Help To Improve Your Communication Skills
This post contains a collection of articles related to activities that can help you improve your communication skills in different settings and with different kinds of people. There are hundreds of activities available for children, for people in relationships, for colleagues, and so on.
I have organized these articles into a Resource Section you can find further down the page, but first, here are eight tips you might find useful, not only when you wish to improve your communication skills, but when you decide to engage in any self-improvement activity.
1. Know What You Want To Improve
For any area of self-development that you are looking to improve, one important step you need to focus on is being clear about what it is you want. For example, “I want to improve my communication skills” is a broad statement. You need to be more specific, so narrow it down.
For example, “I want to improve my ability to get a point across quickly and clearly, without repeating myself.” This is a specific goal, and when you are focused on a clearly stated goal, you have a better chance of achieving it.
2. Track Your Progress
Self-improvement, in most cases, takes time. It is a process of changing step by step. When you decide to improve your communication skills, keep track of where you are when you start. What are you like at the beginning of your self-improvement process? Write it down. If you don’t, you won’t know how much you have improved as you move through the process.
In addition to tracking where you start, you may want to track your progress along the way. Improvement rarely happens with one step and an Aha! moment. There are usually a lot of little steps leading to your goal. Tracking each successful step along the way can keep you motivated and moving forward. Celebrate the small achievements–and keep going!
3. The Activity Must Make Sense to You
If you want to improve your communication skills, many of the exercises suggested in the Resource Section may be out of your comfort zone, but they are opportunities to grow. At the same time, you shouldn’t participate in an activity that doesn’t make sense to you, or that makes you feel anxious. Try activities that seem helpful and you are willing to participate in.
4. Commit to the Process
For any improvement in communication skills to take place, you need to commit to the process your chosen activity requires and give it the effort it needs to be effective. You won’t improve if you try the activity for only a short time–for example, 30 minutes–and then quit when you don’t see immediate improvement.
Most self-help programs take time and effort for any change to occur, and you need to be willing to use the tips as outlined.
To commit to the process of self-improvement, you may want to set a schedule. For example, you can decide to use a half-hour of your day to work on self-improvement. e.g, every day from 7:00 pm until 7:30 pm.
It’s also helpful if you go to a quiet area where you won’t be interrupted so you can focus on your task.
5. Take Notes
During your self-improvement activities, you will get ideas. If you don’t write those ideas down, you’ll try to keep them in mind as you work on your exercise, and that can distract you from focusing on your efforts. It’s better to write those ideas down as they occur to you, and return to your process so you can focus on the task at hand.
Another benefit of taking notes is that you may come back to the activity later, for example, in a year, and your notes will refresh your memory of what you did and how you improved.
6. Practice
For communication skills activities to work, you need to repeat them. Going through an exercise once will not result in instant improvement. You need to practice what you learn, and the more you practice, the better your results.
7. Change Your Approach If It’s Not Working
If something doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t necessarily mean the process doesn’t work; it could be a specific step that is problematic, or it could be how you are carrying out that step. Don’t just give up and conclude that the activity doesn’t work. Instead of giving up, change your approach. Try a different activity or change the way you are doing something.
8. Group Activities
Many of the exercises included in the resource section are group activities that require working with other people who would also like to improve their communication skills.
But choose your group members well. There were times when I was a part of group activities at work. What I noticed is that there was always someone in the group who made fun of the process.
That person would come into the group with a negative attitude and complain about why we had to participate in the exercise. If you can avoid working with people like this, you are better off because they don’t want to be there, they are not interested in improving, and they can bring down the whole group.
Conclusion
I hope these tips have been helpful and that you’ll keep them in mind for any self-improvement activity you participate in, not just communication skills exercises. You may want to bookmark this page so you can return to it and use these resources as needed.
Thanks for reading, and good luck!