How to Develop Communication Skills

Interpersonal Communication Letter of Advice

Holly Haire

Communication is one of the utmost consequential points in relationships. Many marriages nosedive simply because there is a failure of communication between the couple. Without sufficient communication even the most minuscule of quandaries can cause an astronomically immense crevice in a relationship (making a mountain out of a mole hill). The paramount things (Set your priorities) which should be: your relatives, your progenies, your physical condition, your protégé, and your favorite ardency. In order to become authentic communicators, we must first understand what interpersonal communication involves. Even though appropriate levels of self-disclosure in relationships, the barriers to effective interpersonal interactions because words have the influence to create and dismayed attitudes, behavior, and perception and the impact of gender and culture on interpersonal communications.

Rehearse dynamic heedfully aurally perceiving. Not only is it habit-composing, but it is withal one of the most consequential pieces to the communication puzzle. To become an active listener necessitates focus and an unblemished mind. So, rather than composing your: rebuttal or organizing your coupons while the other person is verbalizing, free your mind of any diversions. It will preserve you time, error and conflict if you unpretentiously take an interval in the commencement to heedfully auricularly discern intently. And once you have received the message, reiterate it back to the person you are communicating with to eschew any misunderstandings. One of the unsurpassed ways to participate in efficacious communication is merely through your body language.

Subsequently a prodigious dole out of what you communicate to others is conveyed in your physical posture, it’s consequential that you eschew such comportments as crossing your upper limb in front of your upper body. This nonverbal cue may contradict what you are verbally expressing. Instead, sit up proper and procumbency the person you are verbalizing with. Mirroring another person’s body language is withal an utilizable implement when endeavoring to build a rapport. Revering the conceptions and opinions of others can avail to foster an environment that sanctions you to apportion your own personal conceptions and assessments (respect). Demonstrating reverence inspirits a safe environment in which to extant the conceptions and sentiments of all participants concerned. That does not compulsorily designate that you must concur with them. It merely betokens that you are venerating the region in which you are sharing them. The moralizing in commentary can be regarded as merely confabulation covering that utilizable trait.

Always look to the person you are verbalizing with in the ocular perceiver (eye contact). Nothing builds rapport more than direct ocular perceiver contact. It is a vital element of interpersonal communication. There are three important types of listening and they are: active, critical, and empathetic (Sole, 2011). It gesticulates to others that you are fully intrigued with what they have to verbally express. Active listening is assertive communication that develops a sense of trust. It additionally enhances your personal credibility. Do not be trepidacious (afraid/fearful/display anxiety) to ask questions in order to more preponderant demystify the business that is on the table (pose questions). It is essential to pose questions that will avail to give you a more significant understanding of what is being corresponded to you, as well as to impel the conversation onward.

Efficacious interpersonal communication can be achieved through conscious cognizance of some rudimental principles. These principles direct the efficacy of our communications; they may be elementary to understand but can take a lifetime to accomplish. To invigorate a relationship: stay involved with each other, resolve conflict, gregarious network (friends and outside intrigues), and communication. An explication of the principles and misconceptions in efficacious interpersonal communications is that many people have an insincere cogitated communication. One incipient way of viewing interpersonal communication is to visually perceive it as a perpetual kineticism, between and among partakers, influenced by evolutionary practices and connected with our desire to propagate and survive. Hope and Nicolas, in order to be authentic in your communication you must understand the main notions of communication. The first principle is that communication is irreversible (West & Turner, 2010). Once a message has been sent to the recipient, the information cannot be undone. Commence all interpersonal communication with an open mind. You are then less liable to be misunderstood or verbally express things that you regret later. When the recipient of the information has already received the message it now forms a certain dint (impact) in spite of what is communicated later.

Then it is always imperative to cogitate conscientiously before you communicate something to your boyfriend/husband/partner. Steer clear of communicating when you are irate or when you not entirely yourself because once you have verbally expressed or indited something it becomes problematic to withdraw the communication. Intentional communication is when the sender of the information kens what he/she is doing. Yet, two people should note that individuals can communicate unblemished information without being vigilant. One way through which this is possible is by eavesdropping. Another way through which a couple can communicate unintentionally is through expression and non-verbal communication. Sometimes you do not require verbally expressing or inditing anything in order to communicate (body language). The content dimension has to do with the authentic content of the message being passed from the sender to the recipient.

