Effective communication is critical for everyone. In fact, excellent communication highly determines one’s success in any area of life. It's about time you looked into communication aspects that let you down last year. Make this year different. Here's how:
1. Travel intellectually
Read books that will help you grow and enable you to educate other people. Target to read at least one book every two months. If your schedule allows, read a book a month. Don’t read only when you get some free time in your day, schedule time to read. Find out in your workplace or at home who enjoys reading and exchange books with them. Learn about current affairs. Your life will not be the same again as reading gives you the opportunity to travel around the world without a passport.
2. Connect with people
A well read person has the power to connect effectively with other people. Find out what groups and associations relate to your career path and participate in them. The more you stay around experts and peers in your field, the more you learn and gain confidence in your role. While connecting, find a mentor to support you in your career path. A mentor will ensure you achieve more as opposed to holding a sense of satisfaction. Follow people who care about what you care about on social media.
3. Articulate your words
“It is not what you say but how you say it,” Prof. Okoth Okombo. Your efforts to connect with other people will involve a lot of verbal communication. This remains a huge challenge to many people. Get into a public speaking class. When invited to speak publicly or when going to a meeting, prepare well and put down key points. Speak audibly, pronounce each word as it should and calculate your pace. Improve on your interpersonal and public speaking and you will come across as having a strong command in your area of specialisation.
4. You are a brand; market yourself
You are gifted in something? You want to grow in it? Then let other people know about it. Growth comes from interacting with people who challenge you. I began to grow in graphic design when I shared my work with other people. Put down a schedule of how you will share your talent each week and watch this work for you. Begin with your connections as you practise your presentation skills, use social media and with time the world will know what you do. You never know, you may make enough to last you a lifetime. It is from giving that you receive.
5. Take up part-time writing
Write about what you care about. You are an expert in your field but how else will people know if you do not share? Write a blog, an op-ed, a book. I have started a blog on communication to help myself and other people improve on the subject. Spell-check your work and let someone else proof read your work before sharing it out publicly.
Effective communication is achievable. However it requires practice and consistency. Use the 7C’s checklist (correctness, clarity, conciseness, completeness consideration, concreteness and courtesy) to countercheck your message and tie it into a nice neat bow for your audience.
This article was written by Mercy Mbuge. The author is a communications specialist and graphic designer.
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