is So Wrong
• 25. The First Day of Feeling Well Again
• 01. St. Benedict 
• 02. Alexis de Tocqueville 
• 03. Auguste Comte
• 04. Max Weber
• 05. Emile Durkheim
• 06. Margaret Mead
• 07. Theodor Adorno
• 08. Rachel Carson
• 01. Three Essays on Flight
• 02. The Wisdom of Islamic Gardens
• 03. A World Without Air Travel
• 04. Walking in the Woods
• 05. Why We Argue in Paradise
• 06. The Advantages of Staying at Home
• 07. The Wisdom of Nature
• 08. The Holidays When You're Feeling Mentally Unwell
• 09. The Shortest Journey: On Going for a Walk around the Block
• 10. How to Spend a Few Days in Paris
• 11. Why Germans Can Say Things No One Else Can
• 12. Travel as Therapy - an Introduction
• 13. Lunch, 30,000 Feet – for Comfort
• 14. The Western Desert, Australia – for Humility
• 15. Glenpark Road, Birmingham - for Boredom
• 16. Comuna 13, San Javier, Medellin, Colombia - for Dissatisfaction
• 17. Pumping Station, Isla Mayor, Seville - for Snobbery
• 18. Eastown Theatre, Detroit - for Perspective
• 19. Capri Hotel, Changi Airport, Singapore - for Thinking
• 20. Cafe de Zaak, Utrecht - for Sex Education
• 21. Corner shop, Kanagawaken, Yokohama - for Shyness
• 22. Monument Valley, USA - for Calm
• 23. Heathrow Airport, London – for Awe
• 24. Pefkos Beach, Rhodes - for Anxiety
• 01. On Flying Too Close to the Sun - And Not Flying Close Enough
• 02. Kierkegaard on Love
• 03. Aristotle
• 04. Baruch Spinoza
• 05. Arthur Schopenhauer
• 06. Blaise Pascal
• 07. Six Ideas from Western Philosophy
• 08. Introduction to The Curriculum
• 10. The Stoics
• 11. Epicurus
• 12. Augustine
• 13. Boethius and The Consolation of Philosophy
• 14. Thomas Aquinas
• 15. Michel de Montaigne
• 16. La Rochefoucauld
• 17. Voltaire
• 18. David Hume
• 19. Immanuel Kant
• 21. Hegel Knew There Would Be Days Like These
• 22. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 23. Nietzsche
• 24. Nietzsche, Regret and Amor Fati
• 25. Nietzsche and Envy
• 26. Martin Heidegger
• 27. Ludwig Wittgenstein
• 28. Jean-Paul Sartre
• 29. Albert Camus
• 30. Michel Foucault
• 31. Jacques Derrida
• 32. E. M. Cioran
• 01. What to Say in Response to an Affair
• 02. How To Handle the Desire for Affairs?
• 03. What Does It Take To Be Good at Affairs?
• 04. What Ideally Happens When An Affair is Discovered?
• 05. When Does An Affair Begin?  
• 06. A Brief History of Affairs
• 07. How to Reduce the Risk of Affairs
• 08. The Role of Sex in Affairs
• 09. How To Spot A Couple That Might Be Headed For An Affair
• 10. How Can An Affair Help A Marriage?
• 11. The Pleasures of Affairs
• 12. The Pains of Affairs
• 13. The Meaning of Infidelity
• 14. Loyalty and Adultery
• 15. Why People Have Affairs: Distance and Closeness
• 01. Those Who Cannot Feel Love Until It Is Over
• 02. The Heroism of Leaving a Relationship
• 03. Exquisite Agony in Love
• 04. Why It Should Not Have to Last Forever...
• 05. When Does a Divorce Begin?
• 06. Rethinking Divorce
• 07. Three Questions to Help You Decide Whether to Stay in or Leave a Relationship
• 08. Stop Repeating the Same Mistakes
• 09. There's Nothing Wrong with Being on Your Own
• 10. The Wrong Idea of a Baddie
• 11. Finding Closure After a Breakup
• 12. Should Sex Ever Be a Reason to Break Up?
• 13. When a Relationship Fails, Who Rejected Whom?
• 14. The Fear of Not Being Able to Cope Practically Without a Partner
• 15. The Fear of Ending a Relationship
• 16. What About the Children When Divorce is on the Cards?
• 17. What If I Just Repeat the Same Mistakes Next Time?
• 18. Are My Expectations Too High?
• 19. Overcoming Nostalgia for a Past Relationship
• 20. The Feeling of Being Back in Love with the Person You're About to Leave
• 21. The Capacity to Give up on People
• 22. For Those Stuck in a Relationship
• 23. 10 Ideas for People Afraid to Exit a Relationship
• 24. People Who Want to Own Us - but Not Nourish Us
• 25. The Hardest Person in the World to Break up With
• 26. A Non-Tragic View of Breaking Up
• 27. A Guide to Breaking Up
• 28. How to Reject Someone Kindly
• 29. When Someone We Love Has Died
• 30. Why Did They Leave Us?
• 31. How to Break Up
• 32. How We Can Have Our Hearts Broken Even Though No One Has Left Us
• 33. The Psychology of Our Exes
• 34. 'Unfair Dismissal' in Love
• 35. How Not to Be Tortured By a Love Rival
• 36. Coping with Betrayal
• 37. Can Exes be Friends?
• 38. How to Get Over Someone
• 39. Why True Love Doesn’t Have to Last Forever
• 40. How to Get Over a Rejection
• 41. How to End a Relationship
• 42. Stay or Leave?
• 43. How to Get Divorced
• 44. On Forgetting Lovers
• 45. How Not to Break Up with Someone
• 01. People Not to Fall in Love With
• 02. Picking Partners Who Won't Understand Us
• 03. How Do Emotionally Healthy People Behave In Relationships? 
• 04. The Avoidant Partner With The Power To Drive You Mad
• 05. On Picking a Socially Unsuitable Partner
• 06. How to Sustain Love: A Tool
• 07. Questions To Ask About Someone We Are Thinking Of Committing To
• 08. Our Two Great Fears in Love
• 09. The Pains of Preoccupied Attachment
• 10. Are You Afraid of Intimacy?
• 11. Why You Will Never Quite Get it Right in Love
• 12. Understanding Attachment Theory
• 13. Why We 'Split' Our Partners
• 14. Why We Love People Who Don't Love Us Back
• 15. Should I Be With Them?
• 16. The Seven Rules of Successful Relationships
• 17. Why We Must Explain Our Own Needs
• 18. How Good Are You at Communication in Love? Questionnaire
• 19. Why Some Couples Last — and Some Don't
• 20. The Difference Between Fragile and Strong Couples
• 21. What Relationships Should Really Be About
• 22. The Real Reason Why Couples Break Up
• 23. 6 Reasons We Choose Badly in Love
• 24. Can People Change?
• 25. Konrad Lorenz & Why You Choose the Partners You Choose
• 26. The Stranger You Live With
• 27. The Attachment Style Questionnaire
• 28. Why Anxious and Avoidant Partners Find It Hard to Leave One Another
• 29. The Challenges of Anxious-Avoidant Relationships — Can Couples With Different Attachment Styles Work?
• 30. On Rescue Fantasies
• 31. How to Cope with an Avoidant Partner
• 32. What Is Your Attachment Style?
• 33. 'I Will Never Find the Right Partner'
• 34. Too Close or Too Distant: How We Stand in Relationships
• 35. How Are You Difficult to Live with?
• 36. Why We're Compelled to Love Difficult People
• 37. Why Your Lover is Very Damaged - and Annoying
• 38. Why Tiny Things about Our Partners Drive Us Mad
• 39. How to Love Ugly People
• 40. Why Polyamory Probably Won’t Work for You
• 41. Why We Go Cold on Our Partners
• 42. An Instruction Manual to Oneself
• 43. The Terrors of Being Loved
• 44. The Partner as Child Theory
• 45. On the Fear of Intimacy
• 46. Meet the Parents
• 47. On Finding the 'Right' Person
• 48. If You Loved Me, You Wouldn't Want to Change Me
• 49. The Problems of Closeness
• 01. How to Break Logjams in a Relationship
• 02. The Miseries of Push-Pull Relationships 
• 03. A Way To Break Logjams In A Couple
• 04. When Your Partner Loves You – but Does Their Best to Drive You Away...
• 05. A Rule to Help Your Relationship
• 06. Secret Grudges We May Have Against the Other Gender
• 07. The Demand for Perfection in Love
• 08. On Being Upset Without Knowing It
• 09. Who is Afraid of Intimacy?
• 10. Why Good Manners Matter in Relationships
• 11. A Role for Lies
• 12. The Secret Lives of Other Couples
• 13. On Saying 'I Hate You' to Someone You Love
• 14. When Love Isn't Easy
• 15. Two Questions to Repair a Relationship
• 16. Three Steps to Resolving Conflicts in Relationships
• 17. Stop Avoiding Conflict
• 18. An Alternative to Passive Aggression
• 19. Why We Must Soften What We Say to Our Partners
• 20. How to Be Less Defensive in Love
• 21. On Gaslighting
• 22. Why We Play Games in Love
• 23. On 'Rupture' and 'Repair'
• 24. Why it's OK to Want a Partner to Change
• 25. On Arguing More Nakedly
• 26. Do You Still Love Me?
• 27. Why We Need to Feel Heard
• 28. Five Questions to Ask of Bad Behaviour
• 29. The Art of Complaining
• 30. The Challenges of Communication
• 31. How To Have Fewer Bitter Arguments in Love
• 32. The Arguments We Have From Guilt
• 33. Attention-Seeking Arguments
• 34. When Our Partners Are Being Excessively Logical
• 35. When We Tell Our Partners That We Are Normal and They Are Strange
• 36. When Your Partner Tries to Stop You Growing
• 37. When Your Partner Starts Crying Hysterically During an Argument
• 38. Why We Sometimes Set Out to Shatter Our Lover's Good Mood
• 39. Why People Get Defensive in Relationships
• 40. A History of Arguments
• 41. The Fights When There Is No Sex
• 42. What We Might Learn in Couples Therapy
• 43. On the Tendency to Love and Hate Excessively
• 44. An Alternative to Being Controlling
• 45. Why We Should Not Silently Suffer From A Lack of Touch in Love
• 46. Why Anger Has a Place in Love
• 47. The Importance of Relationship Counselling
• 48. How to Argue in Relationships
• 49. Why We (Sometimes) Hope the People We Love Might Die
• 50. Be the Change You Want To See
• 51. I Wish I Was Still Single
• 52. Love and Sulking
• 53. On Being Unintentionally Hurt
• 54. The Secret Problems of Other Couples
• 55. On the Dangers of Being Too Defensive
• 56. On How to Defuse an Argument
• 57. How to Save Love with Pessimism
• 58. How 'Transference' Makes You Hard to Live With
• 59. Why You Resent Your Partner
• 60. Why It Is Always Your Partner's Fault
• 61. If It Wasn't for You...
• 62. Why You Are So Annoyed By What You Once Admired
• 63. Why You’re (Probably) Not a Great Communicator
• 01. The Need for Honesty on Early Dates
• 02. Why Dating Apps Won't Help You Find Love
• 03. Being Honest on a Date
• 04. Why Haven't They Called - and the Rorschach Test
• 05. Dating When You've Had a Bad Childhood
• 06. Varieties of Madness Commonly Met with On Dates
• 07. How to Seduce with Confidence
• 08. A Brief History of Dating
• 09. How to Prove Attractive to Someone on a Date
• 10. Existentialism and Dating
• 11. What to Talk About on a Date
• 12. What to Eat and Drink on a Date
• 13. How to Seduce Someone on a Date
• 14. How Not to Think on a Date
• 01. Getting Better at Picking Lovers
• 02. How We May Be Creating The Lovers We Fear
• 03. What If the People We Could Love Are Here Already; We Just Can't See Them?
• 04. The Lengths We Go to Avoid Love
• 05. Our Secret Wish Never to Find Love
• 06. Why We All End up Marrying Our Parents
• 07. True Love Begins With Self-Love
• 08. The Importance of Being Single
• 09. Why We Keep Choosing Bad Partners
• 10. Celebrity Crushes
• 11. Romantic Masochism
• 12. What Do You Love Me For?
• 13. If Love Never Came
• 14. On the Madness and Charm of Crushes
• 15. Why Only the Happy Single Find True Love
• 16. Should We Play It Cool When We Like Someone?
• 17. In Praise of Unrequited Love
• 18. Two Reasons Why You Might Still Be Single
• 19. How We Choose a Partner
• 20. Why Flirting Matters
• 21. Why, Once You Understand Love, You Could Love Anyone
• 22. Mate Selection
• 23. Reasons to Remain Single
• 24. How to Enjoy a New Relationship
• 01. Alternatives to Romantic Monogamy
• 02. Twenty Ideas on Marriage
• 03. For Moments of Marital Crisis
• 04. What to Do on Your Wedding Night
• 05. Who Should You Invite to Your Wedding?
• 06. Pragmatic Reasons for Getting Married
• 07. The Standard Marriage and Its Seven Alternatives
• 08. Utopian Marriage
• 09. When Is One Ready to Get Married?
• 10. On the Continuing Relevance of Marriage
• 11. On Marrying the Wrong Person — 9 Reasons We Will Regret Getting Married
• 01. What Are We Lying To Our Lovers About? 
• 02. Those Who Have to Wait for a War to Say ‘I Love You’
• 03. What Celebrity Stalkers Can Teach Us About Love
• 04. The Achievement of Missing Someone
• 05. How Love Can Teach Us Who We Are
• 06. Beyond the Need for Melodrama in Love
• 07. True Love is Boring
• 08. How to Make Love Last Forever
• 09. How to Be Vulnerable
• 10. Why You Can't Read Your Partner's Mind
• 11. What Teddy Bears Teach Us About Love
• 12. What Role Do You Play in Your Relationship?
• 13. Why We Should Be 'Babyish' in Love
• 14. The Maturity of Regression
• 15. The Benefits of Insecurity in Love
• 16. Taking the Pressure off Love
• 17. A Pledge for Lovers
• 18. A Projection Exercise for Couples
• 19. A New Ritual: The Morning and Evening Kiss
• 20. Can Our Phones Solve Our Love Lives?
• 21. If We're All Bad at Love, Shouldn't We Change Our Definition of Normality?
• 22. Other People's Relationships
• 23. How to Cope with an Avoidant Partner
• 24. The Pleasure of Reading Together in Bed
• 25. 22 Questions to Reignite Love
• 26. The Wisdom of Romantic Compromise
• 27. How to Complain
• 28. How We Need to Keep Growing Up
• 29. Teaching and Love
• 30. Love and Self-Love
• 31. Humour in Love
• 32. The Advantages of Long-Distance Love
• 33. In Praise of Hugs
• 34. Why Affectionate Teasing is Kind and Necessary
• 35. The Couple Courtroom Game
• 36. Getting over a Row
• 37. Keeping Secrets in Relationships
• 38. A Lover's Guide to Sulking
• 39. Artificial Conversations
• 40. On the Role of Stories in Love
• 41. On the Hardest Job in the World
• 42. On the Beloved's Wrist
• 01. How Even Very ‘Nice’ Parents Can Mess Up Their Children
• 02. The Parents We Would Love To Have Had: An Exercise
• 03. Fatherless Boys
• 04. How to Raise a Successful Person
• 05. The Problems of Miniature Adults
• 06. Mothers and Daughters
• 07. The Importance of Swords and Guns for Children
• 08. When Parents Won't Let Their Children Grow Up
• 09. The Fragile Parent
• 10. Parenting and People-Pleasing
• 11. Three Kinds of Parental Love
• 12. A Portrait of Tenderness
• 13. What Makes a Good Parent? A Checklist
• 14. On the Curiosity of Children
• 15. How to Lend a Child Confidence
• 16. The Importance of Play
• 17. Why Children Need an Emotional Education
• 18. Coping with One's Parents
• 19. Are Children for Me?
• 20. How Parents Might Let Their Children Know of Their Issues
• 21. How We Crave to Be Soothed
• 22. Escaping the Shadow of a Parent
• 23. On Being Angry with a Parent
• 24. What You Might Want to Tell Your Child About Homework
• 25. On Apologising to Your Child
• 26. Teaching Children about Relationships
• 27. How Should a Parent Love their Child?
• 28. When people pleasers become parents - and need to say 'no'
• 29. On the Sweetness of Children
• 30. Listening to Children
• 31. Whether or not to have Children
• 32. The Children of Snobs
• 33. Why Good Parents Have Naughty Children
• 34. The Joys and Sorrows of Parenting
• 35. The Significance of Parenthood
• 36. Why Family Matters
• 37. Parenting and Working
• 38. On Children's Art
• 39. What Babies Can Teach Us
• 40. Why – When It Comes to Children – Love May Not Be Enough
• 01. What We Really, Really Want in Love
• 02. Falling in Love with a Stranger
• 03. Why We Need 'Ubuntu'
• 04. The Buddhist View of Love
• 05. What True Love Looks Like
• 06. How the Wrong Images of Love Can Ruin Our Lives
• 07. Kierkegaard on Love
• 08. Why Do I Feel So Lonely?
• 09. Pygmalion and your Love life
• 10. How to Love
• 11. What is Love?
• 12. On Romanticism
• 13. A Short History of Love
