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Habits of Effective Communication

Communication is an integral part of life, and being able to communicate effectively in personal and business settings is very important. Effective communication encompasses verbal, perceptive and listening elements. A wide variety of strategies are available to overcome communication barriers. With practice these strategies become habits.

  1. Improving Perception

    • Accurate perception is often hindered by things such as stereotyping, generalizing and having a distorted focus. To improve perception when engaging in communication with others, you must learn to let go of preconceptions regarding other things and people, and to focus on the positive instead of the negative. An important habit to form when attempting to improve your perceptiveness is observing attentively and carefully, paying attention to detail while also remembering the big picture. It is also useful to question and analyze your own perceptions to work on improving them; communicative abilities will progress as you learn to recognize that not everyone interprets situations in the same fashion as you.

    Proficient Listening

    • Efficient listening abilities are very useful in situations where you must communicate effectively. An obstacle commonly associated with listening is focusing on a personal agenda; it is difficult to listen attentively to the individual you are engaging with when you are focusing on formulating your next conversational response. Other obstacles include emotional response, external noise and information overload, all of which can take away from your ability to listen to another person. Habits to form to improve your comprehension include quieting your internal responses to offer your full attention to the other individual, as well as recognizing the other's nonverbal cues and empathizing with them, both of which allow for a richer understanding.

    Verbal Communication

    • Effective verbal communication is also important in the home, workplace, and social situations. Typical problems that affect verbal communication include a lack of clarity, jumping to conclusions and the use of generalizations and stereotypes. You must be as clear as possible when communicating verbally as not everyone interprets situations in the same manner, and generalizations and biased language tend to foster difficulties, rather than understanding, in communication. Important habits to form to foster effective verbal communication include flexibility, genuineness and empathy; these traits encourage open and honest communication from others. It is also important to remember to work on the consistency of your verbal and nonverbal cues, and to make the issue at hand, not the individual, a focal point of your conversation.

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