Communication

Communicating effectively is one of the most important life skills out of all of them. Even though it may seem simple, communication can take a lifetime to master. If you’re currently wondering how effective your own communication skills are, don’t worry too much because there are easy ways to improve them.

Well that answer is simple. Because literally everything we do involves some form of communication and not having good communication skills can be detrimental. You need to have good communication in things such as:

• Professional settings
• Personal life
• Interacting with others

There are many different forms of communication, however, I’m mainly going to be focusing on interpersonal communication.

Interpersonal communication: Process of exchanging information, feeling, and  meaning between individuals through verbal and non-verbal methods. This can include facial expressions, body language and gestures.

• Know that this is a two-way process. The first is how we send and receive messages, the second is how we take in messages and process them.

• When trying to improve communication there are four main areas of focus:
• Learning to listen: Don’t just listen and not pay attention, look at the non-verbal ques when someone is speaking. Trying giving your full attention and concentration, so you can fully understand what they’re saying and not saying.
• Understanding non-verbal communication: Remember most non-verbal communication consists of facial expressions, body language, tone, pitch, eye contact and gestures. Knowing how to identify these are important. You can do this by being more observant when talk to others and this in turn can make it easier for you to understand other people effectively.
• Have emotional awareness and management: Awareness of our own and other people’s emotions, and can effectively manage them.
• Questioning skills: Many people struggle with this part. It’s an important step because it helps to ensure communication between yourself and others.

• All of the four main areas I previously mentioned have one thing in common, receiving messages. Whether you or someone else is on the receiving end of the message it’s good to know how to effectively send messages to others.

• There are a few things to keep in mind when sending messages:
• Don’t say the first thing that comes to your mind
• Know what you want to communicate
• Understanding/using humor
• Treat people equally
• If disagreements occur try resolving them early before they get worse
• Stay positive in your messages

Understanding how to effectively communicate with others can be difficult. For some people it’s easier for them to notice non-verbal messages than verbal, while others it’s the opposite. Keep in mind these areas of improvement and things to know when communicating are very general, they’re not specific to just interpersonal communication as they can be applied to other types of communication. Communication is never going to stop, so you might as well try and get better at it since you’ll be communicating with other the rest of your life.