• 14. The Definition of Love
• 15. Why We Need the Ancient Greek Vocabulary of Love
• 16. The Cure for Love
• 17. Why We Need to Speak of Love in Public
• 18. How Romanticism Ruined Love
• 19. Our Most Romantic Moments
• 20. Loving and Being Loved
• 21. Romantic Realism
• 22. On Being Romantic or Classical
• 01. The Difficulties of Impotence
• 02. What is Sexual Perversion?
• 03. Our Unconscious Fear of Successful Sex
• 04. The Logic of Our Fantasies
• 05. Rethinking Gender
• 06. The Ongoing Complexities of Our Intimate Lives
• 07. On Post-Coital Melancholy
• 08. Desire and Intimacy
• 09. What Makes a Person Attractive?
• 10. How to Talk About Your Sexual Fantasy
• 11. The Problem of Sexual Shame
• 12. Who Initiates Sex: and Why It Matters So Much
• 13. On Still Being a Virgin
• 14. Love and Sex
• 15. Impotence and Respect
• 16. Sexual Non-Liberation
• 17. The Excitement of Kissing
• 18. The Appeal of Outdoor Sex
• 19. The Sexual Fantasies of Others
• 20. On Art and Masturbation
• 21. The Psychology of Cross-Dressing
• 22. The Fear of Being Bad in Bed
• 23. The Sex-Starved Relationship
• 24. How to Start Having Sex Again
• 25. Sexual Liberation
• 26. The Poignancy of Old Pornography
• 27. On Porn Addiction
• 28. A Brief Philosophy of Oral Sex
• 29. Why We Go Off Sex
• 30. On Being a Sleazebag
• 31. A Brief Theory of Sexual Excitement
• 01. Work Outs For Our Minds
• 02. Interviewing Our Bodies
• 03. The Top Dog - Under Dog Exercise
• 04. A Guide For The Recovering Avoidant
• 05. Where Are Humanity’s Problems Really Located?
• 06. On Feeling Obliged 
• 07. Why We Struggle With Self-Discipline
• 08. Why We Should Practice Automatic Writing
• 09. Why We Behave As We Do
• 10. Mechanisms of Defence
• 11. On Always Finding Fault with Others
• 12. The Hidden Logic of Illogical Behaviour
• 13. How to Weaken the Hold of Addiction
• 14. Charles Darwin and The Descent of Man
• 15. Why We Are All Addicts
• 16. Straightforward vs. Complicated People
• 17. Reasons to Give Up on Perfection
• 18. The Need for a Cry
• 19. On Confinement
• 20. The Importance of Singing Badly
• 21. You Don't Need Permission
• 22. On Feeling Stuck
• 23. Am I Paranoid?
• 24. Learning to Be More Selfish
• 25. Learning How to Be Angry
• 26. Why We're All Liars
• 27. Are You a Masochist?
• 28. How Badly Adapted We Are to Life on Earth
• 29. How We Prefer to Act Rather Than Think
• 30. How to Live More Wisely Around Our Phones
• 31. On Dreaming
• 32. The Need to be Alone
• 33. On the Remarkable Need to Speak
• 34. Thinking Too Much; and Thinking Too Little
• 35. On Nagging
• 36. The Prevention of Suicide
• 37. On Getting an Early Night
• 38. Why We Eat Too Much
• 39. On Taking Drugs
• 40. On Perfectionism
• 41. On Procrastination
• 01. Why We Overreact
• 02. Giving Up on People Pleasing
• 03. The Benefits of Forgetfulness
• 04. How to Take Criticism
• 05. A More Spontaneous Life
• 06. On Self-Assertion
• 07. The Benefit of Analogies
• 08. Why We Need Moments of Mad Thinking
• 09. The Task of Turning Vague Thoughts into More Precise Ones
• 10. How to Catch Your Own Thoughts
• 11. Why Our Best Thoughts Come To Us in the Shower
• 13. Confidence
• 14. Why We Should Try to Become Better Narcissists
• 15. Why We Require Poor Memories To Survive
• 16. The Importance of Confession
• 17. How Emotionally Healthy Are You?
• 18. What Is An Emotionally Healthy Childhood?
• 19. Unprocessed Emotion
• 20. How to Be a Genius
• 21. On Resilience
• 22. How to Decide
• 23. Why It Should Be Glamorous to Change Your Mind
• 24. How to Make More of Our Memories
• 25. What’s Wrong with Needy People
• 26. Emotional Education: An Introduction
• 27. Philosophical Meditation
• 28. Honesty
• 29. Self-Love
• 30. Emotional Scepticism
• 31. Politeness
• 32. Charity
• 34. Love-as-Generosity
• 35. Comforting
• 36. Emotional Translation
• 38. On Pessimism
• 39. The Problem with Cynicism
• 40. On Keeping Going
• 41. Closeness
• 42. On Higher Consciousness
• 43. On Exercising the Mind
• 44. Authentic Work
• 45. The Sorrows of Work
• 46. Cultural Consolation
• 47. Appreciation
• 48. Cheerful Despair
• 01. How 'Mad' People Make a Lot of Sense
• 02. Why We Keep Repeating Patterns of Unhappiness
• 03. Your Self-Esteem is a Record of Your History
• 04. Why Some People Love Extreme Sports
• 05. The Overlooked Pains of Very, Very Tidy People
• 06. On Feeling Guilty for No Reason
• 07. The Fear of Being Touched
• 08. Why Most of Us Feel Like Losers
• 09. One of the More Beautiful Paintings in the World...
• 10. The Origins of a Sense of Persecution
• 11. How to Overcome Psychological Barriers
• 12. The Sinner Inside All of Us
• 13. How to Be Less Defensive
• 14. Are You a Sadist or a Masochist?
• 15. You Might Be Mad
• 16. Fears Are Not Facts
• 17. Why It's Good to Be a Narcissist
• 18. Am I a Bad Person?
• 19. Why Some of Us Are So Thin-Skinned
• 20. The Five Features of Paranoia
• 21. Why So Many of Us Are Masochists
• 22. In Praise of Self-Doubt
• 23. Why We Get Locked Inside Stories — and How to Break Free
• 24. Why Grandiosity is a Symptom of Self-Hatred
• 25. The Origins of Imposter Syndrome
• 26. The Upsides of Being Ill
• 27. The Roots of Paranoia
• 28. Loneliness as a Sign of Depth
• 29. How Social Media Affects Our Self-Worth
• 30. How to Be Beautiful
• 31. Trying to Be Kinder to Ourselves
• 32. The Role of Love in Mental Health
• 33. Trauma and Fearfulness
• 34. On Despair and the Imagination
• 35. On Being Able to Defend Oneself
• 36. The Fear of Death
• 37. I Am Not My Body
• 38. The Problems of Being Very Beautiful
• 39. 6 Reasons Not to Worry What the Neighbours Think
• 40. Am I Fat? An Answer from History
• 41. The Problem of Shame
• 42. On Feeling Ugly
• 43. The Particular Beauty of Unhappy-Looking People
• 44. How Not to Become a Conspiracy Theorist
• 45. The Terror of a ‘No’
• 46. On Being Hated
• 47. The Origins of Everyday Nastiness
• 48. The Weakness of Strength Theory
• 49. On Self-Sabotage
• 50. FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out
• 51. On a Sense of Sinfulness
• 01. We All Need Our North Pole
• 02. We Need to Change the Movie We Are In
• 03. Maybe You Are, in Your Own Way, a Little Bit Marvellous
• 04. Why We Deny Ourselves the Chance of Happiness
• 05. How to Live More Consciously
• 06. Our Secret Longing to Be Good
• 07. Why Everyone Needs to Feel 'Lost' for a While
• 08. On the Consolations of Home | Georg Friedrich Kersting
• 09. On Feeling Rather Than Thinking
• 10. How to Be Interesting
• 11. Am I Too Clever?
• 12. A More Self-Accepting Life
• 13. 'Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Stone'
• 14. The Roots of Loneliness
• 15. Small Acts of Liberation
• 16. Overcoming the Need to Be Exceptional
• 17. The Fear of Happiness
• 18. The Truth May Already Be Inside Us
• 19. What Is the Meaning of Life?
• 20. The Desire to Write
• 21. Are Intelligent People More Lonely?
• 22. A Better Word than Happiness: Eudaimonia
• 23. The Meaning of Life
• 24. Our Secret Fantasies
• 25. Why We’re Fated to Be Lonely (But That’s OK)
• 26. Good Enough is Good Enough
• 27. An Updated Ten Commandments
• 28. A Self-Compassion Exercise
• 29. How to Become a Better Person
• 30. On Resolutions
• 31. On Final Things
• 01. The Stages of Development - And What If We Miss Out on One…
• 02. Who Might I Have Been If…
• 03. Yes, Maybe They Are Just Envious…
• 04. We Are All Lonely - Now Can We Be Friends?
• 05. How to Make It Through
• 06. 12 Signs That You Are Mature in the Eyes of Psychotherapy
• 07. The Breast and the Mouth
• 08. A Test to Measure How Nice You Are
• 09. What Hypochondriacs Aren't Able to Tell You
• 10. The Origins of Sanity
• 11. The Always Unfinished Business of Self-Knowledge
• 12. Learning to Laugh at Ourselves
• 13. A Simple Question to Set You Free
• 14. Locating the Trouble
• 15. Who Knows More, the Young or the Old?
• 16. Beyond Sanctimony
• 17. The Ingredients of Emotional Maturity
• 18. When Illness is Preferable to Health
• 19. What Should My Life Have Been Like?
• 20. Why We Need to Go Back to Emotional School
• 21. The Point of Writing Letters We Never Send
• 22. Self-Forgiveness
• 23. Why We Must Have Done Bad to Be Good
• 24. Finding the Courage to Be Ourselves
• 25. What Regret Can Teach Us
• 26. The Importance of Adolescence
• 27. How to Love Difficult People
• 28. On Falling Mentally Ill
• 29. Splitting Humanity into Saints and Sinners
• 30. Becoming Free
• 31. Learning to Listen to the Adult Inside Us
• 32. The Ultimate Test of Emotional Maturity
• 33. Can People Change?
• 34. When Home is Not Home...
• 35. Learning to Lay Down Boundaries
• 36. You Could Finally Leave School!
• 37. When Do You Know You Are Emotionally Mature? 26 Signs of Emotional Maturity
• 38. How to Lengthen Your Life
• 39. We Only Learn If We Repeat
• 40. The Drive to Keep Growing Emotionally
• 41. On Bittersweet Memories
• 42. Small Triumphs of the Mentally Unwell
• 43. The Importance of Atonement
• 44. How To Be a Mummy's Boy
• 45. On Consolation
• 46. The Inner Idiot
• 47. The Dangers of the Good Child
• 48. Why None of Us are Really 'Sinners'
• 49. How We Need to Keep Growing Up
• 50. Are Humans Still Evolving?
• 51. On Losers – and Tragic Heroes
• 52. On the Serious Role of Stuffed Animals
• 53. Why Self-Help Books Matter
• 01. Living Long Term With Mental Illness
• 02. Suffering From A Snobbery That Isn’t Ours
• 03. How to Recover the Plot
• 04. Why We Have Trouble Getting Back To Sleep
• 05. When, and Why, Do We Pick up Our Phones?
• 06. What is the Unconscious - and What Might Be Inside Yours?
• 07. Complete the Story – and Discover What's Really On Your mind
• 08. Complete the Sentence – and Find Out What's Really on Your Mind
• 09. The One Question You Need to Understand Who You Are
• 10. Six Fundamental Truths of Self-Awareness
• 11. Why Knowing Ourselves is Impossible – and Necessary
• 12. Making Friends with Your Unconscious
• 13. Do You Believe in Mind-Reading?
• 14. Questioning Our Conscience
• 15. A Bedtime Meditation
• 16. How to Figure Out What You Really, Really Think
• 17. Why You Should Keep a Journal
• 18. In Praise of Introspection
• 19. What Brain Scans Reveal About Our Minds
• 20. What is Mental Health?
• 21. The One Question You Need to Ask to Know Whether You're a Good Person
• 22. Eight Rules of The School of Life
• 23. No One Cares
• 24. The High Price We Pay for Our Fear of Being Alone
• 25. 5 Signs of Emotional Immaturity
• 26. On Knowing Who One Is
• 27. Why Self-Analysis Works
• 28. Knowing Things Intellectually vs. Knowing Them Emotionally
• 29. The Novel We Really Need To Read Next
• 30. Is Free Will or Determinism Correct?
• 31. Emotional Identity
• 32. Know Yourself — Socrates and How to Develop Self-Knowledge
• 33. Self-Knowledge Quiz
• 34. On Being Very Normal
• 01. How History Can Explain Our Unhappiness
• 02. How Lonely Are You? A Test
• 03. The Wisdom of Tears
• 04. You Don't Always Need to Be Funny
• 05. On Suicide
• 06. You Have Permission to Be Miserable
• 07. The Pessimist's Guide to Mental Illness
• 08. Why Do Bad Things Always Happen to Me?
• 09. Why We Enjoy the Suffering of Others
• 10. The Tragedy of Birth
• 11. What Rothko's Art Teaches Us About Suffering
• 12. Our Tragic Condition
• 13. The Melancholy Charm of Lonely Travelling Places
• 14. Nostalgia for Religion
• 15. Parties and Melancholy
• 16. Why Very Beautiful Scenes Can Make Us So Melancholy
• 17. On Old Photos of Oneself
• 18. Are Intelligent People More Melancholic?
• 19. Strangers and Melancholy
• 20. On Post-Coital Melancholy
• 21. Sex and Melancholy
• 22. Astronomy and Melancholy
• 23. Nostalgia for the Womb
• 24. Melancholy and the Feeling of Being Superfluous
• 25. Pills & Melancholy
• 26. Melancholy: the best kind of Despair
• 27. On Melancholy
• 01. The Impulse to Sink Our Own Mood – and Return to Sadness and Worry
• 02. We Are Made of Moods
• 03. Why Sweet Things Make Us Cry
• 04. Overcoming Manic Moods
• 05. Learning to Feel What We Really Feel
• 06. Exercise When We're Feeling Mentally Unwell
• 07. Why You May Be Experiencing a Mental Midwinter
• 08. Living Long-Term with Mental Illness
• 09. The Role of Sleep in Mental Health
• 10. The Role of Pills in Mental Health
• 11. Mental Illness and Acceptance
• 12. Mental Illness and 'Reasons to Live'
• 13. Taming a Pitiless Inner Critic
• 14. Reasons to Give Up on Human Beings
• 15. The Window of Tolerance
• 16. On Realising One Might Be an Introvert
• 17. Our Right to be Miserable
• 18. How to Manage One's Moods
• 19. On Living in a More Light-Hearted Way
• 20. On Disliking Oneself
• 21. Of Course We Mess Up!
• 22. Learning to Listen to One's Own Boredom
• 23. On Depression
• 24. In Praise of the Melancholy Child
• 25. Why We May Be Angry Rather Than Sad
• 26. On Not Being in the Moment
• 27. 'Pure' OCD - and Intrusive Thoughts
• 28. Twenty Moods
• 29. How the Right Words Help Us to Feel the Right Things
• 30. The Secret Optimism of Angry People
• 31. On Feeling Depressed
• 32. The Difficulty of Being in the Present
• 33. On Being Out of Touch with One's Feelings
• 34. Our Secret Thoughts
• 35. The Psychology of Colour
• 36. On Self-Pity
• 37. On Irritability
• 38. On the Things that Make Adults Cry
• 39. On Anger
• 40. Detachment
• 01. On Those Ruined by Success
• 02. The Demand for Perfection in Love
• 03. The Secret Lives of Other Couples
• 04. How the Wrong Images of Love Can Ruin Our Lives
• 05. Self-Forgiveness
• 06. How Perfectionism Makes Us Ill
• 07. Reasons to Give Up on Perfection
• 08. Are My Expectations Too High?
• 09. Of Course We Mess Up!
• 10. Expectations - and the 80/20 Rule
• 11. Good Enough is Good Enough
• 12. The Perfectionist Trap
• 13. A Self-Compassion Exercise
• 14. On Perfectionism
• 01. How Good Are You at Communication in Love? Questionnaire
• 02. How Prone Might You Be To Insomnia? Questionnaire
• 03. How Ready Might You Be for Therapy? Questionnaire
• 04. The Attachment Style Questionnaire
• 01. Intergenerational Trauma
• 02. How the Unfinished Business of Childhood is Played Out in Relationships
• 03. How to Raise a Successful Person
• 04. Can Childhoods Really Matter So Much?
• 05. What Some Childhoods Don’t Allow You to Think
• 06. The Legacy of an Unloving Childhood
• 07. Why You Don’t Need a Very Bad Childhood to Have a Complicated Adulthood
• 08. When People Let Us Know What the World Has Done to Them
• 09. The Healing Power of Time
• 10. You Are Freer Than You Think
• 11. On Parenting Our Parents
• 12. Letting Go of Self-Protective Strategies
• 13. How to Tell If Someone Had a Difficult Childhood...
• 14. Childhood Matters, Unfortunately!
• 15. How Should We Define 'Mental Illness'?
• 16. Taking Childhood Seriously
• 17. Sympathy for Our Younger Selves
• 18. How Music Can Heal Us
• 19. What Your Body Reveals About Your Past
• 20. Why Adults Often Behave Like Children
• 21. How to Live Long-Term With Trauma
• 22. Should We Forgive Our Parents or Not?
• 23. Reparenting Your Inner Child
• 24. The Agonies of Shame
• 25. How Trauma Works
• 26. Why Abused Children End Up Hating Themselves
• 27. Why We Sometimes Feel Like Curling Up Into a Ball