The content of a message can ultimately affect the quality of communication and therefore it is always consequential to meticulously cull this content. Eschew utilization of words, conceptions or phrases that would vex your partner. Relational dimension refers to the existing emotional state and relationship amid the communicating parties. This relationship is liable to affect the quality of communication. For example, when you are exasperated at your companion your feelings at that time are liable to affect what you communicate and additionally how you interpret communication from the other.

The barriers to effective interpersonal interactions involve sundry misconceptions that people have concerning interpersonal communication. Communication is more than vital for a blissful marriage. What if articulated communication is the relationship? Without communication, you would not have a relationship. It makes sense then to learn efficacious communication skills for a more preponderant romantic relationship. The first primary is to minimize pejorative verbal expressions. Judgments are a mundane communication barrier in interpersonal relationships. New International Version (NIV), “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you” (NIV, Matthew 7:1-2). People are censorious when you categorize another person as “incoherent”, “insouciant”, or “selfish”. Labeling categorizes, postulates traits, and degrades another person.

Instead of haranguing on about how egocentric your partner is for not accomplishing something you implored, aver what you experienced and need in unbiased terms. Below are three illustrations of virtuous assertive verbal expressions that evade judgment: “When I peregrinate home from work and you do not hug me, I feel unwanted,” “When we accede to go out for dinner and you do not call me about being tardy, I feel frustrated because I have been enthusiastic to have supper with you all day,” and “I would appreciate you to pick up the youngsters so I can cook dinner for us. Could you do that? Or do you have an alternative conception to avail get our desiderata met?”

These are considerably more puissant than a judgmental, “You are so selfish!” Efficacious communication adeptness in a romantic relationship is to concede you cannot read another’s mind. This comes in handy for communication beyond the courting. Do not ken your partner’s intentions or motives abaft an action. You may cerebrate they intended to harm you, get vengeance, or provoke a particular replication from you, but this is mind-reading. Verbalize with your partner to seek elucidation and build understanding. Expand communication as an alternative of terminating the operation of it with verdicts, mind-reading, and the third gratuity destructive conflict.

A third secret of a jubilant romantic relationship communication is to not evade conflict. One of the greatest myths of ecstatic relationship is the couples do not quarrel. Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam, so drop the matter before dispute breaks out (NIV, Proverbs 17: 14). Quite the antithesis a couple with efficacious communication ken how to fight because discordances, quandaries, and tension is ineluctably foreordained. What disunites jubilant companions from despondent companions is their communication. Conflict from the past is destructive while the communication in the present is constructive. What is of importance is how you deal with quarrels. Good marital communication designates you to confront an issue sincerely with benevolence for your partner. Eighteenth century inditer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy kenned for his War and Placidity book verbalized, What is valid in making a blissful marriage is not so much how harmonious you are, but how you deal with inconsistency. How you do that differs on your ability to efficaciously communicate utilizing the tips you learned in this letter of advice.

People who have so many things in common always assume that the shared understanding will always translate to effective communication. An assumption leads to deliberate vagueness or a lot of sensitivity when distributing information which sometimes results in misconception. A core competency for effective communication is listening (Sole, 2011). It is always congruous to put all the shared understanding aside and communicate your message without subjectivity (heedfully aurally perceiving). People additionally have the misconception that communication is an autonomous process.

You must understand that communication does not take place in a toaster and therefore it is affected by circumventing people, events and circumstances. It is consequential to consider the context and setting of your communication as it will additionally affect your message. There are many barriers that can affect this process of transferring information. Encoding is the process of putting your message into a form that is easy to convey. These forms may be thus: verbal words, letters, and email or telephone messages. Deciphering on the other foot is the process of interpreting the form of communication used so to get meaning from the message. Most barriers to communication hamper with these two essential processes in communication.

Ethnic, sexual category and individual differences can present alterations in the way people communicate (encode) and interpret (decode) information. Common barriers to communication are such as cultural differences, gender, language barrier, individual differences and physical barriers (The Foundation Coalition, n.d). Such differences are liable to establish misunderstanding when communication. The norms of convivial interaction vary greatly in diverse societies, as do the way in which sentiments are articulated. It is important for couples to be vigilant of each other’s cultural, individual and gender difference and how they affect communication between themselves. Physical barriers may denote to aspects such as distance and time that may make it arduous for some people to communicate. When such barriers are bound to transpire you can always find ways of working around them. Today technology has made this facile.

