Personal Communication Skills

For your blog this week, think about the similarities and differences between how you evaluated yourself as a communicator and how others evaluated you. What is the one thing that surprised you the most? Why? What other insights about communication did you gain this week? Choose at least two to share with others through your blog and consider how each might inform your professional work and personal life.

This assignment allowed me great insight into myself and into the realities we all may face in our personal and professional life when communicating with others.  In evaluating my communicating skills as a communicator, I believed myself to be a bit reserved and timid.  Unless the individuals communicating with are familiar people.  If there is a topic I am confident about or have ample information to support when discussing with someone, I am a bit more outspoken.  I foreseen myself being quiet and a bit more of an observer, than a speaker among groups, especially groups I am unfamiliar with.  After I took the self-test and evaluated my results, I felt they were rather accurate regarding my communication skills.  Ironically I decided to have two individuals that I felt knew me the best, my oldest sister and my husband to take the test based in response to myself.  My sister is just like my best friend as we have faced many adversities in our life together.  Then my husband, the individual who has spent the most time with me over the last several years.  I found their results to be rather shocking.  The response of my sister goes back to the comments I can recall her making regarding me over the years, I have a professional side and then there is Leslie.  My results ranked my communication skills high in communication anxiety, my verbal aggressive skills to be moderate, and my listening skills were focused on people.  As the results from my husband and sister were similar, as they ranked my communication anxiety lower, my verbal aggression higher.  The listening skills ranged in degree for each of them but was focused on people.  After I spoked and laughed together with each of them I began wondering how or why their results ended up different.  Personally I feel the environment given to an event of communication is key to how and what communication skills are utilized.  I continue to develop my self-concept as I develop and grow through life’s different experiences.  “You develop a self-concept by thinking about your strengths and weaknesses- thinking about yourself as active and scattered, as conservative and funny, as plain and popular, and so on” (O’Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, & Teven, 2018 p. 64).  Our self-concept can change frequently, as we gain additional knowledge or experience in some areas verses others, or the feedback of others have begun to alter and change.  I feel every person carries several personas that portray who they are.  What mask or face will they communicate with to their children, or their pastor, the teacher at school, and so forth.  We are constantly growing in life, changing, and adapting through the diversities that we face in life.  When there is comfort we are more willing to remain less guarded or unreserved.  When we are unsure or uncertain, we tend to observe and learn or even adapt to the environment or situation.  In communicating it is very similar, as we see the differences in my results as to my family.  I wonder what my children’s teachers would have ranked me or even anyone reading my blog? In life I feel we have to constantly self-reflect on ourselves in every avenue of our life, and when we find the bumps or hiccups, we need to reflect in order to offer the best version of ourselves to everyone.  I have indeed tried to reflect from their results and think before speaking more, especially to the ones close to my life.  

            Additional insights I learned this week are as followed; Self-reflect is a must and self-awareness should always be engaged.  We should rely on other’s for feedback and take it honestly.  These are vital necessities in one’s personal and professional life for many reasons.  To ensure effective communication to other’s we have to ensure we are able to properly communicate.  Our self-concepts can only be a reflection in the mirror of what we want to see.  Until we rely on the feedback and impressions of other’s we can not see completely into the reflection in the mirror.  Our judgement is clouded, and we only see what we care to see.  For example I believe myself to be bit more reserved than my husband and sister declares.  Is that due to the relaxed nature of my attitude when around them or do I relay that message all the time?  This is the vital aspect of true feedback and self-reflection.  If I am given the opportunity to speak in public, I will indeed request for a survey at the end for my personal feedback.  I want to ensure I am practicing the Platinum Rule through every aspect of my life, so this could help with ensuring that as well. 

I shared this picture because I truly think it has a great symbol as to not only communication, but the concept of self-reflection and worth as well.  If the trees could tell the story's of all the people that passed, what a tale it would be!   

Reference

 O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J. (2018). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.