• 28. How to Get Your Parents Out of Your Head
• 29. Why Parents Bully Their Children
• 30. On Projection
• 31. Self-Archaeology
• 32. It's Not Your Fault
• 33. If Our Parents Never Listened
• 34. Why Everything Relates to Your Childhood
• 35. Why Those Who Should Love Us Can Hurt Us
• 36. The Upsides of Having a Mental Breakdown
• 37. How Perfectionism Makes Us Ill
• 38. How We Should Have Been Loved
• 39. Self-Hatred and High-Achievement
• 40. A Self-Hatred Audit
• 41. How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
• 42. Two Reasons Why People End up Parenting Badly
• 43. What is Emotional Neglect?
• 44. How Unloving Parents can Generate Self-Hating Children
• 45. How Mental Illness Closes Down Our Minds
• 46. Trauma and EMDR Therapy
• 47. How to Fight off Your Inner Critic
• 48. The One Subject You Really Need to Study: Your Own Childhood
• 49. Sharing Our Early Wounds
• 50. Trauma and How to Overcome It
• 51. Why We're All Messed Up By Our Childhoods
• 52. The Golden Child Syndrome
• 53. The Importance of Being an Unhappy Teenager
• 54. How We Get Damaged by Emotional Neglect
• 55. The Secrets of a Privileged Childhood
• 56. What We Owe to the People Who Loved Us in Childhood
• 57. Criticism When You've Had a Bad Childhood
• 58. On Suffering in Silence
• 59. How a Messed up Childhood Affects You in Adulthood
• 60. Daddy Issues
• 61. The Non-Rewritable Disc: the Fateful Impact of Childhood
• 62. On the Longing for Maternal Tenderness
• 01. The Need for Processing 
• 02. The Subtle Art of Not Listening to People Too Closely
• 03. The Art of Good Listening
• 04. Becoming More Interesting
• 05. In Praise of Small Chats With Strangers
• 06. Why We Should Listen Rather Than Reassure
• 07. How We Can Hurt Without Thinking
• 08. Leaning in to Vulnerability
• 09. How to Become Someone People Will Confide in
• 10. How To Write An Effective Thank You Letter
• 11. How to Be a Good Listener
• 12. How to Comment Online
• 13. Listening as Editing
• 14. The Importance of Flattery
• 15. How to Narrate Your Life Story
• 16. The Art of Listening
• 17. How to Narrate Your Dreams
• 18. How to Talk About Yourself
• 19. Communication
• 20. How to Be a Good Teacher
• 21. On How to Disagree
• 22. On the Art of Conversation
• 01. On Feeling Painfully Different
• 02. Abandoning Hope
• 03. How to Leave a Party
• 04. On Becoming a Hermit
• 05. How to Have a Renaissance
• 06. Think Like an Aristocrat
• 07. Van Gogh's Neglected Genius
• 08. How to Be Quietly Confident
• 09. How to Live Like an Exile
• 10. How to Cope With Bullying
• 11. Stop Being So Nice
• 12. The Origins of Shyness
• 13. On Friendliness to Strangers
• 14. What to Do at Parties If You Hate Small Talk
• 15. How to Approach Strangers at A Party
• 16. How to Be Comfortable on Your Own in Public
• 17. Akrasia - or Why We Don't Do What We Believe
• 18. Why We Think So Much about Our Hair
• 19. Aphorisms on Confidence
• 20. How Knowledge of Difficulties Lends Confidence
• 21. How Thinking You’re an Idiot Lends Confidence
• 22. How to Overcome Shyness
• 23. The Mind-Body Problem
• 24. The Impostor Syndrome
• 25. On the Origins of Confidence
• 26. Self-Esteem
• 27. On Confidence
• 28. On Not Liking the Way One Looks
• 02. Why Losers Make the Best Friends
• 03. Our Very Best Friends
• 04. The Difficulties of Oversharing
• 05. Is It OK to Outgrow Our Friends?
• 06. Why Everyone We Meet is a Little Bit Lonely
• 07. On 'Complicated' Friendships
• 08. The Friend Who Can Tease Us
• 09. Don't Be Too Normal If You Want to Make Friends
• 10. The Forgotten Art of Making Friends
• 11. The Friend Who Balances Us
• 12. The Purpose of Friendship
• 13. Why the Best Kind of Friends Are Lonely
• 14. How to Lose Friends
• 15. Why Misfits Make Great Friends
• 16. How to Handle an Envious Friend
• 17. Loneliness as a Sign of Depth
• 18. Companionship and Mental Health
• 19. How Often Do We Need to Go to Parties?
• 20. Virtual Dinners: Conversation Menus
• 21. The Cleaning Party
• 22. On Talking Horizontally
• 23. Dinner Table Orchestra
• 24. On Sofa Jumping
• 25. On Studying Someone Else's Hands
• 26. What Women and Men May Learn from One Another When They are Just Friends
• 27. How to Say 'I Love You' to a Friend
• 28. How to End a Friendship
• 29. What Can Stop the Loneliness?
• 30. Why Men Are So Bad at Friendship
• 31. What Would An Ideal Friend Be Like?
• 32. 'Couldn't We Just Be Friends?'
• 33. On Acquiring an Enemy
• 34. Why Old Friends Matter
• 35. Why Not to Panic about Enemies
• 36. What Is the Purpose of Friendship?
• 37. Friendship and Vulnerability
• 38. On Socks and Friendship
• 39. The Teasing of Old Friends
• 01. The Boring Person
• 02. The Loveliest People in the World
• 03. The Life Saving Role of Small Chats
• 04. The Origins of Shifty People
• 05. The Many Faults of Other People
• 06. Why Nice People Give Us the 'Ick'
• 07. How to Become a More Interesting Person
• 08. The Challenges of Hugging
• 09. Dale Carnegie — How to Win Friends and Influence People
• 10. The Origins of People Pleasing
• 11. The Eyes of Love
• 12. Kindness Isn't Weakness
• 13. Why We're All Capable of Damaging Others
• 14. Rembrandt as a Guide to Kindness
• 15. What Love Really Is – and Why It Matters
• 16. The Need for Kindness
• 17. 6 Reasons Not to Worry What the Neighbours Think
• 18. What to Do When a Stranger Annoys You
• 19. How to Choose A Good Present
• 20. How to Be a Good Guest
• 21. How To Make People Feel Good about Themselves
• 22. How To Tell When You Are Being A Bore
• 23. What Is Empathy?
• 24. How Not to Rant
• 25. How Not to Be Boring
• 26. On Eggs and Compassion
• 27. How to Become an Adult
• 28. People-Pleasing: and How to Overcome It
• 29. Why Truly Sociable People Hate Parties
• 30. How to Be Diplomatic
• 31. Sane Insanity
• 32. Charity of Interpretation
• 33. How to Be a Good Teacher
• 34. The Solution to Clumsiness
• 35. How to Be a Man
• 36. Political Correctness vs. Politeness
• 37. Aphorisms on Kindness
• 38. Why We Don’t Really Want to Be Nice
• 39. The Charm of Vulnerability
• 40. The Ultimate Test of Your Social Skills
• 41. How to Be Open-Minded
• 42. Why Kind People Always Lie
• 43. How to Be Warm
• 44. The Problem of Over-Friendliness
• 45. How to Forgive
• 46. Why We’re Fated to Be Lonely (But That’s OK)
• 47. How to Cope with Snobbery
• 48. On Charm
• 49. On Being Kind
• 50. On Gratitude
• 51. On Forgiveness
• 52. On Charity
• 53. On Wisdom
• 01. How to Fire Someone
• 02. Diplomacy at the Office
• 03. How to Tell a Colleague Their Breath Smells
• 04. How to Screw Up at Work
• 05. In Praise of Teamwork
• 06. How to Become an Entrepreneur
• 07. The Need for Eloquence
• 08. The Nature and Causes of Procrastination
• 09. In Praise of Networking
• 10. Why Creativity is Too Important to Be Left to Artists
• 11. How to Survive Bureaucracy
• 12. Machismo and Management
• 13. What Art Can Teach Business About Being Fussy
• 14. On Novelists and Manuals
• 15. How Not to Let Work Explode Your Life
• 16. How to Sell
• 17. Innovation, Empathy and Introspection
• 18. Innovation and Creativity
• 19. Innovation and Science Fiction
• 20. The Acceptance of Change
• 21. The Collaborative Virtues
• 22. Towards Better Collaboration
• 23. How To Make Efficiency a Habit
• 24. On Raising the Prestige of 'Details'
• 25. Monasticism & How to Avoid Distraction
• 26. How to Dare to Begin
• 27. On Meaning – and Motivation
• 28. The Psychological Obstacles Holding Employees Back
• 29. On Feedback
• 30. How to Better Understand Customers
• 31. On Bounded and Unbounded Tasks
• 01. What Should Truly Motivate Us at Work
• 02. Nature as a Cure for the Sickness of Modern Times
• 03. The Difficulties of Work-Life Balance
• 04. The Challenges of Modernity
• 05. Businesses for Love; Businesses for Money
• 06. Countries for Losers; Countries for Winners
• 07. Towards a Solution to Inequality
• 08. Free Trade - or Protectionism?
• 09. Should We Work on Ourselves - or on the World?
• 10. Why Is There Unemployment?
• 11. Artists and Supermarket Tycoons
• 12. Business and the Arts
• 13. Sentimentality in Art - and Business
• 14. How to Make a Country Rich
• 15. First World Problems
• 16. On Devotion to Corporations
• 17. Good vs Classical Economics
• 18. What Is a Good Brand?
• 19. Good Economic Measures: Beyond GDP
• 20. What Good Business Should Be
• 21. On the Faultiness of Our Economic Indicators
• 22. On the Dawn of Capitalism
• 23. Utopian Capitalism
• 24. On Philanthropy
• 01. Why Do We Work So Hard?
• 02. On Eating a Friend
• 03. Is the Modern World Too 'Materialistic'?
• 04. On Consumer Capitalism
• 05. How to Choose the Perfect Gift
• 06. The Importance of Maslow's Pyramid of Needs
• 07. How to Live More Wisely Around Our Phones
• 08. Money and 'Higher Things'
• 09. Why We Are All Addicts
• 10. Why We Are So Bad at Shopping
• 11. Business and the Ladder of Needs
• 12. Consumer Self-Knowledge
• 13. "Giving Customers What They Want"
• 14. The Entrepreneur and the Artist
• 15. What Advertising Can Learn from Art
• 16. What the Luxury Sector Does for Us
• 17. On Using Sex to Sell
• 18. Understanding Brand Promises
• 19. Consumer Education: On Learning How to Spend
• 20. Good Materialism
• 21. Why We Hate Cheap Things
• 22. Why We Continue to Love Expensive Things
• 23. Why Advertising Is so Annoying - but Doesn't Have to Be
• 24. On Good Demand
• 25. On Consumption and Status Anxiety
• 26. On the Responsibility of the Consumer
• 27. Adverts Know What We Want - They Just Can't Sell It to us
• 28. On the True Desires of the Rich
• 01. How to Be Original
• 02. When Are We Truly Productive?
• 03. The Importance of the Siesta
• 04. Career Therapy
• 05. On Meritocracy
• 06. The Vocation Myth
• 07. The Good Sides of Work
• 08. The Good Office
• 09. The EQ Office
• 10. Good Salaries: What We Earn - and What We’re Worth
• 11. What Good Business Should Be
• 12. On the Pleasures of Work
• 01. How Does An Emotionally Healthy Person Relate To Their Career?
• 02. The Concept of Voluntary Poverty
• 03. The Dangers of Having Too Little To Do
• 04. How Could a Working Life Be Meaningful?
• 05. On Learning to Live Deeply Rather than Broadly
• 06. What They Forget to Teach You at School
• 07. Authentic Work
• 08. Why We Need to Work
• 09. How We Came to Desire a Job We Could Love
• 10. Why Work Is So Much Easier than Love
• 11. Work and Maturity
• 12. How Your Job Shapes Your Identity
• 13. Authentic Work
• 01. Do We Need to Read the News?
• 02. On Gossip
• 03. How the Media Damages Our Faith in Humanity
• 04. Why We Secretly Love Bad News
• 05. Celebrity Crushes
• 06. On Switching Off the News
• 07. We've Been Here Before
• 08. In Praise of Bias
• 09. The News from Without - and the News from Within
• 10. History as a Corrective to News
• 11. Emotional Technology
• 12. What's Wrong with the Media
• 13. On the Dangers of the Internet
• 14. On Taking Digital Sabbaths
• 15. On the Role of Censorship
• 16. On the Role of Disasters
• 17. On the Role of Art in News
• 18. Tragedies and Ordinary Lives in the Media
• 19. On the Failures of Economic News
• 20. On Health News
• 21. What State Broadcasters Should Do
• 22. On the Role of Cheerful News
• 23. On News and Kindness
• 24. On Maniacs and Murderers
• 01. The United States and Happiness
• 02. Political Emotional Maturity
• 03. On Feeling Offended
• 04. A Guide to Good Nationalism
• 05. Why We Do - After All - Care about Politics
• 06. Why Socrates Hated Democracy
• 07. The Fragility of Good Government
• 08. Romantic vs. Classical Voters
• 09. Africa after Independence
• 01. Should I Follow My Dreams?
• 02. How to Retire Early
• 03. The Agonies of Choice
• 04. The Creative Itch
• 05. Broadening the Job Search
• 06. Our Families and Our Careers
• 07. The Challenges of Choosing a Career
• 08. On Career Crises
• 09. The Output/Input Confusion
• 10. Finding a Mission
• 11. How to Serve
• 12. Why Work-Life Balance is an Illusion
• 13. On Gratitude – and Motivation
• 14. How to Find Fulfilling Work
• 15. On the Origins of Motivation at Work
• 16. On Becoming an Entrepreneur
• 17. On Being an Unemployed Arts Graduate
• 01. On Small Talk at the Office
• 02. On Falling Apart at the Office
• 03. The Sorrows of Competition
• 04. What Is That Sunday Evening Feeling?
• 05. How Parents Get in the Way of Our Career Plans
• 06. Why Modern Work Is So Boring
• 07. Why Pessimism is the Key to Good Government
• 08. The Sorrows of Colleagues
• 09. The Sorrows of Commercialisation
• 10. The Sorrows of Standardisation
• 11. Confidence in the System
• 12. Job Monogamy
• 13. The Duty Trap
• 14. The Perfectionist Trap
• 15. On Professional Failure
• 16. Nasty Businesses
• 17. The Job Investment Trap
• 18. How Your Job Shapes Your Identity
• 19. The Pains of Leadership
• 20. Would It Be Better for Your Job If You Were Celibate?
• 21. On Stress and Inner Voices
• 22. On Being Wary of Simple-Looking Issues
• 23. On Commuting
• 24. On the Sorrows of Work
• 25. On Misemployment
• 26. On Guilt-trips and Charm
• 01. The Dangers of People Who Have Been to Boarding School
• 02. Giving Up on Being Special
• 03. The Problem with Individualism
• 04. Winners and Losers in the Race of Life
• 05. Being on the Receiving End of Pity
• 06. Shakespeare: 'When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state...'
• 07. Overcoming the Need to Be Exceptional
• 08. On the Loss of Reputation
• 09. The Secret Sorrows of Over-Achievers
• 10. You Are Not What You Earn
• 11. Artistic Philanthropy
• 12. The Need to Keep Believing in Luck
• 13. On Glamour
• 14. The Incumbent Problem
• 15. How to Cope with Snobbery
• 16. On the Dangers of Success
• 17. On Doing Better Than Our Parents
• 18. Success at School vs. Success in Life
• 19. Why We Look Down on People Who Don’t Earn Very Much
• 20. What Is 'Success'?
• 21. On Children and Power
• 22. On Pleasure in the Downfall of the Mighty
• 23. On Status and Democracy
• 24. On Failure and Success in the Game of Fame
• 25. On Envy
• 26. A Philosophical Exercise for Envy
• 27. On the Envy of Politicians
• 28. On Consumption and Status Anxiety
• 29. On the Desire for Fame
• 30. On Fame and Sibling Rivalry
• 01. Why Humanity Destroyed Itself
• 02. How Science Could - at Last - Properly Replace Religion
• 03. Our Forgotten Craving for Community
• 04. Why isn't the Future here yet?
• 05. On Changing the World
• 06. What Community Centres Should Be Like
• 07. On Seduction
• 08. The Importance of Utopian Thinking
• 09. Art is Advertising for What We Really Need
• 10. Why the World Stands Ready to Be Changed
• 11. On the Desire to Change the World
• 12. Utopian Collective Pride
• 13. Envy of a Utopian Future
• 14. Utopian Artificial Intelligence
• 15. Utopian Education
• 16. Utopian Marriage
• 17. Utopian Film
• 18. Utopian Culture
• 19. Utopian Festivals
• 20. Utopian Business Consultancy
• 21. Utopian Capitalism
• 22. Utopian Government
• 23. Utopian Media
• 24. Utopian Tax
• 25. Utopian Celebrity Culture
• 26. The Future of the Banking Industry
• 27. The Future of the Communications Industry
• 28. The Future of the Hotel Industry

