Talking can help your career especially if you are trying to land a job. When you talk, you can convey your ideas to the hiring manager. In your career, you can easily get promoted if you convey great ideas or even motivate your team to be very productive.

On the other hand, listening can also accomplish you the same tasks especially when you are trying to help your company improve. Listening can help you gather ideas and formulate better decisions. It is not just a simple act but a tool that can get you to places and ideas you never had by talking.

Content vs. Delivery

There are many challenges to proper listening in your career. Among them is delivery or how the idea is conveyed to the audience. This is common to conferences wherein people tend to ignore those who do not have any pleasing presentations. When the delivery is bland, there is a big chance that the speech will be ignored.

But if you want to learn new ideas that will help your career, you have to focus on the content. Do not just judge the speaker based on the tone of his or her voice. Learn more by studying the information they give.

Concentration vs. Emotions

Another distraction or block to proper listening to improve your career is your emotions. Everyone has emotions and they can be expressed at any given time. But your emotions can become the block to proper listening. Instead of knowing more about the content, your emotions take over which prevents you from listening to the content.

Keep your emotions at bay when trying to listen to someone who speaks. You may be angry at the speaker or anyone in the room but that should temporarily halt in favor of listening to the ideas being presented.

Tools for Concentration

There are two ways to improve your listening skills at work. The first method is to take notes. No one will be able to remember everything that was said in the conference or meeting but they can be easily recalled with a note. You do not have to write everything – a simple phrase or word that can help you recall should be more than enough.

The second method is to look for areas of interest in the meeting or talk and simply expand. This will help you avoid distractions and even gather more information during the meeting.

Practice Makes Perfect

Listening can be a difficult task for some but it does not mean that nothing can be done about it. Practice listening well by increasing your concentration. This will help you focus on the information conveyed and use it to your advantage. Your mind can complement your ears to slowly gather data you need in becoming a good listener.

Start learning to listen carefully if you want to improve your career. Great ideas do not just come from what you have conceived but from other people as well. Harness this skill so that your career considerably improves with the approval of your peers.