Improving communication skills
I am a BBA student in my 6th semester. i have a problem with my communication skills. My confidence level is zero. Please help me to improve my communication skills, as u know they are very important for business student.
Thanks
Ayesha
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Ayesha..thats because of “fear of public opinion”. The best way to cope with any kind of fear is to face again and again whatever you are afraid of untill you are not scared of it anymore. Same applies to communication and confidence. Dont hesitate and talk to people as much as i can no matter what they say. You have to take a plunge for your first flight. Thats the gotcha.
I had the same problem few years ago. The key to effective communication is to find the easiest and shortest way to transfer your thoughts. The effectiveness of your communication is directly proportional to the quality of your thinking – fuzzy and disorganized to clear, focused, and specific.
Start with writing down your thoughts, revise it a couple of time and try to be more concise and to the point. Most of the time we think we are clear but actually are very vague, so let someone else revise your written points. A few exercises like that will definitely help you improve.
It’s very important to have a good level of confidence for an effective communication. You can improve this by telling good quality jokes to you friends or class mates. If the joke is good and well presented, everyone will like it and that will boost your confidence. But try to analyze which words grab attention, and which were vague.
I hope that will help.
Furrukh
I have been through same waters as you. Due to personal reasons and having an enormous inferiority complex, I would stutter in front of people. I could hardly talk to anyone.
The thing that helped was the communications class that I took in LUMS. It was not the content of the course, but the practical experience. We had to talk in front of the class a lot. Initially I would stutter, get confused and my hands would visibly shiver. I felt that I would faint.
But all this agony was worth it because it slowly got better. After a few tries, my voice shivered initially but began to get steady a few minutes in to the presentation. Soon I was speaking really well in the class and I could not recognize myself.
As Zeeshan mentioned, it is getting used to the stimulus. Standard psychology 101, if you have averse feelings to a stimulus, expose yourself to that stimulus till that stimulus stops controlling you. Same holds for irrational phobias and essentially all the fears.
We humans are coded to be very cautious about other peoples opinions. However we may try to disregard other people’s opinions of yourself, it is very hard, but not impossible! As Somerset Maugham said that we spend all our life caring about what other people think of us where in fact those other people’s thoughts about you are not even worth two cents.
So first step is to try to stop caring about what other people think of you. Whenever you find yourself feeling shy in front of people, think logically to yourself why are you feeling what you are feeling. Is it because you are afraid of other people’s opinion about you or is it some irrational fear of people that you have. Try to get above those feelings, try to float away. The three steps are (1.) Identify why are you feeling the way you are (2.) Think logically why you should not have those feelings and why they are so petty and irrelevant (3.) Float (or try to float) away from those feelings and say/do what you want to do even if you make a fool out of yourself.
Try it a few times and you will be amazed how quickly you learn the skill.
Another reason that causes low confidence in our country is poor English language. The sad plight our country is in; it esteems English language too much and considers fluent English above all other talents or skills. If you have good English, then everyone treats you differently. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I hate that. If you think that your English language is not as good or if you feel that it causes low confidence you must realize that it is just a language. It is just the South-Asian countries that care about it so much. It is easy to learn if you give it a chance. I learned it by watching cartoons and TV series. If I (being horrendously bad in memorizing) can learn it in two to three years, then anybody can.
Just stop being afraid. Stop fearing the fear and try. Even if you fail and despair, just do not despair completely and try again. You will amaze yourself, I promise!
I have had similar problems and my close group of friends helped me with it. I used to write my thoughts and then my friends used to go over them and correct obvious grammatical mistakes. With time I was much better than before.
You might not notice any difference in just one day however I can promise you provided you do it frequently you will see improvement within few weeks.
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