Related Products

100 Questions Game

The Meaning of Life Cards

Confessions Game

Table Talk Placecards

On Being Nice

Conversation Menus Card Set

Conversations With Friends Set

The Dilemmas Game

The Family Game

Parents & Teenagers

Related articles.

The Boring Person

The Need for Processing 

The Loveliest People in the World

The Life Saving Role of Small Chats

Why Losers Make the Best Friends

The Subtle Art of Not Listening to People Too Closely

This article is only available on the app

KEEP READING

Get all of The School of Life in your pocket on the web and in the app with your The School of Life Subscription

Sign Up to Hear from Us

Get inspiring, consoling ideas sent straight to your inbox, and hear about our latest articles, books, events, therapeutic retreats, and more. By signing up, you agree to receive marketing messages via email. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for more information.

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Happiness Hub Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• Happiness Hub
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• Communication Skills
• Listening Skills

How to Become a More Effective Listener in Any Situation

Last Updated: June 24, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Moshe Ratson, MFT, PCC and by wikiHow staff writer, Dev Murphy, MA . Moshe Ratson is the Executive Director of spiral2grow Marriage & Family Therapy, a coaching and therapy clinic in New York City. Moshe is an International Coach Federation accredited Professional Certified Coach (PCC). He received his MS in Marriage and Family Therapy from Iona College. Moshe is a clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), and a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF). There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 1,588,525 times.

Being a good listener can enrich your understanding, expand your capacity for empathy, and improve your communication skills. It takes practice to be a good listener, but it’s a valuable skill to have—especially when disagreements arise! If you’d like to improve your listening skills, this article is for you: we’ve assembled a list of psychology-backed tips to help you be more open-minded and know what to say in conversations, as well as how to read and effectively employ body language. Read on to get started!

Things You Should Know

• Be a good listener by holding eye contact with the speaker and doing your best to limit distractions, such as your phone or TV.
• Show them you’re paying attention by nodding or saying “Mmhmm” occasionally—but avoid interrupting them unless you need to ask a clarifying question.
• Avoid pressuring them to talk or asking rapid-fire questions, which could make them feel like they’re being interrogated. Let them go at their own pace.

Hold eye contact.

• However, avoid staring at them—blink and glance away now and again before returning back to their gaze.
• Studies show the ideal amount of eye contact is about 3 seconds at a time; longer periods of direct eye contact may make the other person uncomfortable. [2] X Research source

Try to limit any distractions.

• If possible, talk somewhere where you won’t be distracted, such as your home, the park, or somewhere else quiet. A busy restaurant, for instance, may not be a great place to have serious conversations.

Show them you’re paying attention.

• Note that this isn’t the same thing as interrupting. Interrupting is generally considered rude, but an occasional verbal acknowledgement that you’re listening and comprehending can encourage the other person to keep talking.

Use body language to encourage the speaker.

• Turn your body toward the speaker. If you're turned away from the speaker, then it may look like you're itching to leave. If you cross your legs, for example, cross your leg toward the speaker instead of away.
• Avoid crossing your arms over your chest, as this may make you appear standoffish or skeptical even if you don't actually feel that way.

Try to see where they’re coming from.

• As the saying goes, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” In other words, try listening more than you speak.

Give the speaker space.

• Maintaining eye contact (without staring at them) and keeping your body language open may help them feel encouraged to open up.
• You might also say something like, “There’s no pressure, I’m here whenever you’re ready.”

Ask meaningful and empowering questions.

• Ask thoughtful questions that show you’re listening and offer the speaker a chance to explore the situation from a new angle. For instance, “So, he thanked you for helping him, but then he said, ‘I could have done it myself, though’? What does that mean?”
• This question invites the speaker to analyze the situation on their own and come to a conclusion themselves, which is more helpful than saying something like, “That thank you doesn’t sound sincere—this guy’s a jerk!”

Repeat what they say back to them.

• While it might feel more natural to rephrase what a person says to show you’re listening and understanding, this can actually be mentally and emotionally overwhelming for you both, especially if the speaker feels you aren’t rephrasing things accurately. [10] X Trustworthy Source PubMed Central Journal archive from the U.S. National Institutes of Health Go to source
• However, if you mishear or don’t understand something, it may be helpful in this case to rephrase what the speaker has said to make sure you’re comprehending them.

Read their body language.

• Notice their facial expressions throughout the conversation: do they smile a little when they talk about their crush? Do their eyebrows furrow in concern when they talk about work?
• Note how their body position shifts at different points—for instance, maybe they cross their arms in frustration when they talk about a fight they had with their spouse, or they wistfully play with their hair when they talk about what they want for their birthday.

Avoid comparing the person's experiences to your own.

• This is especially true when you compare something really serious to your own less-intense experiences (such as comparing the person's divorce to your three-month long relationship).
• Even if you’re sincerely trying to connect and validate their experience, this may actually make the person feel like you're not really listening at all and are focused more on yourself.
• Avoid saying "I" or "me" a lot, as it’s a good indicator that you're focusing more on yourself than on the person's situation. [11] X Research source
• Of course, if the person knows that you've had a similar experience, then they may ask for your opinion. In this case, you can offer it, but be cautious about acting like your experiences are exactly like the other person's.

Resist jumping into problem-solving mode.

• Often, when someone shares a problem they’re having, they’re just looking to vent and feel understood and supported—not have their problems fixed for them.
• Focus on absorbing everything the person is saying to you. Only after that can you really try to help—and only do so if they ask for your advice.
• If you want to offer help and aren’t sure if they’re open to it, consider asking them if they’re looking for simple support, or help resolving the issue.

Remember what you've been told.

• It's okay if you don't have a razor sharp memory. Remembering basic details—such as the names of people involved or relevant details from a previous conversation—and incorporating them into your responses will indicate you’re paying attention.
• On the other hand, if you keep having to stop and ask for clarification or keep forgetting who everyone is, this can get frustrating for the speaker, who may feel as if you’re not really listening.

Follow up with the speaker afterward.

• Try not to be put off if they don’t want to get into the conversation again when you bring it up. Just let them know you’re there for them if they ever do want to talk about it.

Listening Tips

Expert Q&A

Reader Videos

• If possible, postpone an important conversation if you are not in the right headspace to listen. It is better to not talk if you are not ready. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-older-dad/201409/active-listening-is-key-great-interactions
• ↑ https://www.science.org/content/article/video-how-long-can-you-make-eye-contact-things-start-get-uncomfortable
• ↑ https://today.duke.edu/2019/06/how-practice-active-listening
• ↑ https://hbr.org/2016/07/what-great-listeners-actually-do
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/conversational-intelligence/201402/navigational-listening
• ↑ Moshe Ratson, MFT, PCC. Marriage & Family Therapist. Expert Interview. 7 August 2019.
• ↑ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1052562917748696
• ↑ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27151897/
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201111/the-art-listening-how-open-are-your-ears
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/happy-healthy-relationships/202108/listening-understand-instead-respond

About This Article

To be a good listener, try to listen more than you're talking so you're not dominating the conversation. However, make sure the other person knows you're still listening by making eye contact with them and staying focused on what they're saying. You can also nod at appropriate times and occasionally interject with things like "Yea, that makes sense" or "I see" to show that you're paying attention. Also, make sure you're remembering what the other person is saying since it will look like you weren't if you can't recall anything they said. To learn how to show someone you're listening with your body language, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Linda James

Jul 29, 2017

Did this article help you?

Jun 14, 2017

Tiffany Nichols

Aug 3, 2017

Ujjwal Anand

Apr 28, 2017

Rishav Pipalwa

Aug 16, 2016

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Level up your tech skills and stay ahead of the curve

What Makes a Good Listener — and How to Be a Better One

Adobe Stock / Fairygodboss Staff

We’ve all done it if we’re being honest with ourselves: A friend or family member is talking to us about something important, but there we are scrolling through Instagram (what’s that Beyoncé posted?) or pondering what’s in our fridge to scrounge for dinner later (are there any vegetables left?!) . Maybe they’ve even stopped what they were saying to ask, “Are you even listening to me?”

Being a good listener is an important part of connecting with and learning from others. In the workplace, it can be a particularly useful tool, whether you’re dealing with a tough manager or an organization filled with communication silos.

Lucky for you, you can learn and hone good listening skills over time. Here’s how to be a better listener starting today.

What is a good listener?

