Improve Your Communication Skills

Despite the evolution that communication skills have gone through over the years, the process can still be broken down into merely talking and listening, however, effectively. Hence every individual needs to have good communication skills to be heard, understood, and valued.

To improve one’s communication skills, one must start from the essential beginning of the act: understand the process, boost up your confidence, never run out of practice, and finally, engage the audience. Understanding the process of communication requires knowing that communication aims at sending a message or signal to a receiver, who must effectively understand the message and reciprocate; it is equally important to know that communication is a two-way process, so it isn’t all about speaking, it is also about listening.

Being confident is the way to ensure the communication link from your end doesn’t fall weak and interrupt the rest of the process. Practice makes perfect; hence, it is vital to practice all that you learn in this improvement phase to excel in it and be able to maintain it. Engaging the audience is where you must follow certain guidelines and remember specific factors that will help improve your communication skills; these are as follows:

1. Eye contact: Making eye contact enhances the interest of two people in a conversation, whether you are talking or listening. It makes communicating more genuine as it helps the process of understanding a person, easier.
2. Body language: We don’t only talk with our mouth while we are communicating; our whole body needs to be able to communicate with the audience. Positive body language enhances the process of interaction. Gestures, small or large, make a difference to the way people perceive your message.
3. Be clear: Being clear has much importance; vague messages are not understood. A message that is either not comprehendible or is misinterpreted because of the way it is communicated it a significant sign of ineffective communication skills. Hence, avoid jargon, talk in simple words, be loud, and clear.
4. Check your attitude: The attitude you have towards will affect the way you present yourself to any number of an audience; choose to be patient, calm, honest, composed and sensitive. All these things will develop your communication skills on the whole as you move closer to be understood and understanding, at the same time.
5. Listen: Improving your talking skills and not lending an ear to others will cause the most significant break in the communication circuit. Patiently listen to others as they talk; your facial expressions and body language will also affect this part of the process. Come across as being understanding and sensitive towards a message of any nature.
6. Ask: At the end of a communication process, the standard procedure involves, asking if the message has been understood by both parties. This will ensure the success of the message retrieval.

Improving communication skills is not a one day program; it takes patience, practice, persistence, and dedication to the art of communication. Following these guidelines will ensure that you do not lack behind as a speaker, listener, or preacher.