Good communication is essential for modern life. Anything that takes more than one person to accomplishes requires everyone involved to communicate effectively with each other. Unfortunately, I regularly see one example after another of terrible communication, both online and in real life. In those situations, people immediately go on the attack, get defensive, and focus so much on tearing each other down that they shut their minds to other perspectives and ideas. Even people who want the same outcomes can still become hostile if they disagree on the best way to get where they want to go and become fixated on points of disagreement rather than focusing on points of agreement.
Bad communication is often worse than no communication because of how it turns people against each other and makes cooperation nearly impossible. I know this from personal experience. I’ve suffered from bad communication for most of my life, whether it originated from myself or from someone around me. It’s only within the past few years that I’ve put serious work into improving my communication skills. Even in that short period of time, the results have been incredible and truly life-changing. I’m not an expert communicator but I have spent a lot of time learning about and practicing good communication and I keep getting better at it as I go. Since I have plenty of experience with bad communication and have made great progress at becoming a better communicator, I want to help others avoid the problems I’ve faced by sharing what I’ve learned.
Some things I find valuable in conversations include making sure that I’m actually listening to what the other person is saying instead of preparing a response while they talk, asking questions if I’m not sure what they mean instead of making assumptions, keeping in mind that they may be right and I may be wrong, pausing to gather my thoughts before I speak, breathing slowly and deeply, and looking for ways to resolve our differences or figuring out how we can work together for good despite those differences. There are a handful of people I know who also do this stuff when we talk to each other, which makes our conversations and discussions incredible; even if I’m talking to someone who isn’t doing those things, the conversation is still improved by my doing them. I hope that this post plays a part in improving communication so that we can work together to solve whatever problems we encounter. If even just one person is inspired to do things differently, then this post will have served its purpose and made a positive difference in the world.