How to Improve Communication?

Are you facing issues while communicating with your team members? Do you want to reduce hassles of misunderstandings with your friends, peer, team or family? Then you must improve communication, as the right form of communication is the backbone of fruitful professional as well as personal relationships.

Here, you must understand that if you want to learn the right ways of improving communication skills then you need to opt for some key practices. – But let me tell you here that mastering communication skills are not an insurmountable challenge.

In this post, we will cover the lessons of some of the great conversationalists who have tried the right kind of communication strategies with success, so you improve communication in the most effective manner possible.

So, without any further ado, let us get started with the key concepts for improving communication-

Introduction to Improving Communication

When you want to learn the right communication skills, it is important to learn that communication plays a key role in every aspect of your life. You will be communicating everywhere- be it with your family members, friends, team members, co-workers or love interest.

So, in the simplest form, it can be said that the process of improving communication revolves around practicing different ways of communication.

You can opt for some easy and fun ways to improve communication- be it written or spoken.

Here, we are going to talk about some of the fun ways of improving communication-

5 Fun Ways to Improve Communication

1. Just Write your Thoughts First

The very first step of improving communication revolves around a very primary practice- i.e. writing down your thoughts in an impromptu manner.

These written pieces are for you, and not for anyone else. It will enable you to logically ordering your thoughts. It will sharpen your thinking as well as communication skills both.

Those who enjoy writing can also opt for blogging. You can find different online means where your articles can get published, which will slowly put you in the league of top-performing writers.

All this will silently supercharge your communication abilities.

2. Keep learning from other communicators

The best way of improving communication is by watching and learning from the experts.

You should analyze how speakers speak on TV. Or you may watch some interesting interview programs to see how celebrities communicate. You will find out different ways of putting across a thought.

You should analyze different speakers to learn and gain confidence.

Never imitate anyone, but have your style of speaking intact with you all the time.

Just learn the modulation, gesture, posture, vocabulary and many other aspects of communication from the communicators.

3. Improve Communication via telephone calls

This is again a very useful way of improving communication.

In this, you won’t have anyone in front of you, so no more body-language in play- but here voice modulations, pauses, and silences will do the trick.

In today’s time, from lead generation to conversion to customer services, different forms of business dealings occur on the telephone and you should learn the skills of telephonic conversations.

This can also be quite useful for those who are introverted and feel daunted while facing someone. They can sharpen their skills via such conversations first, and then they can try to polish their face-to-face communication as well.

4. Do chatting with anyone you meet

This again a real fun task- imagine you are talking to someone you never met before.

Just do this, it will open you up and your hesitations will fly away.

Besides, also talk with your friends, peers, neighbors, etc. without any reason.

When you take the initiations, you master the skills of controlling a conversation as per your inclinations which will play a crucial role in improving your communication skills.

5. Do not argue but opt for debates and discussions

Having a friendly debate or discussion with your friends and family members will also be quite useful in improving your communication.

You can choose any current topic that is of interest, and you think you have enough information about it. Opting for the funny or light-hearted topic here will be crucial in making your debate or discussion constructive.

You need to be careful to stay aware of the shackles of arguments, as they do havoc with your communication training.

Opting for these tips will let you check your comfort while communicating with others.

Continuing with these techniques will for sure improve your communication in different facets of your life.

Still, facing problems in doing result-driven communications?

Then let me discuss some other ways as well-

Best Tips to Improve Communication

Opting for a course is also a very useful option to improve communication skills.

Even in your community college, you may find such courses that run interesting, informative and engaging communication classes with lots of tools and techniques.

Frankly speaking, the process of communication starts with the speaker sharing some ideas or information or perspectives to a receiver. Then the receiver will consume that idea or information and reiterate that as per his or her interpretation.

Now again sender confirms that the listener or receiver consumed that thought in the same way as it was intended. –And this is how the communication process completes.

So, all in all, communication is the way of sharing ideas or information to the receivers, so your thoughts can be interpreted similarly by the receiver as you in the beginning intended.

In case you do not have the right communication skills, your thoughts can be unheard, misinterpreted, abused or neglected.

Effective communication is, therefore, a one of the most crucial interpersonal skills that comprised multiple benefits. The very first step of effective communication begins with the identification of problems in your communication. So, let us get started with our best-tips to improve communication section with this tip-

1. Identifying difficulties in your communication

Most of the time, when people say they have communication issues, they do not know where the problem lies in their way of communicating with others.

So, for this, you need to try different methods to identify problems in your communication.

The very first thing that you can try here is asking your friends, peers, or family members. Ask for their suggestions about the communication issues that you may have. This will lead you towards your journey of self-improvement.

You can also opt for Interpersonal Skills Self-Assessment sorts of Self-Assessment Tools, as it will guide you about the most areas to improve communication.

2. Work upon your Listening Skills

Now, when you plan to improve communication, you need to work on your listening skills as well.

It will not only help you in the understanding of spoken or written information but additionally, it will also assist you in gauging the feelings of the speaker while communicating.

When a speaker sees and feels that the receiver is listening to their ideas and understanding as well, it helps in developing more constructive relationships.

