The 3 outcomes of conscious communication
I’ll be using this blog to explore many of the topics covered in my new book, How to be Heard. You can listen to the audio blog, or read the summary below.
How to be Heard teaches practical habits to transform your communication skills. But what is the greater impact of this on your life? I believe there are three overarching outcomes to conscious communication. These are outcomes that I’m sure you will care about a great deal.
1) Wellbeing
When we can’t express ourselves properly, it can be an incredibly frustrating. Poor communication leads to misunderstanding, which can leave us feeling lonely and dejected. Communication skills allow us to find the right words to vocalise our emotions and ideas. Feeling heard has a huge impact on our wellbeing.
How to be Heard also touches on the impact of noise and the benefits of silence. The research into the effect of noise on our health and happiness is overwhelming. So, it’s important that we listen not only to the people in our lives, but also to the everyday sounds that we encounter. Only then can we be aware of their impact and take control of our health and wellbeing through sound.
2) Happiness
Vast amounts of research have attempted to uncover the secret to happiness. And it transpires that things such as money, property, and prestige have very little impact on how happy we feel. Happiness, it seems, often results from less tangible concepts such as service to others and connectivity.
Communication skills are vital to helping others and connecting with them on a human level. If we can listen well and express ourselves openly, we can become happier as a result.
3) Effectiveness
Communication skills impact our ability to persuade people – to enrol people in our ideas, our visions, and our visions. This has a huge impact on how effective we are and the outcomes we experience in life.
Listening is also crucial for effectiveness – particularly in sales or leadership roles. If you run a team, listening is possibly the single most important skill to develop if you want to transform your effectiveness at work.
Research has also shown that open-plan offices can reduce your productivity by up to 66%. It’s important that we’re aware of the sound around us, to control it and improve our effectiveness.
So there you have it. Happiness, wellbeing and effectiveness: Three huge outcomes that are affected by how well we communicate.