Good listeners practice active and empathetic listening .

“Both kinds of listening require giving your full attention to another person in order to better understand them,” Ximena Vengoechea, a workplace expert and the author of Listen Like You Mean it: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connectio n, previously wrote on The Muse .

“Through empathetic listening, you can create a space in which others feel safe being themselves, laying the foundation for open and honest communication between both the speaker and the listener,” she added.

Why is it so important to be a good listener?

Being a bad listener can negatively impact your own and others’ productivity and happiness at work.

On the flip side, being a good listener comes with a lot of perks. “Effective listening helps you to understand others better, allowing you to get your work done on time,” Vengoechea wrote. “It enables you to improve partnerships with your peers and thereby collaborate more effectively. It can even help you shift the balance of your relationship with your manager from head-scratching (what did their feedback mean?) to aligned.”

It can also make you popular at work: When you listen attentively and thoughtfully, people feel seen, heard, and supported, which can increase loyalty among your coworkers and supervisors, Nadia Ibrahim-Taney, a university career coach and lecturer, previously told The Muse . Similarly, it can make you a more attractive candidate in the eyes of recruiters and hiring managers during your next job search. 

Finally, being a good listener is also a crucial step to becoming a great boss: One 2020 study found that when supervisors practice active-empathetic listening, it has a significant positive relationship with employee work engagement.

4 qualities of good listeners

Through their actions, good listeners express and develop these crucial qualities. Good listeners are: 

1. Empathetic.

2. patient..

Patience is a valuable workplace skill in all sorts of ways—and a quality that helps foster good listening. Because good listeners know meaningful conversations and connections happen when people aren’t interrupted, hurried along, or cut off.

3. Curious.

Good listeners are genuinely curious about people and the world around them. They aren’t asking questions or continuing conversations to seem polite—they want answers, and they’re excited about how the speaker will provide them.

4. Lifelong learners.

Good listeners use their curiosity to ensure they never stop learning, don’t assume they know everything, and approach each conversation with the goal of gaining new and valuable insight. This forces them to be fully engaged, ask follow-up questions, and avoid lecturing.

7 expert tips to be a better listener

Every new situation and person will present challenges on your path to becoming a good listener. Apply these expert tips when you attend business meetings, hop on a sales call, or chat with your manager in your weekly one-on-one, and you’ll be sure to show your colleagues you’re someone worth talking to.

1. Be fully present.

Being present means that you’re engaged in the current moment—not anticipating what someone will say next, practicing your own response, or letting your mind wander onto other topics or distractions (this is not the time to be thinking about the latest plot twist on Succession). 

Of course, being fully present is often easier said than done. Try silencing your devices and setting aside a set amount of uninterrupted time to speak with someone to ensure you’re able to be fully focused on the conversation. Practicing meditation is another great way to hone this skill.

Figure out what triggers your distraction, then come up with a way to revert your attention. It can be as simple as telling yourself, “Ah—I’m distracted again, time to refocus,” or noticing that you're always distracted before lunch and rescheduling the meetings you have then.

2. Gauge what people need from you.

Good listeners know that while many conversations come with certain goals or expectations, they should be attentive to the needs and wants of the people they’re talking to.

Let your colleague get some things off their chest, and then assess what they’re looking for from you. If they ask for advice, give it. If they don’t, resist the urge to jump in with your opinion or ideas for “fixing” their situation. 

“If you aren’t sure what’s needed, try asking something like, ‘Would it be helpful to hear my advice on this?’ or, ‘I have some ideas about how to proceed—would you be open to that?’” Vengoechea wrote on The Muse . “If you’re not sure where to even start, asking simply, ‘Would you like me to listen or respond?’ can move the conversation in the right direction.”

3. Avoid interrupting.

We all know how frustrating it can be to have someone constantly interrupt you. Interruptions can come across as disrespectful and derail a conversation or a person’s train of thought. So if you want to be a better listener, avoid interrupting your conversation partner. 

You need to find a healthy balance of not letting someone ramble and go on a 20-minute tangent and allowing your colleague to finish their thoughts. If this is a bad habit of yours, work to be open to a slower pace of conversation. Pauses and silences are your friends. You don’t need to fill every moment with words or cut anyone off. 

Even if you're simply excited about an idea, cutting someone off is a surefire way to give the cue that you’re not a good partner and listener, which undermines your excitement and ambition.

4. Ask follow-up questions.

The best way to show you care about and fully understand someone is to ask relevant follow-up questions. 

“If you’re being asked to take over the planning of an annual work event, for example, you might want to ask about the goals and desired impact of the event as well as the obstacles former planners have run into in the past,” Leah Campbell, who holds a degree in psychology and worked in human resources for years, previously wrote on The Muse .

5. Pay attention to body and vocal cues.

Pay attention to the speaker’s intonation, pace of speech, and overall mood and how it may be different from other interactions you’ve had with them. For example, if a colleague is normally vivacious but changes their tone or gets quiet right after you make a comment, they may have felt shut down. Becoming aware of these cues can teach you better ways to respond (or not respond).

It's also important to pay attention to their body language. While your focus should be on listening to what they’re saying, their facial expressions or hand gestures may not always match their words—and could give you clues as to what’s happening below the surface.

6. Get your body language right.

Although they might not be speaking much during the conversation, good listeners show that they’re engaged by using active body language . This includes maintaining eye contact , nodding, or leaning in to show agreement or encourage the speaker to continue. 

“Listen in a neutral pose that shows you’re engaged, but not presumptuous. Use open body language (i.e., don’t cross your arms), avoid extreme facial expressions (regardless of whether they’re favorable or disapproving), and nix the foot tapping and other fidgety habits that signal impatience,” Lea McLeod, an experienced manager, career consultant, and job search coach, previously wrote on The Muse . “I’ve found that by assuming a neutral body pose, I’m mentally preparing to listen.”

You don’t need to stare them right in the eye for the entire conversation (that might be alarming), but you do need to be actively engaged, focusing your energy and attention on the speaker.

7. Summarize what you’ve heard.

“A great way to verbalize active listening is to summarize and confirm back to the person the subject of what they were trying to communicate,” Ibrahim-Taney told The Muse. 

McLeod suggests repeating what you’ve understood back to them with something like, “So what I hear you saying is _____. Is that right?” or “Let me summarize what I heard you say: _____. Did I miss or misinterpret anything?”

Use this tactic toward the end of a conversation to clarify any points, highlight important moments, or illuminate any outstanding issues—and maybe consider writing it down in a follow-up email for future reference.

What's your no. 1 piece of advice to be a better listener? Share your answer in the comments to help other Fairygodboss members!

Why women love us:.

• Daily articles on career topics
• Jobs at companies dedicated to hiring more women
• Advice and support from an authentic community
• Events that help you level up in your career
• Free membership, always

Essay on Importance Of Being A Good Listener

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance Of Being A Good Listener in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance Of Being A Good Listener

Understanding others.

Listening well is key to understanding people. When you listen, you learn about their feelings and thoughts. This helps you make friends and get along with others. Good listeners are liked because they make people feel important.

Learning New Things

By listening, you can learn a lot. Teachers and friends share knowledge, and if you listen, you can remember and use this information later. It’s like collecting treasures without seeing them.

Solving Problems

Good listeners help solve problems. When someone has a worry, by listening, you can figure out what’s wrong and think of ways to help. This can make you a hero in someone’s story.

Success in Life

People who listen do better in life. They follow instructions well and make fewer mistakes. Being a good listener can lead you to become a leader because you understand and care about others’ needs.

250 Words Essay on Importance Of Being A Good Listener

Why listening matters, learning from others.

By listening, we can learn new things. Teachers and classmates share knowledge, and if we listen, we can remember and use this information later. It’s not just about school; listening to stories and experiences from family and friends teaches us about life and the world.

Building Strong Relationships

Good listeners make friends easily. When you listen to someone, you show that you value their thoughts. This makes people feel special and builds trust. Friends and family are more likely to share their feelings and problems with good listeners.

Helping Solve Problems

Sometimes, people need to talk about their worries. A good listener can help by just listening. Often, talking about a problem can make someone feel better, and a good listener can help find a solution by understanding the issue.

Improving Yourself

Listening can also help you become a better person. When you listen to feedback or advice, you can learn from it and improve. Whether it’s doing better in school or learning how to be a better friend, listening is the way to grow.

In conclusion, being a good listener is very important. It helps us learn, build friendships, solve problems, and improve ourselves. By listening, we show kindness and respect, making the world a better place one conversation at a time.

500 Words Essay on Importance Of Being A Good Listener

What does it mean to listen well.

Listening is not just about hearing words that someone says. It’s about paying full attention to them, understanding their message, and showing you care about what they are sharing. When you listen well, you don’t just wait for your turn to speak. You really try to get what the other person is saying.

Why Listening Is Important

Being a good listener is very important for many reasons. First, it helps you learn. When you listen to your teachers or parents carefully, you can understand and remember things better. Second, it shows respect. When you listen to someone, you are telling them that you value their thoughts and feelings. This can make people feel good and help you make friends. Third, it helps you solve problems. If you listen to all sides of a story, you can understand the problem better and find a better solution.

Listening Helps You Learn

In school, being a good listener can help you do better in your classes. When you listen to your teacher explain a lesson, you’re more likely to understand the topic. This means you’ll probably do better on tests and homework. Also, when you listen to your classmates, you can learn from them, too. They might have ideas or ways of doing things that you didn’t think of.

Listening Shows Respect

Listening helps solve problems.

Sometimes, people have disagreements or misunderstandings. If you listen well, you can understand why someone is upset or what the problem is. This can help you think of ways to fix the issue. For example, if two friends are arguing, a good listener can help them by understanding both sides and helping them talk it out.

How to Be a Good Listener

To be a good listener, there are some simple things you can do. Look at the person who is talking. This shows you are focused on them. Don’t interrupt when someone else is speaking. Wait for them to finish before you talk. Also, ask questions if you don’t understand something. This shows you are interested and want to understand better.

Listening well is a skill that can help you in school, make you more friends, and help you solve problems. It’s about paying attention, showing respect, and trying to understand others. By practicing good listening, you can become better at it. Remember, when you listen to others, they are more likely to listen to you too. So next time someone is talking to you, try to listen with your full attention. It can make a big difference!

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

15 Top Ways To Be A Good Listener And Improve Your Relationships

Think about how powerful it is to be heard. It's equally powerful to have good listening skills.

Reflect on an occasion when you had something to say, something important or vulnerable to share, and you knew you had the full attention of the other person.

That level of attention, when you know the other person is really listening to you, makes you feel valued.

It makes you feel safe, understood, and important.

Being heard validates you.

Now think about a time when you had something to say, but you didn't get that level of attention.

The other person was distracted or disinterested, and you felt ignored, diminished, and inconsequential.

As a good listener, you can . . .

1. remove or avoid distractions., 2. notice non-verbal communication and tone of voice., 3. be the mirror., 4. empathize, sympathize, and use body language., 5. practice silence., 6. ask probing questions., 7. don't interrupt or change the subject., 8. think before responding., 9. approach listening with a learner's mindset., 10. practice non-judgment., 11. take responsibility for a positive conversation., 12. validate the speaker's emotions., 13. find areas of agreement., 14. be trustworthy and discreet., 15. take notes when necessary., practice being a good listener, why is being a good listener important.

Unfortunately, being a good listener is becoming more and more of a lost art. Face-to-face and even phone conversations are no longer the primary way we communicate.

The gatekeepers of our interactions are our computers and cell phones where we email or text in terse, abbreviated, and frequently misunderstood communique.

When we do have in-person conversations, these same devices steal our attention the minute we hear a ding.

It's nearly impossible to be a good listener when you're on constant alert for some other more important message that distracts you.

We all know it's important to have effective listening skills because we know how good it feels when we're heard. Most of us want to be active listeners and to have the people we care about feel heard.

But the ability to listen well affords other benefits beyond supporting others and gaining their appreciation .

• Improve relationships in your personal and professional lives.
• Become more empathetic by focusing on others and what they share.
• Better solve problems for others and yourself.
• Learn different points of view to broaden your perspective.
• Retain more important information that is useful for life and career success.
• Make decisions easily because you have more information at your disposal.
• Avoid conflicts and misunderstandings as you gain more clarity.
• Increase your confidence with access to more information and awareness.

Being a good listener is a strength similar to having good manners.

It's a quality that doesn't seem to be a social requirement any longer, but if you practice it, it sets you apart from the crowd and makes others gravitate toward you.

Would you like to listen better and sharpen your listening skills?

We have some strategies for you.

15 Key Strategies to Be a Good Listener

If you are going to converse with someone (or several people), then take a moment to anticipate possible distractions and remove them.

Turn off your cell phone and put it away. Turn your computer off or turn off the sound so you can't hear emails and notifications coming in. Turn off the TV, radio, or any other device that could be distracting.

If someone needs to speak to you, and you're in the middle of a project or task, either ask them to wait until you're done or stop what you're doing to listen. Multi-tasking doesn't allow for good listening.

If you're in a social setting, and you are speaking one-on-one with someone, try to step aside to a quiet space where you won't be pulled away or interrupted by other people.

Definitely don't look over the other person's shoulder while they're talking to see who else is in the room.

Hearing someone's words is just a small part of being a good listener. We communicate far more through our expressions, body language , and tone of voice.

When you are listening to someone, also watch them carefully.

• Are their arms crossed defensively, or are they sitting in an open, confident manner?
• Are they saying, “Everything's fine” with their words, but their face looks pinched and anxious?

Also, listen to how they present what they have to say.

• Do they sound tired, depressed, enthusiastic, confused?
• Are they mumbling, talking too loudly, or stating everything as though it were a question?

Learn the art of reading what people are really saying beyond their words.

This can help you be more compassionate and understanding of people — and it can help you avoid getting involved with someone who appears deceitful, disinterested, or controlling.

A great technique for active listening skills is mirroring the person you are listening to. Without appearing to mimic them, try to reflect back their same tone of voice and speech pattern. You can also mirror their gestures and body language.

Mirroring helps build rapport with the other person, and it encourages the feeling that you share similar attitudes and ideas.

You can also reflect the concept or ideas you just heard communicated from the other person to reinforce that you understood and heard what they said. This is particularly important in your intimate relationships or in conflict situations.

For example, the other person might say, “I feel really hurt when you don't help me clean up after dinner.”

You might summarize and restate, “So what I'm hearing you say is that when I don't help you clean up, it causes you pain.” You reflect words back to show you understood them correctly and that you care what was communicated.

You can show your interest and connection in a conversation through your own expressions, body language, and words.

• Nod in agreement to show you are engaged and listening.
• Lean forward toward the other person.
• Smile or show concern appropriately.
• Offer words of affirmation and kindness.
• Give a hand squeeze or a warm touch on the shoulder to show empathy .

These subtle communications speak volumes about your level of engagement, understanding, and interest.

Sometimes the very best way to listen is to allow a space of silence in the conversation. A verbal response isn't always necessary, and this space of silence invites the speaker to offer more of what they are thinking and feeling.

It's uncomfortable to sit in silence for more than a few seconds, but push past the discomfort and just sit with it. Sometimes the most powerful connections are made in that silent space.