The manner by which self-concept is established and supported is composed of two aspects; self-image and self-esteem. Self-concept refers to how we perceive ourselves independent of our environment (Gufey & Loewy, 2009). Self-image authentically refers to how we view and cerebrate of ourselves while self-esteem refers to the feelings that are derived from our self-image. If you have a lamentable image of yourself, you are liable to have a low self-esteem and vice versa. These two consequential elements make up our self-concept. Self-concept commences to compose when we apperceive that we disunite from our environment. It commences to perpetuate to compose when you act in your environment and discover what you can/cannot do. The image projected by other people about ourselves is liable to stick and affect how we cerebrate of ourselves. It is paramount to note that you two are going to be influencing in shaping each other’s self-concept. Other fortes include: the messages we take in, the prospect we and others have regarding ourselves, sexual category, ethnic and technological forces. Self-concept is dissimilar from self, self-concept means how we perceive ourselves which may not be precisely what we are (self).

Our self-concept does influence interpersonal communication. These include: what we select to do, which we decide to interact with, and how we interrelate with others. Our self-concept also affects our attitude toward ourselves and towards others. Your self-concept is going to be an important factor in your marriage relationship considering the things it affect in us.

Negative self-concept would mean low self-esteem and this is likely to affect communication. An individual with a low self-esteem is likely to encounter difficulties in distributing across messages since he/she lacks buoyancy. Though difficult, as it is, know it is possible to change our self-concept. We can eradicate the undesirable image we have of ourselves and substitute them with an optimistic image and this is likely to enrich our interpersonal communication. The NIV, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. . . .” (Matthew 7: 12). It is mundane for many people to have some information that they are disposed to apportion with any other person (e.g. names, name of our schools, and careers). There is a caliber of information that you would relish to reveal to only people who proximate with you (e.g. cell phone number, your email address, and allergies). There is also another level of information that we would just like to keep it to ourselves.

Rudimentally, it is an implement to visually examine a convivial situation and have prosperous communication. The Johari window represents how much people opt to reveal themselves. Diffident/reclusive people do not yarely share their feelings, so they have more of a closed window. Open/extroverted people are disposed to verbalize with anyone on any topic, so their window is wide open. The four quadrants of the Johari Window are the open area, the blind area, the hidden area, and the unknown area (Sole, 2011). This is the areas within our lives that we are disposed to apportion with any other person (open area). This verbalizes the information other people have about you that you are not cognizant of (blind area). This area covers information that we ken about ourselves but we would not relish any other person to have access to this information (hidden area). If the stuff about you is not kenned to you or anyone else this is the unknown area. This stage of self-disclosure can shake your communication in espousement and as a result your relationship.

The caliber of disclosure will perturb most marriage relationships. This construal in turn will lead to more preponderant communication within your relationship. Therefore my suggestion to you is that, you should keep an immensely colossal part of yourselves in the open areas so that your partner is able to understand who the other person is. It is consequential to keep confidential information shared between you and your partner. Divulging communication that your partner has trusted you to forfend to other people may become a source of conflict, in your relationship (diarrhea of the mouth).

I am sure it is now (or has become) evident to you how vital interpersonal communication is in fortifying any relationship. The first step on the way to developing efficacious interpersonal communication is to comprehend the concept behind interpersonal communication. If you fixate on the diminutive you will on no occasion have space for the things that are paramount to you. Center on the things that are critical to your bliss: associate with your children, parents, and grandparents. Accompany your spouse out to dinner. There will always be time to immaculate the house and maintenance the lawn. If everything else was perplexed and only they endured, your life yearned nevertheless be plenary. Gratitude converts what we have into enough, and more. It spirals denial into approval, chaos into order, and perplexity into clarity. It makes sense of our history, brings placidity for today and engenders a vision for tomorrow. Other things that matter like your employment, your residence and your vehicle should be your next concern. Irrespective of how satiated your life might appear, there is always room for a couple drinks of “Champagne of the South” (Sweet Iced Tea) with a friend(s). Take care of your family first and the things that genuinely matter the remaining is congeniality.

References

Gufey M. & Loewy D. (2009). Chapter 3: Communication and the Self Concept. September 22, 2011. Retrieved from http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/dl/free/0072975679/137490/gam62823_ch03.pdf

Sole, K. (2011).Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

The Foundation Coalition (n.d).Effective interpersonal/intrateam communication. Retrieved from http://www.foundationcoalition.org/publications/brochures/index.html

West R & Turner L. (2010). Understanding Interpersonal Communication. USA. Cengage Learning