Why do you need to learn effective communication?

Effective communication skills and effective communication are the foundation of success in many aspects of our life. After all, many areas of activity require us to be able to present ourselves correctly, communicate with people correctly and make new acquaintances. Typically, people with good communication skills have great relationships with friends and family.

Therefore, effective communication is one of the key aspects that each person needs to develop and improve. However, many people find it difficult to know where to start. In this article, we will list the most common problem areas in this area. We will also give some tips for solving these problems.

Why learn to communicate effectively?

Some people may find it ridiculous to think that we should consciously think, how we should speak or write messages. But we communicate with people most of our day, and life in general. Whether it be verbally in meetings, over a cup of coffee in the break room, or via social media and instant messengers from home. In any case, it is very important that we can clearly state our point of view and understand our interlocutor.

Excellent communication skills will not only help you in your daily life. But they can play a critical role when it comes to job interviews, resolving conflicts with parents, friends, work colleagues, and so on. By being able to verbalize your thoughts in a concise and polite manner, you become not only a pleasant conversationalist, but also save time and energy. In doing so, you avoid repeated explanations. Being an effective communicator will help you build relationships with people more successfully. In addition, you will feel confident in all situations.

How to identify the problem of ineffective communication?

Many people realize that they have problems with communication skills. But they don’t know exactly what to work on. In order to determine this, anyone can ask their friend, relative, romantic partner, or colleague to help them figure it out. I am sure that many of your loved ones will be happy to help you find ways to improve yourself and improve yourself. Therefore, first of all, get feedback from them. Ask them to be honest with you and point out your communication problems.

In the event that you cannot identify specific problems in your communication skills. Then start working on the most common problem areas. In total, there are four main areas of communication skills that each person needs to work on. First, it is attentive listening. Next comes non-verbal communication. Then emotional awareness, and finally, the right questions.

Four main areas of communication skills

1. Careful listening

Listening carefully to the interlocutor is the most common problem that almost everyone needs to work on. After all, we all tend to get distracted during a conversation. Or think about something of your own when talking with a person. Quite often, we just give out some kind of answer, as if not having heard what we were asked about. In most cases, we think more about what we need to say next.

Learning to listen carefully to a person is not only listening carefully to his words, but also their pronunciation. You need to pay attention to the person’s hand movements and other non-verbal signs. It literally means giving your full attention to the speaker and being genuinely interested in him. Attentive listeners use methods of clarification and reflection. To validate what the other person said and avoid confusion. These techniques clearly demonstrate that you are focusing all your attention on a specific person.

2. Non-verbal communication

Effective communication depends a lot on understanding a person’s body language. Plus, a huge proportion of any conversation is non-verbal. And in some cases, it can go up to 80%. Hence, we also need to consider and understand non-verbal communication. Especially when it is absent or limited. For example, when you are communicating in writing or by phone.

By non-verbal communication, I mean our body language. But other than that, it includes our tone of voice, a person’s movements, eye contact and facial expressions. This means that we can better understand the other person by paying sufficient attention to their body language. In addition, thanks to non-verbal communication, you can make sure that your message was correctly perceived and you understood each other.

3. Emotional awareness

The third area of ​​communication that many people need to work on is understanding our own emotions. As well as understanding other people’s emotions and the ability to manage those emotions. After all, we are all human. Consequently, it can be difficult for us to manage our feelings and emotions. None of us can leave our emotions elsewhere and not be influenced by them. We don’t need to try to do this.

However, understanding our emotions, both positive and negative, can definitely improve our communication. Scientists call this emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses a wide range of skills, usually categorized as personal and social skills.

Basically, the principle behind the various skills that make up emotional intelligence is that you must be aware and understand your own emotions. In addition, you must be able to control them. As a result, to understand and correctly interact with other people.

4. The right questions

The fourth area to work on is asking the right questions. Effective communication depends a lot on the right questions. This is an important skill to ensure that you understand the person correctly and that you are truly interested in communicating with them. It is also a very good way to get more information on a specific topic. Or just start a conversation with someone. The person who knows how to ask the right questions is often considered a very good listener and a pleasant conversationalist. After all, he spends more time interested in other people. And not to convey your own opinion.

How to ask questions correctly?

When people ask me: “what do you work?”, “What car do you drive?”, “Where do you live?”. Then I immediately understand that this person is not particularly smart. Especially if this happens in those cases when we are still little acquainted with him. After all, the answers to these questions will not give the questioner enough information. And they clearly will not contribute to our fruitful conversation.

So you don’t need to fill your head with unnecessary information. It will be much better if you only ask what matters. Ask for information that may be useful to you in life. Ask specific questions. Or those that will serve as a continuation of a useful conversation. It is extremely important for us to learn how to ask the right questions if we want to be effective in dialogue and be an interesting interlocutor.

Effective communication doesn’t end with just spoken words. Email, text messages, social media correspondence. All of this also plays an important role in relationships with people. Many people don’t like reading a text wall in an email or instant messenger. They also dislike being bombarded with a lot of messages from the same person. Such messages are very tedious and inconvenient to read. So what if we are talking about effective written communication. Clear sentences or precise notations that detail the topic and are not too long are ideal.