Communication Skills for Life Success

5 Core Communication Skills That Will Do You a Good Favor in Life and Career

We live in times of dehumanizing online communication, which creates an illusion that interpersonal communication skills have lost their relevance. Yet, please don’t let these seemingly obvious trends not confuse you – in reality, effective communication is more vital than ever. It has indeed become a fancy competence that modern youth raised on video games and YouTube mostly lack.

Still, the rarer the skill, the more chances to succeed for those who possess it, right? Thus, you’re uniquely positioned to boost this strategically important trait that will serve you in any environment and help you easily achieve educational, professional, and interpersonal goals. Here, we cover the core communication skills that you, as a student, should nurture for success at college and later in life.

5 Strategically Important Communication Skills

We recommend focusing on these five skills to make you a good interlocutor, negotiator, and business leader.

#1 Active Listening

The great vice of the modern generation is the inability to listen to others. People have been taught to express themselves, make themselves heard, and communicate more effectively. Yet, any communicative act is a two-fold process, and listening to your partner is sometimes even more important than speaking out.

Research has shown that people listen more attentively and treat their interlocutors more seriously if they see attentiveness and care for what they say in the communication process. Thus, the golden rule of communication is if you want to be heard, make a conscious effort to hear your interlocutor as well.

#2 Emotional Competence and Empathy

Emotions are part and parcel of our daily interactions and can’t be removed from the communication process altogether. Yet, it’s in your power to control and manage emotions; what’s more, they may sometimes become your assistant in building closer and more meaningful relationships through communication.

Being emotionally intelligent – which involves recognizing, managing, and understanding emotions and expressing empathy towards others – is a vital part of positive nonverbal communication. The better you understand your interlocutors’ emotions and can respond to them, the more successful your communication will be.

#3 Well-Articulated Speech

An ability to express your thoughts briefly, clearly, and with good articulation is a precious skill that saves people time and effort trying to understand what you’re driving at. Your interlocutors will surely be grateful for brief and knowledgeable self-expression; the golden standard of effective communication doesn’t waste anyone’s time and resources.

How to attain mastery in this domain? Follow a couple of simple rules:

• Try to organize your ideas and messages in your mind before starting to speak out. It will help you avoid jumping from one idea to another one, which may sound confusing.
• Avoid mumbling and fillers like “umm,” “like,” and so on in oral communication. These are the signs of absence of confidence and poor speaking ability that may often confuse listeners and give them difficulty interpreting your ideas.
• Practice proper word pronunciation and intonation at home. There’s nothing wrong with dedicating some extra time to this skill if you feel shy talking in public; practice will make you stronger.
• Mind the tone, loudness, and pitch of your voice. Improper voice management can push the listeners away from you, sending the wrong message about your intentions.

#4 Mastery in Nonverbal Communication

Body language can say more than a thousand words about you and your confidence in communication. So, it’s always vital to accompany your verbal messages with friendly and confident nonverbal signs.

Here are a couple of examples to try out:

• Give a firm, friendly handshake at the start of a conversation.
• Smile and look into the interlocutor’s eyes to create a friendly atmosphere.
• Give a warm hug to people whom you know quite well.
• Keep your head high and stand upright without bending your shoulders in a defensive position.

#5 Authentic Conduct

The final tip that will become invaluable in any communicative context is to be yourself. Sometimes, you may have wrong expectations about a specific social environment and try to comply with those rules and norms, looking artificial and easily detectable. However, the only clue to open and productive communication is genuineness; you should be true to your values and speak from the depths of your heart to win any audience.

Where to Pump Up These Skills?

Now that you understand what communication skills will be instrumental for your career success and advancement in other life aspects, it’s time to find out who can help you boost them. Many educational organizations offer tangible assistance with improving communication skills, and turning to any of them will be a good decision on your way to communication proficiency.

Here are just a couple of those you should take a closer look at.

Edutopia

This project of the George Lucas Educational Foundation is a rich source of educational materials, videos, and blogs where every struggling student will find essential materials for self-development. Experts of this resource cover various relevant topics, such as social and emotional learning, professional learning, and technology integration into the student’s daily routines. Thus, you’ll surely find much helpful material to jumpstart your work on improving communication skills.

Ready Education

The platform is a go-to resource for over 700 educational establishments and a reference point for over 7 million students wishing to attain greater educational heights and improve their retention chances. There’s a rich coverage of topics on student communication and technology aspects of modern communication, so you can reap many helpful ideas and insights for your personal growth in the communication aspect.

Essay Writer

The Essay Writer project can become an invaluable helper for students of all specialties and educational levels, as it features a team of qualified academic experts ready to support students in any task and project. You can get vital relief from endless writing tasks to dedicate more time to your communication skills or derive unique insights into professional communication principles from the platform’s educational blog.

Communication Really Matters

As you can see, communication is more important than ever, even with the rise and dissemination of digital-only technologies. The new digital-savvy epoch dictates new norms and excellence criteria for effective communicators, and those who will succeed in developing communication skills are doomed to success in social and professional spheres.

Thus, we recommend taking the communication aspect of your studies seriously and practicing to attain mastery in all the skills we’ve enumerated above. They will serve you a good favor in any environment, from a business meeting to a class presentation, allowing you to achieve your strategic goals and succeed.