Improve your Communication Skills

When you stop to think about why we need to improve our communication skills today when we are all living in the age of communications, must make you wonder why we need to improve our own social communication skills.

The truth is, that we are all so busy 'communicating' that we aren't really communicating at all. We are all simply reminding others that we are still around. This isn't communicating anything except "Remember me"? There are a heck of a lot of "me's" in this world! And that in itself forms part of the problem. But there are some pretty simple solutions. There's not just one thing but a mixture of things we can all do to improve our communication ability and surprisingly, they are pleasurable to most human beings.

The first 'biggie' we all need to relearn is body language. Many people today below the age of 40 years, seem to have lost the ability to read body language accurately. Body language forms about 80% of our communicating when speaking. We use words but it is the position of our bodies that play an enormous part in assisting the meaning of those words to give the full impact to the verbalisation of the experience, concept or idea.

Urgent or non-urgent information that needs to be relayed will be relayed according to the spoken word but more so due to the urgency with which the words are spoken and the body language displayed. This is a pretty good reason for having people in authoritative positions deciding a course of action in certain events to stop people from panicking. In times of great danger, human beings too often revert to animal instincts and a herd mentality takes over. Having a good communicator relaying life-saving information has been proven many times over to save lives.

We can all improve our communication skills today by simply taking more time to actually communicate.  This means actually talking with people over a period of time. Talking to people about something that you are both interested in, and not just by monopolising one side of the conversation.

Communicating is a two-way street and the 'road rules' need to be observed otherwise you will get a person pulling away from the conversation simply because they are bored to tears or simply not interested. How can you tell if someone is disinterested?  By becoming an observer of body language. Body language is the unspoken but physical meaning behind words. A word placement in a sentence gives a word its nuance; body language gives it the impact.

If you are in business, being able to read body language can save you a heap of money. You are able to discern more accurately whether a client is trying to claim a false refund or whether a salesperson is having your best interests at heart.  If you are looking for better ways to get along with people around you, try improving your communication skills. If you are a family who spends the majority of family time sitting in front of a TV, barely speaking, then turn the TV off and go and sit outside and talk to each other. You will be amazed at what you learn about each other.