So, with the right kind of listening skills, you will also have learned the skills of expressing thoughts that can engage the listeners.

3. Opt for Straight Talking to Improve Communication

When you have the zeal to converse with someone, you incorporate the basic skill of effective communication i.e. conversation.

You should develop a tendency of initiating conversation with your friends, families, peers, or even strangers in close vicinity. It will be quite useful in channelizing the confidence in you while doing conversations with others.

This skill of initiating conversations will also help you in gaining new business opportunities.

For practicing this tip of improving communication, you should be friendly and more accessible to talk to anyone.

4. Learn the Non-verbal communication

When we communicate with somebody, our body language, gestures and postures play a crucial role in sending the non-verbal messages.

And that is why paying heed upon your non-verbal signals is very important in improving communication. Your wordless communication includes gestures, postures sorts of body positions along with eye contact, facial expressions, tonal variations in your voice, breathing style, muscle tension and so forth.

Your reactions, listening postures, and other body-language signals speak more about your feelings. It is also crucial for developing connections and relations with your expressions and body language.

5. Role of Stress management to improve communication

Stresses can take a toll upon your communication skills as well.

In the stressful circumstances, you may lose your clarity of opinion, controlled body-language, appropriate demeanor, and so forth. Stresses are the reasons for channelizing wrong patterns of behaviors in an individual.

That is why stress management is very crucial in improving communication.

People having stresses lack the ability to put forward their opinion, thought processes and ideas in the right manner. Because of stress, you will also be not able to understand others’ opinions and thought process rightly.

So, when you plan to improve communication, you should also improve your stress management skills.

6. Having Emotion control is important in improving communication

Our feelings, emotions, and thought-process play a crucial role in our communication.

It is also one of the most important factors in decision making. Therefore, having the ability to control your emotions will help you in improving your communication skills.

Emotions are central in your verbal as well as non-verbal behaviors.

Having control over your emotions will let you express your ideas, experiences, and needs in the most constructive as well as productive manner. Better control over your emotions will resolve you from conflict, frustration, and misunderstanding related issues.

7. Incorporate empathy in your personality

When you incorporate empathy in your personality, you will have the adeptness to understand the viewpoints, thought-processes, feelings, and beliefs of other individuals.

That is why; businesses try to incorporate the culture of ensuring empathy in their workplaces.

Having the power of acceptance, ability to understand the perception, etc are the integral parts of empathy. When you communicate with somebody, with empathy skills, you will have a better ability to gauging other’s inclinations, so you can communicate them more constructively.

8. Have the tendency of Speaking up

Your quest of improving communication starts with you and you inevitably take charge of it.

Never wait and expect other individuals to talk with you.

Also, do not hide behind digital forms of communication.

So, all in all, you have to comprise the tendency of speaking up. This will improve your confidence and authority while communicating with anyone.

9. You should prepare what you’re going to communicate

While planning for any important occasion, you should be prepared, so you can process your thoughts in a more organized and effective manner.

It is central to thinking before speaking something and that is why communication experts suggest taking a few minutes for preparing your speech draft.

For a very important conversation, try a mock-up conversation with a trusted person so you can get rid of any potential mistakes.

10. Be prepared for different and unfavorable answers

When you are planning to improve communication, you ought to understand that the responses of your listeners won’t always be the same.

And that is why it is suggested that you should be ready to get different answers. You need to think like a listener who may have a different perspective. This will help you be prepared to come up with better negotiation strategies while communicating with others.

It will empower you in defending your standpoint, plus you will also have a balanced approach in handling disagreements while communicating with others. Being prepared for the different answers will help you in improving your success ratio as a communicator.

How to Improve Communication for Public Speaking

Public speaking is considered one of the most difficult forms of communication for an average person. It is also understood as the number one fear of many people and that is why we thought to guide you about this form of communication as well.

There are some basic steps of public speaking that you should follow to be confident while addressing publicly-

Steps to improve communication while speaking publicly

1. First of all, you need to think of the topic and then you should ask yourself how much you enjoy that subject and in the process, you should develop more passion for that topic.

2. With this enthusiastic approach, you should move ahead and in the next step, you should shift your focus from how you will speak to what you speak. Such a shift of focus is crucial in removing out the fear of public speaking from your mind,

3. Now, when you are well aware and prepared for what you will speak, you should just stand tall and speak out. Even feel free to hold your notes at your chest level while referring points from them.

4. If you are confident speaking in this way then good, or else you can opt for a podium as well, as podiums play a crucial role in resolving nervousness issues of the speakers.

5. While public speaking, you should take ownership. When you own the stage, look at the audiences, and interact properly, you improve your communication on the public platforms as well.

Final Thoughts about Improving Communication!

On the concluding note, you must have noticed that there is no single technique of improving communication skills. You need to opt for a holistic approach by paying heed upon the aforementioned tips.

The technique that you choose for improving communication should be based upon your professional as well as personal objectives.

What according to you are the most powerful techniques to improve communication?

Did we miss any of the ways that you consider important for improving communication? Share your views with us in the comment section below.