The Importance of Communication Skills and Why You Should Care
The importance of communication skills cannot be overestimated. Without them, you cannot be successful in any area of your life.
Communication skills are important for a couple of reasons. First, you need others to help you acquire or hang onto whatever is important to you.To
get their help, you need to know how to communicate your needs to them.
You need to know how to ask for their help so they will give you the
exactly the kind you asked for, when you need it, and the way you need
it.
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Even if you want to be left alone, you need others to cooperate. If they won't, you have to take additional actions. You have to install locks and hope they don’t break through them; move farther away and hope they don’t follow you; or hire someone to guard your privacy for you. |
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Second, if your communication skills are poor, you might create results you don’t want. You might unwittingly say something to hurt the feelings of someone you care about. You might say Yes! to a request or invitation you really ought to turn down. You might miss opportunities to increase your public profile because you lack confidence in your public speaking ability.
Assumptions About the Importance of Communication Skills
Most of us assume we understand the importance of communication skills. We assume we know what we want to say and how to say it so that our speaking or writing will get us what we ask for. We don’t believe we have to do anything to develop these skills.
But if that were true, we’d never be returning items to the store. We’d come home with exactly what we wanted every time. But we don’t. Occasionally we arrive home and discover we bought something the wrong size, color, or style.
Something similar happens when we step back and take a good look at our life. We see that we have bought into something we no longer enjoy, at least not as much as we did originally. We find ourselves trapped in unhappy relationships, stuck with a boring job in our workplace, or discouraged about the future and our place in it.
Changing these situations or our feelings is sometimes difficult because we don’t know how to talk about them. We squirm when it is time for “the relationships talk.” We delay asking for a pay raise or a promotion. We hesitate while trying to say exactly how we feel.
We behave this way because we assume we will get a negative response from the other person or reveal something about our self that we will later regret. Too often we unknowingly act on these assumptions and continue to put up with relationships and with work we no longer enjoy.
The Importance of Communication Skills and Hidden Assumptions
Knowing how to make an effective request for what we want is an important communication skill. Uncovering hidden assumptions that hold us back from asking for what we want is an equally important skill. If we don’t discover these assumptions and question them, they run our lives without our permission and keep us from asking for the help we need to create better results in our lives.
Effective Communication Coaching gives you the tools to develop these skills.
Check out the power of language.
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