13.13 Using These Tools
ashleyorme
“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.”
Brian Tracy
Using these tools for Self-Awareness Building
One of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves is reflecting upon our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to how our communication and conflict management skills and how they impact the relationships in our lives. Understanding our capability to actively listen, how we express ourselves and our ideas, how we frame our intent and purposes, and how we present ourselves non-verbally can provide insight into the success and failure of friendships or romantic relationships, as well as the depth of connection we have with our family or coworkers.
The frameworks and tools in this chapter allow for us to consider and understand:
- what type of listener you are
- what style of listening do you use most regularly
- what barriers to listening do you experience
- how you express yourself and your story (i-statements or you-statements)
- how effective you are at asking questions
- how you frame your conversations and your ability to reframe a conversation when necessary
- how you communicate nonverbally and it’s impact on your relationships
Once we understand ourselves in these ways we can ask ourselves the hard questions, where am I successful in utilizing these tools and where can I improve? Taking an honest inventory of our communication and conflict management skills allows us to accurately identify what we should keep doing and what we should stop doing. Things to consider in this reflection process:
- ask for feedback about your skills from someone you trust
- think about successful relationships you have and consider what makes them so great – do more of that
- think about unsuccessful relationships you have and consider what makes them not so great – do less of that
- consider your role models, or people that have positively impacted you in your life, how do they communicate and manage conflict, this could provide interesting insight into areas to improve yourself
From these reflections, pick 1 or 2 small things that you want to work on to either continue doing, potentially with more frequency or that you want to improve. As the saying goes, you can’t boil the ocean. You also can’t change everything about your communication and conflict management styles at one time. Often 1 or 2 changes is plenty for the brain to work on. Commit to yourself when and where you will try to improve and set a time to check back in with yourself to reflect on how the change is going.
Using these tools for Other Awareness Building
Once we understand ourself, we can move into the utilization of these skills to understand others. You can consider:
- what type of listener are they
- what style of listening do you think they have
- what barriers to listening do you see or experience when talki