Before offering advice, try using powerful questions to help others uncover answers and solutions for themselves.

Use open-ended questions that require more than a “yes” or “no” response. Open-ended questions invite deeper insight and discourse between the two of you.

Simply the act of asking a probing question as a follow-up to a comment shows the other person you are paying attention and interested.

Be sure your questioning doesn't become an interrogation. You want to listen more than you question, but when you do ask a question, it should be well-timed and non-threatening.

Something as simple as, “Can you tell me more about that?” is enough to show you are really listening.

If you want to be a good listener, you need to allow the speaker to complete a thought without interrupting them.

You've probably encountered people who frequently interrupt, take over the conversation, and use the audience as a platform for talking about themselves or sharing their knowledge or expertise.

Even if they are doing this unconsciously, it feels as though they haven't heard a word you've said — or that they don't really care about what you have to say.

Before you interject your response or make your case, be sure the other person is finished speaking. Allow for a pause in the conversation long enough to ensure it's your turn to talk.

Also, don't leave the speaker hanging out there with a conversation topic they've started by abruptly changing the subject. Offer a response or an additional thought to the topic before you move on to something you want to talk about.

When it is your time to speak, let your words be a reflection of your careful listening. If you are truly engaged in what the other person is saying, then you aren't focused on what you want to say.

Rather that blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, take a moment to think about your response and what you want to offer.

If your opinion is solicited, be sure you reflect carefully on what you just heard so you can offer a well-considered reply.

Everyone has a story to tell, experiences to share, and ideas worth hearing. Don't assume that you know more than the speaker or that he or she doesn't have anything interesting to say.

Curiosity and interest in people is a sign of intelligence and humility. You recognize that you aren't the center of the universe and that others may have something valuable to offer you — even if it's something you may disagree with.

Invite others to share their opinions and knowledge, and ask pertinent questions that draw them out even more. Listen to understand and learn rather than to offer a counter opinion. Try to walk away from every conversation having learned something new.

Practicing non-judgment when listening is hard because we tend to make quick assumptions about people that color our opinions about them.

One disagreeable comment or body language that seems insecure or off-putting can make us withdraw from someone before we even get to know them.

Be centered enough in yourself to step back, refrain from jumping to conclusions, and recognize that there is so much more to a person than what meets the eye or ear. When you find yourself making quick judgments, this is the perfect time to show kindness, curiosity, and empathy.

If you begin a conversation with the intention of it being interesting, positive, and memorable, you have set the stage for a great connection.

You want the other person to feel safe talking to you — even about uncomfortable topics — and you can do that through your warmth and genuine interest in them.

When the other person feels validated and supported, they are more confident to share their thoughts and feelings, allowing for a more fulsome and authentic interaction with you.

In communication, there is often so much more going on inside the speaker than the spoken words suggest. As mentioned in point #2, good listeners seek to read the emotions that are underneath the speaker's words.

By paying attention to the feelings behind the words, you enhance the conversation for a deeper understanding of the other person. They not only feel you have heard them but also that you really get them.

Make statements like, “I sense you are really upset about this,” or “You must feel really disappointed and frustrated,” to let the listener know you understand what they are feeling. You validate and empathize with the true substance of what this person is sharing.

There are many topics of conversation in which disagreements and differing opinions can arise. Think politics, religion, money, and the best way to put the toilet paper on the roll.

As tempting as it may be to counter someone's opinion you disagree with, take the higher and safer road. Look for areas where you can agree. Find a way to steer the conversation in a direction that's a win-win for both (or all) people.

This maneuvering is a diplomatic skill worth learning, as it can save a conversation and even a relationship . Most controversial topics aren't worth angering someone over, and speaking your mind won't win you any points as listener of the year.

You can use noncommittal statements like, “That's an interesting point” or “I've never heard it put that way before” to transition to neutral territory. Or you can interject something like, “I think we can all agree that . . .” to shift the discussion to an area of agreement.

Have you ever shared something personal with someone, and you see that glint in their eyes that screams, “I can't wait to go gossip with someone about this juicy tidbit”? You feel betrayed before they leave the conversation.

As a good listener, you need to communicate your integrity as a confidant — even if you didn't intend to be one. Sometimes people overshare, especially with those who show interest and empathy.

Ask the speaker, “Is this information private?” Or just assume it is — especially if there is no valid reason to share it. Your discretion not only makes you a better listener. It makes you a person of character.

In social settings or chatting with your spouse, you don't need to take notes to show you're listening. If you did, it might seem weird or contrived.

But there are situations when taking notes is perfectly appropriate and often necessary. If you're in a meeting, talking with your boss, or at a doctor's office, writing down what the speaker is saying shows you feel the information is valuable and important.

Of course, you don't want to look like a stenographer who's penning every word, but making notes about specific points reveals you are engaged and listening. You may want to review the highlights of your notes with the speaker at the end of the conversation to ensure you captured the most salient information.

More Related Articles:

Do You Think Before You Speak? 7 Keys To A No Regrets Conversation

Wondering Why You Don’t Like People? 23 Reasons You Find People Irritating

11 Reasons She Hits You And How To Deal With It

Becoming a good listener is a skill you must practice. It's far too easy to spin off into your own world of distractions, ideas, and words.

• Consciously work on becoming more of a listener than a talker.
• Learn to read other people's expressions and body language.
• Watch for the things that go unsaid but that are still communicated.

As you become more skilled at listening, you'll find people gravitate toward you more for your opinion and feedback. You'll have a skill that gives you the edge in your career and in all of your relationships.

What do you need to do today to become a better listener ? Start with just one of the eight actions listed in this article. Practice it diligently, and you'll be surprised at the good listening habits you'll begin to develop.

11 thoughts on “15 Top Ways To Be A Good Listener And Improve Your Relationships”

Thank you! Your tips are so amazing! Now You are the truth Barrie!😃Yaay! The Email on Emotional Manipulators(right In my own family) my family used self-righteous Tactics to use against me to take care of both My parents)father deceased!

Love! Love! Love what you do! Lady you Deserve all my respect. Thank you for Your integrity and honesty! Shalom

“Don’t interrupt or change the subject” This is the number 1 most reason why people don’t understand each other.

This is article is good to share, people should read this one.

Wonderful lessons….grateful to your intrinsic services….

Dhayanithi, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

Great article that works in a patient/nurse relationship as well. Thanks!

I found this article to be very helpful!

Good article it’s very essential for our day to day life

Wow, it really helped me.

People should stop fantasizing about talking to others and imposing thenselves. The more they fantasize, the more they do it in actual.

This helped me a lot, thank you.

This reminds me of an acronym I use to help me be an active listener and improve my conversations with people. MOVE Mirror, over and over, validate, empathize.

Comments are closed.

8 Simple Ways to Be a Good Listener in Conversations

There might be affiliate links on this page, which means we get a small commission of anything you buy. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Please do your own research before making any online purchase.

There is a direct connection between the quality of the conversations that we have and the quality of our relationships.

Having confidence in your conversation skills can help you get to know a new client, mentor, or friend who could end up sticking around for years to come.

But did you know that a major part of being a good conversationalist is saying nothing at all?

It’s true– using mindful listening is the best way to demonstrate that you’re interested in what other people are saying and you’re open to hearing about their unique experiences, opinions, or expertise.

Table of Contents

Are You a Mindful Listener?

Being mindful during a conversation requires all of your focus to be on the speaker as you’re giving visual cues (such as nodding in agreement) as they talk.

Before knowing about mindful listening, I would have back and forth conversations while anxiously awaiting my turn to speak. I would half listen to the person who was speaking and half prepare what I was going to say in response.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but once you learn about mindful listening, you realize how much information you’re leaving on the table when people are talking to you.

You never know what insights other people can give you until you give them your full attention instead of focusing on your next move. Part of being a good listener is being open to new information that you’re not necessarily looking for, but need to hear.

Like many people, you may already think that you’re a good listener. But recent studies show that despite how we perceive our listening skills, most of us are more easily distracted than we think.

Improve your listening skills by creating a SMART goal to help you follow through. The video below provides a quick overview of SMART goals and then show three examples for each of the seven areas of your life — for a total of 21 examples.

In this article, we are going to talk about how to be a good listener so people will want to talk to you.

When you’re able to stand out in a conversation and engage the speaker in their own story, you will learn new perspectives and ideas and people will respect you for being able to put your ego aside as you hear what other people have to say.

But first, let’s look at some other benefits of being a good listener.

Benefits of Being a Good Listener

• Helps you empathize and understand someone else’s point of view
• Good listeners easily develop social and professional relationships
• Good listeners make good mentors because they make for good sounding boards for those who need to problem-solve
• Listening displays respect to other people
• Reduces chances of miscommunication

Now that you know why it’s important to be a good listener, let’s look at some strategies to help you get there.

1. Listen Without Making Judgements

We all have a natural tendency to judge people during interpersonal communication. We judge everything from the validity of what people say to how they’re saying it so we can assign a value to their knowledge. However, judging is rarely helpful when you’re having a conversation.

When listening is done well, it’s done with empathy. You’re aiming to view the world through someone else’s eyes to understand what they’re feeling.

This requires listening without judgement because if you let your opinions come into play, they derail the conversation as you send all types of subtle nonverbal cues relaying your differing perspectives.

If you enter a discussion with the goal of understanding someone else’s perspective without any judgment, people will want to have deeper discussions with you because they will trust that you respect what they’re saying and they will want to hear what you have to say in return.

Also, when people feel like they’re being judged, they’re less likely to divulge information, which means they could leave out something that would have been valuable for you to know .

Make sure that you wait until the conversation is over before making your assessment.

For example, if someone tells you: “I don’t think I’m going to go to college next year. I’ll probably just work for a year.” You could respond with judgement by saying: “What type of job could you get with just a high school degree?” This answer clearly shows your opinion .

To answer without judgment, separate yourself from your opinion, and say something like: “So you’re considering taking some time off?” This just reflects the idea back without passing judgment.

2. Think About Why You’re Talking

After listening from a judgement-free standpoint, respond with intention. Consider the motivations behind what you’re saying and be self-aware of why you’re responding.

Are you trying to show the other person your sense of understanding because you can relate to what they’re saying? Or are you planning to one-up them in some way?

You can’t come into a conversation with an agenda. You need to process what the other person is saying, rather than formulate your response while they’re still talking. You have to try to let go of your innate need to be heard so you can step into the other person’s reality and generate a sense of understanding.

For example, if someone is telling you about their problematic boss, don't jump in by saying, “I'm having trouble with my boss also, listen to what happened last week…”

Rather, say something like, “I'm sorry you're having a hard time with your boss. What's going on?” This response leaves the conversation focused on the original speaker rather than moving the focus over to you.

3. Use Positive Body Language

Physically showing that you’re listening doesn’t come naturally for everybody.  But if someone is ready to open up to you about their life, opinions, or experiences in some way, and you sit back with your arms crossed and don’t say a word, they’re not going to say much .

Avoid multitasking when having a conversation. Leave your phone alone and don’t worry about other people who may be passing by. Instead, focus on the speaker by turning your head and body to face them and by making eye contact. Lean in just a bit to demonstrate you’re engaged in the conversation.

To encourage someone to keep talking or to suggest that you agree with what they’re saying, nod your head as they're talking. You can also slightly tilt your head to demonstrate your interest in what is being said.

Make sure to maintain an open body posture by uncrossing your legs and keeping your arms open and your palms exposed. You may also stand with your arms relaxed at your sides to show a willingness to listen and interact.

Finally, when it’s done with intent, mirroring the speaker’s body language communicates that you're in agreement. Mirroring starts with noticing the other person’s facial expressions and physical stance and then subtly copying it yourself.

Even if you know you’re listening intently to someone, you have to show it through your body language in order for them to be sure, because your body language can communicate more than what you actually say .

4. Paraphrase What You Hear

Taking an opportunity to paraphrase what you hear during a conversation shows the speaker that you’re paying attention and it gives them an opportunity to clarify, if needed. 

Put what they’ve said into your own words to give the speaker a chance to correct your understanding.

Studies have found that misunderstandings in the workplace may lead to a lack of trust, increased stress, and increased job turnover. Because of this, it’s a good idea to always ensure clear communication.

There are several ways that you can do this. You can phrase it as a question to give the speaker a chance to refine their original comments, such as by saying, “So, you’re saying that….?” or you could paraphrase with a statement, starting with, “If I’m understanding you correctly, …”

Here are some tips to keep in mind when paraphrasing a speaker:

• Focus your paraphrase on what the speaker implied, not what you wanted them to imply (i.e., don’t say, “I think what you meant to say is…”)
• Keep the focus of your paraphrase on the speaker, so if they say, “I don’t have enough time to finish everything I want to do,” don’t respond with, “No one really has enough time, right?”
• Own your paraphrase by saying “If I’m understanding you correctly…”
• Use some of the speaker’s exact words. So if they say, “We need to reduce overhead costs by 5%.” You could say, “If I understood you correctly in the finance meeting, you believe we need to reduce overhead costs by 5%?”
• Don’t judge the speaker’s thoughts (e.g., “Don’t you think that’s rather unreasonable?”)
• Use paraphrasing to confirm your impressions (e.g., “It sounds like you were excited when…”)

5. Have an Intent to Learn

We often listen to each other to be polite, not because we are truly curious about what the other person is saying. But if you’re only pretending to listen, you won’t get anything out of the conversation, and the speaker is sure to notice.

You have to go into every conversation with a beginner’s mindset, willing to be open to new ideas and hear about other people’s feelings, thoughts, words, and perspectives. In order to learn and grow, you have to hear information that is disproving, not confirming.

Having this attitude will help you be an engaged listener because you will be looking for those pieces of information that are new to you. To do this, think about what you already know about the subject and listen out for anything new. This will help you stay engaged and wanting to hear more.

6. Ask Questions

A big part of learning is asking questions that encourage discovery and insight. Asking a good question lets the speaker know that you’ve heard what they said, and you understand it well enough to want more information.

Show that you’re listening by asking relevant follow-up questions when the speaker is finished talking.

Asking questions will not only prevent you from making assumptions, but it will also give you a deeper understanding of the intended message and it will help you remember what is being said.

Ask open-ended questions to encourage the speaker to go deeper. Things like, “How did that make you feel?” and “What’s your take on that?” are good ways to get someone to say more about a topic.

Asking questions like these will invite people to open up and help you obtain meaningful answers that you may not have otherwise gotten.

If you can't think of an open ended question, you can always fall back on “why” or “how” something happened. These follow-up questions can be used when the speaker is talking about any topic and comes to a break in their story, because neither can be answered in one word .

Encourage people to share more, even if it’s a very small amount. This will make you appear to be interested, even if you’re really not.

For example, if the person is talking about something you have no interest in such as listing every sport their child has ever played, ask something like, “Which was their favorite?” rather than trying to come up with a specific question.

( Check out this article on how to effectively communicate with someone who is prone to shutting down. )

7. Wait Before Responding

It can be tough, but it’s critical to wait for the end of the speaker’s thoughts before formulating a response.

