We often heard people saying “Communication is the key!” And why not, communication plays an important role in your personal life as well as in your professional life. While it plays a huge role in maintaining your relationships, great Communication Skills are one of the must-haves in today’s dynamic job market too.

So the question is how important is communication skills now a days and How to Improve my Communication Skills

There are many online skill development courses and upskilling courses around this like SkillingIndia’s Communication Skill Courses which covers both the aspects of communication skills- Verbal Communication i.e. interpersonal communication, public speaking, etc., and Nonverbal Communication i.e. active listening, self-confidence, body language, etc. However, when we talk about Communication Skills, your efforts and persistence play an important role in it. After all, we have to understand that it’s not an overnight process. It requires both time & dedication.

In this article, we’ll talk about points that you can improve upon for improving your communication skills.

Tips for Improving Your Communications Skills

Whenever you imagine yourself addressing the wide audiences or your boss or your crush, you must have thought of the confidence with which you’ll carry on the conversation and the body language you’ll have. The words you’re gonna say are the secondary part of it and that's the whole thing about communication. It’s more nonverbal than verbal. Repeated studies have shown that communication is 70 to 93 percent nonverbal. Yet when it comes to practicing Communication Skills, we often approach its Verbal aspect and that’s where we’re wrong.

The Nonverbal aspect of communication is what makes your conversation more natural and easy to flow. Hence, we'll discuss a few important points in the coming section to improve both your Verbal and Nonverbal communication.

1. Active Listening: Yes, the first and foremost point to be a great communicator is to be a Great Listener. 

For example, we all have at least one person in our life whom we can’t tolerate for more than 5 minutes and the reason is very simple, no matter what the conversation is going on, they’ll just come in and start telling their stories. Sometimes those stories are related to the topic and most of the time they are generally off-topic. But what makes us not like that particular person is the fact that they are not giving us the chance to speak.

Now you understand, when it comes to communication it should always be both ways.
 

1. Showing Respect: Your communication should always be in accordance with the place, occasion, and your audience’s sentiments. 

Imagine a person shows up on some sad occasion and starts blabbering about his last holiday in the Maldives. OR someone who turns up to let’s say a wedding and starts talking about how her wedding was grander than this. In the workplace too, if someone talks you down, you don’t feel like talking to that person again.

You see, your communication always needs to reflect that sense of Respect for the place, occasion, and your audience’s sentiments. 
 

1. Positive Body Language: Body language speaks louder than words. It reflects your confidence, behavior, willingness to listen, and much more. Make sure to practice good body language. One important area to practice here is your Hand Gestures. The most appropriate hand gesture is from the top of your chest to the bottom of your waist. This is the box you need to stay within. Also, practice fluid hand gestures as no one likes jerky and robotic movements.

2. Open-Mindedness: You have to understand that each and everyone can have different opinions about the same thing or process and it’s only natural. The open-mindedness makes you open to change or implementing new methodologies which help in your growth both at the personal and professional level.

3. Think before you speak: I guess we’ve heard this advice often and there’s a good reason for it. By thinking before you speak, you can not only organize your thoughts but can also present them in a better way. You also avoid those awkward pauses that often happen when you speak without thinking. 

4. Don’t beat around the bush: While complex sentences are good to listen to in theaters and movies, in real life they could be a bit frustrating. Avoid using them, instead think “How can I put this in the clearest way possible?”

5. Say it as you mean it: While speaking, confidence shouldn’t only reflect in your body language and gestures, but it should also reflect in every word you’re speaking. After all, no one likes a speaker with down shoulders and a low voice.

6. Highs and Lows: Now we want you to think of the actor that you don’t like, not as a person but because of his acting skills. If you examine it more deeply, you’ll get to know that it is often the dialogue delivery. They must have the same facial expressions throughout OR their expressions are not as per the dialogue/moment OR they might have the same flat tone throughout the entire movie.

This shows us that varying your tone and expressions in accordance with the information you’re conveying is very important to grab and maintain your audience’s attention.

Though everything can’t be covered in a mere 1000 words article, we’ve tried our best to share the most relevant points to improve your Communication Skills. We hope that you liked it and we’d be happy if it helps you to improve your Communication Skills.