Four Simple Keys to Becoming a Better Communicator

Becoming a better communicator can help both yourself and others. Although we communicate all of the time, we often do it unconsciously. By taking a moment to actually reflect on what we are really wanting to accomplish with our communication can be life changing. Here are some simple keys to improving your own communication skills.

Becoming a better communicator helps everyone suffer less.

We are not born knowing how to communicate. Yes, we learn to talk, but then we often just mimic the kinds of conversations we hear around us. Young children are urged to develop the ability to repeat the words said to them. A perhaps more evolved definition of what good communication is would be that it helps ourselves and others suffer less. If you were not around other humans who made it a practice to speak kindness and truth, you most likely picked up some habits that could use a little up-leveling.

Becoming a better communicator can change your life.

Changing how you communicate can enhance your appreciation for life, increase your self-esteem and even reduce stress and anxiety. There are great benefits to both self and others when you can use your own words more clearly to not only identify your wants and clarify your own goals, but to have more fulfilling relationships in every area of your life. Becoming a better communicator can open doors and bring in new opportunities. Here are four keys for developing better communication skills.

1. Choose your words wisely and carefully.

Choose your words carefully. When you send them out into the world they can live forever. You will benefit any person you are speaking to if you take a moment to actually choose your words skillfully. In today’s world, there’s been a trend of believing that you aren’t responsible for what we say because the other person’s reaction is just “their stuff.” The bigger truth is that it is kinder and more considerate to take enough care in choosing your words that the recipient of those words is more likely to hear and understand them.

2. Ask yourself why you are saying what you’re saying.

Get in touch with your intention for communicating. A very powerful practice that is used in Buddhism is to ask yourself some questions before you actually speak. Stop, just for a moment and ask yourself, “Is what I’m about to say true, is it kind, is it helpful? Without this pause, you might find yourself exaggerating, or projecting your own beliefs on to someone else with your words. You can feel the intention for your words in your body as your will be more relaxed when you let go of the need to be unkind as a defense for your own hurt feelings and choose to be more open, authentic and real about what is going on for you.

3. Choose to mine the gold to be found in being silent.

Silence can be louder than words. We often don’t give silence the credit it is due as an extremely powerful form of communication. It becomes an unconscious choice in our conversations as a way to amp up our displeasure in a certain situation, to give the person you’re talking to the cold shoulder or even to intimidate someone. Taking a moment of silence, however can be helpful if you use it to help reach clearer thinking in difficult or stressful situations. Carefully monitor your own use of silence in your communications and bring the reason you chose to be silent into your awareness.

4. Let go of gossip and negativity.

Get rid of negativity and gossip. Negativity can actually become a habit of speech and for many people it’s almost an automatic reaction in most of the conversations they have. Being upset most of the time is not a great way to find the beauty in life. Negativity can disguise itself as constantly complaining, comparing, competing and obsessively pointing out what’s right and what’s wrong. How you communicate dictates how you feel. Gossip hurts you, the person you are communicating with and the person you are gossiping about. You’ll find more enjoyable moments in your life, if you take the negativity and gossip out of your communications.

Take a few moments in silence and hear your own words softly appearing from a deep quiet place. When you truly check in, is there something you desire to communicate to your own self? To someone else?