When you’re thinking about what you’re going to say next while the speaker is still talking, you’re not receiving all of the information that’s being offered because you’re no longer listening. This gets you ahead with what you want to say, but lets the speaker’s message pass you by.

Allowing yourself to be distracted in this way during conversations is very self-serving because you’re making a declaration that your thoughts are more important than the speaker’s.

While focusing on yourself is important, realizing that there is a purpose larger than yourself opens you up to being a good listener. No matter how important you think your comment is, interrupting someone else to say it won’t make them want to keep talking to you.

In general, wait two seconds after a person is finished speaking before chiming in with your comments. Offering a short pause will show the speaker that you’re listening to what they’re saying and you want to be thoughtful in your response.

This pause will make the speaker feel valuable as they see you processing what they’ve said, allowing them to achieve their goal of speaking to begin with.

8. Build the Speaker’s Self-Esteem

Good listeners are able to give the speaker a positive experience by being active in the conversation. You can make a speaker feel supported and confident by offering them a safe environment in which to speak.

Try to offer constructive feedback without becoming defensive or argumentative.

Good listeners avoid sounding competitive or like they’re only listening to find errors in the speaker’s logic. Rather, they may challenge assumptions and pose another opinion, but they always make the speaker feel like they’re trying to help, not like they’re trying to win a debate.

You can do this by allowing differences to be discussed openly and by facilitating a constructive exchange of opinions. This requires speaking deliberately and aiming to make sense of both sides of the argument.

Final Thoughts on How to Be a Good Listener

In our increasingly polarized world, having good listening skills is critical in order to reduce needless conflict and promote an environment of understanding.

Keep these tips in mind next time you’re starting a conversation with someone to help them feel at ease and respected.

Remember that good listeners are those who people feel like they can bounce ideas off of rather than people who are just absorbing words. Good listeners give speakers more energy and help them leave conversations feeling confident in themselves.

Finally, if you want improve your communication skills, be sure read these articles:

• 11 SMART Goals Examples for Improving Your Listening Skills
• 9 Ways to Be a Good Communicator Throughout Your Life
• 13 SMART Goals Examples for Improving Your Communication Skills

Connie Stemmle is a professional editor, freelance writer and ghostwriter. She holds a BS in Marketing and a Master’s Degree in Social Work. When she is not writing, Connie is either spending time with her 4-year-old daughter, running, or making efforts in her community to promote social justice.

Listening Test - Are You a Good Listener?

It's the First Step in Studying!

• Tips For Adult Students
• Getting Your Ged

• B.A., English, St. Olaf College

Are you a good listener? Let's find out.

On a scale of 25-100 (100 = highest), how do you rate yourself as a listener? _____

Let’s find out how accurate your perception is. Rate yourself in the following situations and total your score.

4 = Usually, 3 = Frequently, 2 = Sometimes, 1 = Seldom

____ I try to listen carefully even when I’m not interested in the topic.

____ I’m open to viewpoints that are different from my own.

____ I make eye contact with the speaker when I’m listening.

____ I try to avoid being defensive when a speaker is venting negative emotions.

____ I try to recognize the emotion under the speaker’s words.

____ I anticipate how the other person will react when I speak.

____ I take notes when it’s necessary to remember what I’ve heard.

____ I listen without judgment or criticism.

____ I stay focused even when I hear things I don’t agree with or don’t want to hear.

____ I don’t allow distractions when I’m intent on listening.

____ I don’t avoid difficult situations.

____ I can ignore a speaker’s mannerisms and appearance.

____ I avoid leaping to conclusions when listening.

____ I learn something, however small, from every person I meet.

____ I try not to form my next response while listening.

____ I listen for main ideas, not just details.

____ I know my own hot buttons.

____ I think about what I’m trying to communicate when I speak.

____ I try to communicate at the best possible time for success .

____ I don’t assume a certain level of understanding in my listeners when speaking.

____ I usually get my message across when I communicate.

____ I consider which form of communication is best: email, phone, in-person, etc.

____ I tend to listen for more than just what I want to hear.

____ I can resist daydreaming when I’m not interested in a speaker.

____ I can easily paraphrase in my own words what I’ve just heard.

75-100 = You’re an excellent listener and communicator. Keep it up. 50-74 = You’re trying to be a good listener, but it’s time to brush up. 25-49 = Listening isn’t one of your strong points. Start paying attention.

Learn how to be a better listener: Active Listening .

Joe Grimm's Listen and Lead project is a fabulous collection of listening tools. If your listening could be improved, get help from Joe. He's a professional listener.

• How to Be a Good Listener
• Writing Practice Tests While You Study
• Activities and Ideas for Students with an Auditory Learning Style
• How to Find Adult Education and Earn Your GED in Texas
• How to Take Notes on a Laptop and Should You
• 10 Writing Ideas Concerning Women
• The Talk Show Icebreaker
• Collection of Learning Styles Tests and Inventories
• How to Find the Job You Want and Learn What You Need to Know
• How to Read Faster
• The Secret Power of Your Mind to Become What You Think
• 5 Time Management Tips for Busy Students
• Frequently Asked Questions About Continuing and Adult Education
• Questions to Ask Before Going Back to School
• How to Study for GED and High School Equivalency Exams at Home
• 10 Secrets to Success as an Adult Student

• Personal Essay

It Can Be Hard For Black Dads to Ask For Help — Here's How to Support Us

Wait, what? Summer is almost over? Why am I already seeing back-to-school ads? I have to say that entering this school year is going to hit different for both me and my two daughters — it will serve as the first time we're entering into this routine now that I'm officially divorced from their mother.

I'm not someone who thinks divorce is a bad thing. In fact, it was incredibly beneficial for my mental health to leave my marriage. However, I'd be lying if I said that my mental health was great to begin with. I'm open and honest with the fact that I suffer from depression and anxiety, and it became so pervasive in all aspects of my being that I made a serious suicide attempt in 2018 to escape from the pain.

Shocked? I get it. Let's keep it real: dudes aren't talking about mental health on these streets, but that doesn't mean it's any less of a problem for us. The stats don't lie, either.

More than six million men suffer from depression. Suicide is the seventh leading cause of male death in America. More than four times as many men die by suicide than women in America.

Showing up to life with mental illness is difficult, but for me, showing up to life as a man with mental illness is even more difficult. Showing up to life as a man of color with mental illness makes me want to put a cape on, because it's super difficult. Doing all that as a divorced dad is something I don't know if I'm ready for. It's completely overwhelming at times.

Even the simplest tasks to many — like getting the kids ready for their next school year — could put many dads over the edge.

Speaking of which, I know that the racists and non-empaths will roll their eyes at this, but I can't express how difficult it is to be a Black man in America today. We're viewed as threats the moment we walk out of the door. We are viewed as incompetent in almost all areas that don't involve jumping, running, joke telling, dancing, or singing. We're blamed for why America isn't great again — I mean, was America ever great for people who look like me? You get the idea. That doesn't mean I'm a victim, because I've experienced a decent amount of success in life, but the level of nonsense I had to deal with to get here is unique to being Black.

But do you think the Black men you love in your life will express the pain of their declining mental health to you? If the answer is "no" or "I don't know," you need to figure out why before it's too late.

I know what you're thinking, "My guy, what does this have to do with back-to-school?" It has everything to do with it. Dads often struggle to show up in life because of the pressure to put a brave face on when they're struggling. We can't show weakness or fear without expecting ridicule from our peers, so we often suffer in silence. Even the simplest tasks to many — like getting the kids ready for their next school year — could put many dads over the edge. Many of us cannot express how overwhelmed we actually are.

Trust me, bro. I'm living it. I certainly don't have all the answers, but here are five quick tips you can implement today to help dads — especially Black dads who are struggling out there — during BTS season or any season.

If you see the signs, take action.

Sadly, it's pretty rare that a Black man will outwardly say, "I'm depressed." You need to look for the subtle signs: escapism (alcohol/drug abuse, excessive video game play and social media usage, sleeping more) and mood swings (irritability and the silent treatment are big ones).

When you see the signs, you can ask the common questions, like, "What's wrong?" or "Are you OK?" but you know what answers you'll probably get ("Nothing" and "I'm fine").

Instead, it could be helpful to be frank. You can say: "Hey, I care about you enough to notice that something is wrong, and I'm here for you when you're ready to talk. Even if you're not ready to talk now, just know that I'm going to continue to check in on you because you're that important to me."

From there, it's as simple as sending check-in texts during the day to say, "Hey, I'm thinking about you. Just want to make sure you're doing OK." Simple acts like that will demonstrate that you care about him. The goal is that eventually he will feel comfortable opening up to you.

Be an active listener.

I've learned that active listening is the most valuable skill a person can have in a relationship. I'm not just talking romantically, either. This goes for parent-child, work colleagues, and friends. We live in a world where people only "kinda listen" to conversations, and when people kinda listen to men, they're met with some version of, "Oh man, that sucks, bro . . . anyway, did you see the game last night?" All this does is make a man believe that nobody cares about his problems — especially when that comes from someone he loves and trusts. And then it's incredibly easy for him to retreat into his shell to suffer alone.

Be the person who actively listens to a man. Even though I believe active listening is a superpower nowadays because it's so rare, it doesn't take much to do it effectively. If he trusts you enough to open up to you, please take it seriously. Some simple questions to ask are as follows:

• "Can you tell me more about XYZ? I want to know more about why it's impacting you."
• "This sounds pretty tough. Can we make a plan together to tackle it?"
• "Do you want my opinions or do you just want to vent? I'm cool with either one, but I want to help you as best I can."
• "I'm glad you trust me enough to talk about this with me. Just know that whenever you need someone to listen, I'll be here."

That said — your own boundaries need to be taken into account. You're likely not a therapist, so you shouldn't be expected to handle a ton of emotional dumping. If it becomes too much for you, say, "I'm here for you, but I also think you should talk to someone more qualified than I am. Let's see if we can find a therapist for you."

Don't make it about you.

Oftentimes, it takes an incredible amount of courage for Black men to be vulnerable about the issues in their lives, especially when vulnerability is frowned upon and ridiculed in the Black community. The quickest way to upset men in that moment is to make it about you. For example, if a dude opens up to you about feeling depressed and overwhelmed and you respond with, "I know what it's like to be overwhelmed too. Here are some of the things I'm currently dealing with right now . . ."

Not to be rude, but the depressed man couldn't give a rat's ass end about what's going on with you right now. Resist the urge to talk about yourself and refer to point No. 2.

Take something off their plate.

If you see a man is struggling, don't ask to take something off their plate — just do it.

Is a single dad overwhelmed? Give him a DoorDash gift card so he can take a night off from burning water (that's my mom's way of saying a person can't cook); send him online recommendations for backpacks for the new school year; or help him register his kiddos for classes.

Don't invalidate them.

One of the main reasons I attempted suicide six years ago is that people invalidated my feelings. I'd hear, "Keep your head up, dude. It's not that bad." Or: "Everyone has problems . . . you gotta be tougher and stop complaining."

When men hear enough of that, they'll start to think they're broken for feeling the way they do. Not only that, they'll stop opening up to anyone. And before you know it, they may become suicide statistics.

Back-to-school season may not be a big deal to you, but it can be overwhelming to many parents — especially dads who feel as if they don't have the permission or outlet to share their feelings with others.

The bottom line is we all need to show up better in terms of men's mental health. Doing so could mean the difference between life and death.

Doyin (pronounced "doe-ween") Richards is a bestselling children's author, dynamic keynote speaker, and critically acclaimed DEI consultant. His clients range from Fortune 100 companies to elementary schools, and he inspires people to be open about mental health/mental illness and embrace anti-racism in work, school, and beyond. He also delivered a TEDx talk on anti-racism. Doyin is a PS Council member.

Body Language

5 simple habits of amazing listeners, how to tune in and truly connect..

Posted February 10, 2021 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• Why Relationships Matter
• Take our Relationship Satisfaction Test
• Find counselling to strengthen relationships
• Good conversation depends as much on listening as on speaking.
• Listening well comprises 5 skills: creating safety, validating concisely, deploying curiosity, whole body listening, and noticing subtext.
• In other words, put your phone down!

Happy, satisfied, and nourished: It's how we feel after a good meal—and also after a conversation with a great listener. Like bees to bright, welcoming blossoms, we are naturally drawn to amazing listeners.

How do great listeners help their conversation partners feel truly seen, heard, and understood? They tap into these 5 skills:

1. Great listeners create safety.

What makes a great listener so magnetic? They know that the basis of any solid connection is something fundamental: safety. At its heart, safety is freedom from risk, danger, or harm. Conversational safety falls right in line, offering freedom from judgment, fault-finding, or rejection.

Just as immersing yourself in a novel requires suspension of disbelief, immersing yourself in listening requires suspension of criticism. This is not to say great listeners never disagree, have their own opinions, or offer what worked for their sister, but they apply the Hippocratic oath of “First, do no harm” to their conversations.

2. Great listeners validate in a few simple words.

“Of course.” “That makes sense.” “For sure.” “I get that.” All of these statements are short—three words or fewer—but all affirm a person’s experience or feelings as worthy and accepted, which is the very definition of validation.

In conversation, validating phrases like “Of course you feel that way,” or “That makes total sense,” don’t necessarily convey agreement, but they do convey something even bigger: acceptance, which underscores the sense of safety from Habit #1.

3. Great listeners follow their natural curiosity.

This is the fun part of listening. Rather than nodding and waiting until it’s their turn to talk, great listeners use their spidey senses to pick up on interesting tidbits. They sit up and take notice of under-the-radar comments or casually dropped breadcrumbs.

For instance, this past week, the very first sentence a new client said was, “I think my problems started when the university administration told me getting stalked was my fault.” Whoa! Sentences like these are packed with meaning like a treasure chest is packed with valuables. Opening them up and digging around yields gems of great interest and great value.

Therefore, when your brain starts buzzing at a seemingly offhand comment, ask questions. Like a journalist, ask what, when, where, why, and how. Ask for examples and details. Following your natural curiosity by asking questions not only demonstrates that you are listening and interested, but almost always yields an intriguing story.

4. Great listeners listen with their entire bodies.

Kindergarten teachers impart something called “whole body listening.” It goes like this: Use your eyes to watch nonverbals, your brain to think about what is being said, and your heart to feel emotions—and keep the rest of your body quiet to show respect.

I love that listening gets formally taught to kids, but like the quadratic equation or the difference between fission and fusion, many of us lose it over time, especially as life gets busy. The result: We often try to multitask while listening, half-listening while getting stuff done, or staring at a screen.

But much of what we communicate comes from nonverbal cues like facial expressions, gestures, and posture. So when we multitask while listening, we miss all these signals, plus we send the message to our conversation partner that chopping carrots or scrolling through our phone is just as important as what they have to say.

I get it: Refraining from multitasking is hard. Why? Because listening is largely internal, it appears passive. It may not feel like an activity unto itself. Therefore, involve your whole body to make listening conscious for you and noticeable to your conversation partner.

5. Great listeners hear what’s underneath the words.

Ready for ninja-level listening? Listen to what’s not being said. Maybe the speaker’s face doesn’t match their words: Perhaps they smile while talking about horrible, vulnerable things. Maybe their body language changes suddenly: Perhaps they cross their arms and shift their gaze. Maybe their tone changes: Perhaps they start to sound defensive, skeptical, or plain old sad. What to do? You already have all the tools. Follow your natural curiosity, listen with your whole body, and refrain from judging so they feel safe.

All in all, listening well is simply a matter of tuning in. Tune in to the person who’s speaking, tune in to your own curiosity, and tune in to your own possible judgments (and squash them before they fall out of your mouth).

Good listening can be hard at first. It’s much more tempting to do something else simultaneously, talk about your own experience, or offer advice (which, when you think about it, is a form of judgment: "Here’s what you should do”). But it’s worth the practice. Soon, you’ll be so good at listening you’ll do it without saying a word.

Facebook /LinkedIn image: loreanto/Shutterstock

Ellen Hendriksen, Ph.D. , is a psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• International
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Sticking up for yourself is no easy task. But there are concrete skills you can use to hone your assertiveness and advocate for yourself.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

Advertisement

Supported by

JD Vance, an Unlikely Friendship and Why It Ended

His political views differed from a transgender classmate’s, but they forged a bond that lasted a decade — until Mr. Vance seemed to pivot, politically and personally.

• Share full article

By Stephanie Saul

Stephanie Saul, who covers education, reviewed about 90 emails and text messages spanning between 2014 and 2017.

When his book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was published in 2016, JD Vance sent an email apologizing to a close friend from his Yale Law School days. The friend identified as transgender, but Mr. Vance referred to them in the book as a lesbian.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“Hey Sofes, here’s an excerpt from my book,” Mr. Vance wrote to his friend, Sofia Nelson. “I send this to you not just to brag, but because I’m sure if you read it you’ll notice reference to ‘an extremely progressive lesbian.’”

“I recognize now that this may not accurately reflect how you think of yourself, and for that I am really sorry,” he wrote. “I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry! Love you, JD.”

Nelson wrote back the same day, calling Mr. Vance “buddy” and thanking him for “being sweet,” adding, “If you had written gender queer radical pragmatist, nobody would know what you mean.” Nelson asked for an autographed copy, then signed off with, “Love, Sofia.”

That exchange is from a series of emails between two friends, part of a close-knit group of 16 students who remained together throughout their first law school semester in the fall of 2010. As now-Senator Vance seeks the vice presidency, Nelson has shared about 90 of their emails and text messages, primarily from 2014 through 2017, with The New York Times.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Why I am not a Stoic

 Mariana Alessandri

• X (formerly Twitter)

For philosophers like me, the recent resurgence of the ancient philosophy of Stoicism makes sense. Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius used logic and habit to overcome their anger and dissolve their sorrows. Their wisdom reached not just their contemporaries, but twenty-first century seekers who suffer from road rage or social anxiety or bouts of melancholy. Some of us have been teaching Stoicism for decades — trying to get college students to value daily rituals like reading, meditating, and journalling to help quiet the incessant voices in their heads — and our job getting them interested has recently gotten easier thanks to TikTok.

Stoicism teaches that some things are within our control and some things outside of it. The sooner we can figure out which is which, they say, the sooner we can progress towards ataraxia , or freedom from worry. For my students, who are assigned to live like a Stoic for a week, this means realising that they have little to no control over other people’s thoughts and actions, traffic, and their bodies. These belong to the category of things that Epictetus said are “not up to us”.

When students baulk at the idea that their grade is not up to them — having grown up in an American school system that assured them that they can make their dreams come true — I remind them that Epictetus meant they can’t control it 100 per cent .

Want the best of Religion & Ethics delivered to your mailbox?

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

We get miserable, according to the Stoics, when we spend days and weeks and sometimes years eating broccoli only to get cancer; when we study all night only to sit at an 8am exam on material not covered in the book; when we kill ourselves training for a job that was given to the boss’s son. Our disappointment is directly proportional to our misunderstanding of what is within versus what is outside of our control. The universe is not on our side; it comes at us as indiscriminately and shamelessly as the shark that tore a woman’s flesh from her knee bone at my south Texas beach on 4 July 2024.

Once it clicks with a would-be Stoic that “externals” are not where we should be focusing our energy, then we can turn exclusively toward what we can control. “Internals”, as Epictetus calls them, include our thoughts, judgements, feelings, aversions, attractions, and reactions. Some students are energised by the idea that, although they cannot stop their mother from telling them they’ve had enough to eat, they can choose not to feel ashamed.

The natural Stoics jump on board right away, having waited all their lives to hear someone say what they know to be true. As Marcus Aurelius put it, people are annoying, and as long as we expect our family and friends to act more or less the same as yesterday and yesteryear, we can stop getting frustrated by it. No surprises, no disappointments — everyone lets us down eventually. The efforts we put into changing them would be better spent improving our reaction to their antics. One student demonstrated this mindset shift in her journal. She began with, “Please let my cousin not be annoying today”, but quickly followed it with: “No! Epictetus would say please let me stop getting so annoyed by my cousin.” This student successfully switched from externals to internals.

A statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius Augustus dominating the Campidoglio in Rome, Italy. (Photo Beto / iStock / Getty Images)

With time, practice, and patience, the Stoics all but guarantee that we can stop getting ruffled in traffic, miffed at the spilled latte, and vengeful about our cheating lover. When my students feel themselves getting angry, sad, worried, or let down, I tell them it’s Stoic-time. From practices like breathing to singing to telling ourselves that the asshole who just cut us off is probably taking his pregnant wife to the emergency room, we can prevent bad feelings from bubbling up. We’re not upset, not insulted; we don’t let them win. “The best revenge is to not be like that”, said Marcus Aurelius. Our skin is tougher than we give it credit for, and we don’t have to let people under it.

My students get through their week-long Stoic assignment one way or another, and in a reflective essay they evaluate whether they think a year’s worth of living these principles would help them be happier. Some say “yes”, some “no”, and some didn’t practice enough to know whether it would help or not. These students learn that they had less discipline than they thought, or that controlling their internals proved tougher than they realised. In the saddest of cases — a significant number — students end up feeling worse. These judge themselves harshly for not being “stronger”.

But there are always a handful of students who come out proud of their “big feelings” and wouldn’t want to live in a more disciplined, if less emotional, world, even if it meant they would feel bad less often.

Jumping off the Stoic bandwagon

I was a student of Stoicism once. I started a Stoicism reading group; I meditated on how small, short, and relatively insignificant human life is; I journalled about how to control my oversized negative emotions and not sweat the small stuff.

For a time, I felt in control of myself and my happiness, and I enjoyed trying to live like an ancient philosopher. “Personally, I am a Stoic and an Existentialist” — that’s what I wrote on the last page of my copy of Epictetus’s Handbook , the one I teach every year and used to read every August before classes started. I don’t know when I wrote this, or how I thought I could be both. I had fallen in love with existentialism in the university and had no plans to give it up. When I read existentialists like Søren Kierkegaard and Miguel de Unamuno , I felt at home. They were as frail as I was, tender and confused and full of ire and longing.

But as a Stoic looking in the mirror, all I could see was a disaster. The existentialist in me was wildly emotional, and the Stoic sharply judgemental. I called myself broken and a mess, undisciplined and terrible at controlling my insides. When I would crawl to Seneca or Epictetus for advice on how to deal with my anger, I ended up in self-loathing over my failure to overcome it. Living like a Stoic convinced me that I was a philosophical weakling. So, I jumped off the bandwagon.

The existentialists I read don’t know what they are doing, but together we muddle through life hand over hand and take our disappointing friends with us. We feel nauseous, we live in chronic pain, we suffer dark moods. Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde offer us a way to walk this life with dignity, even when we’re lying on the bathroom floor. María Lugones and C.S. Lewis help me feel less alone. Since reading these and others who write about anger, sadness, grief, depression, and anxiety, I have stopped marking dark moments as failures. Suffering and disorientation are holy when we let ourselves feel them, because they reveal a truth that is within all of us: we are scared. Scared and sacred.

Former Admiral James Stockdale, the running mate of the Reform Party candidate Ross Perot, during the vice-presidential debate on 13 October 1992. (Photo by Ann States / Consolidated News Pictures / Getty Images)

Philosophy for a messy world?

My final break with the practice of Stoicism came in 2020 while learning more about the bestselling author and stoic Ryan Holiday . He writes eloquently about Admiral James Stockdale , a POW in the Vietnam War for almost eight years. Stockdale used Stoic practices to not “break” under torture, thanks to having read Epictetus three years prior to his capture.

The fact that Holiday regards Stockdale as a modern-day exemplar of Stoicism finally pushed me over the edge. It convinced me that Stoicism is an amazing tool and a near-perfect philosophy … for prison. If you find yourself, like Stockdale, trapped in a situation that is definitively out of your physical control, then Stoicism might be the best option. It makes sense: Epictetus was a slave. Seneca was surrounded by insane and powerful men — first exiled by Claudius, Seneca was forced by Nero to kill himself in 65 CE. Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman empire and needed a better way to deal with bloody treason. 

Stoicism can help us endure the impossible, but most of us do not live inside a torture chamber. The world I live in is sexist, ageist, racist, homophobic, and generally unfriendly. It’s hardly unchangeable, though, and I want to do more than endure it. I feel responsible for improving my society, not just finding a way to not let it break me.

I no longer think that I can be both an existentialist and a Stoic. Once I recognised the cost of Stoicism on my self-regard — calling myself a monster and a weakling — I decided to choose existentialism’s choppy waters over the Stoic’s steady ship. I still teach Stoicism, however, because I see that for some students it’s the philosophy they have been waiting for. I have found that picking a philosophy to live by is as much about disposition as it is about logic. It’s important to choose one that makes you feel like you are not alone in all this messy, messy world.

Mariana Alessandri is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and the author of Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods .

“Know thyself”: Why the chemistry of your mental life does not explain the meaning of your emotions

Why we need less anger, and more shame

Putting balance on the scales

Compassion fatigue: Simone Weil on why the moral life is exhausting — and rightly so

The role of blame and forgiveness in the work of morality

Do anger and forgiveness have a place in intimate relationships?

How the misuse of moral language can impede moral improvement

Kierkegaardian reflections on the meaning of one’s death

How to evade moral evasions

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

2024 Paris Olympics

• How To Watch
• Storylines To Follow

Phryge, the mascot of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, cheers at the women's group B match between the U.S. and Zambia on Thursday. Marc Atkins/Getty Images hide caption

The Paris Olympics are finally here. More than 10,000 athletes have descended on the French capital for more than two weeks of competition, patriotism and potential drama. NPR’s own Olympics team will bring you recaps, coverage and color — including on the ground in Paris — online and on air over the next few weeks.

Chinese swimmers at Paris Olympics deny doping accusations as diplomatic row grows

Fei Liwei, of China, competes during a heat in the men's 400-meter freestyle at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Saturday in Nanterre, France. He's one of 11 Chinese swimmers competing in Paris who face questions over a 2021 sports doping case. Martin Meissner/AP hide caption

NPR is in Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics. For more of our coverage from the games head to our latest updates.

NANTERRE, France — Standing in a scrum of reporters Saturday night, after competing in the Olympic 400 meter freestyle final , China's Fei Liwei shrugged off questions about the doping scandal that has embroiled his national team .

"Our Chinese government on our team always tells us we have the clean model and the clean results and our results right now are based on hard work and training," Fei said, speaking through an interpreter.

Swimmers score first Paris gold for U.S. in men's relay final

The 21-year-old from Hangzhou is one of 23 elite Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2021 ahead of the last Summer Games in Tokyo .

Eleven of those athletes are scheduled to compete in Paris.

Among them is two-time Olympic gold medal winner Zhang Yufei, who also told reporters she rejects the doping claims.

But in comments reported by the AFP news service, Zhang acknowledged the scandal and questions raised by fellow athletes weigh on her.

"I am very worried that my good friends to look at me with colored (suspicious) eyes and they do not want to compete with me," Zhang said.

Zhang Yufei, of China, competes during a heat in the women's 100-meter butterfly at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Saturday in Nanterre, France. Ashley Landis/AP hide caption

Positive drug tests, kept quiet

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the lead global organization monitoring drug use by athletes, now acknowledges it kept the 2021 results secret and accepted China's explanation that the positive tests were the result of accidental contamination.

WADA never conducted its own independent investigation and allowed the athletes to continue competing without interruption.

U.S. figure skaters to receive team gold medal after delays tied to Valieva doping

"We believe we are clean," Fei said. "We cooperate on all the tests with WADA. We oppose doping."

His comments came on a day when two other Chinese swimmers who tested positive in 2021 won an Olympic bronze medal in the women's 4-by-100 freestyle relay final.

The women were scheduled to take part in a press conference after their win, but failed to appear.

U.S. faces growing pushback over case

While Chinese athletes face intense scrutiny, the U.S. finds itself facing growing diplomatic pushback from international sports officials - and from official Chinese media.

At issue are American probes into WADA's handling of the case.

Olympic officials try to crush U.S. probes of China doping, threaten Salt Lake Games

Last week, the International Olympic Committee threatened to revoke Salt Lake City's 2034 Winter Games unless the U.S. backs off investigations by the U.S. Congress and the Justice Department.

Ingmar De Vos, an IOC committee member from Belgium said the criminal probe launched by the U.S. Department of Justice is "extremely worrying and basically, for us, unacceptable."

In a press conference in Paris, the head of WADA, Witold Banka, blasted the U.S. and suggested that American athletes are the ones who should be drug-tested more aggressively.

Echoing the IOC's accusation, Banka described U.S. concerns as part of a diplomatic power play designed to give American officials more clout.

"It’s highly incorrect that one country to impose jurisdiction on antidoping decisions on the rest of the world," Banka said.

Witold Banka, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, attends a press conference at the 2024 Summer Olympics on Thursday in Paris, France. Michel Euler/AP/AP hide caption

During the press conference where Banka appeared, Chinese media repeatedly suggested their nation's athletes are being treated unfairly, with more aggressive testing in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics compared with other nations.

U.S. not backing down

WADA officials have said repeatedly that the case was handled properly, while refusing to explain why the test results were kept secret in an apparent break with drug testing protocol.

Swimmer Michael Phelps says China doping scandal threatens the Olympic movement

So far at least, U.S. officials appear unwilling to back down. In a statement sent to NPR, U.S. lawmakers on a House panel probing the China doping scandal said pressure to drop their inquiry was inappropriate.

“It speaks volumes that the IOC would...protect WADA rather than work together to ensure it is fulfilling its mission to protect clean sport," the statement said.

Former Olympic athletes Michael Phelps (left) and Allison Schmitt (right), listen as Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, center, testifies during a Congressional hearing examining Anti-Doping Measures in Advance of the 2024 Olympics, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, June 25, 2024, in Washington. Rod Lamkey/AP hide caption

The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, suggested in a statement that diplomatic pressure to drop the case is part of an on-going coverup.

"If WADA has nothing to hide, they would welcome the chance to answer questions, not run and hide," Tygart said. "There are basic unanswered questions of how WADA allowed China to sweep 23 tests under the rug."

• Paris Olympics 2024