Write a self-reflective essay on the skills learned during the course of your STW 201CS- Effective Communication Skills program. Include any strengths, weaknesses, and personal areas of development.
In this reflective essay as a template for this assignment I am using Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Every person interaction varies how they interact with other people. This is a expressing adverse reflection on the importance of self-awareness and personal development. In other term it is a detail inspection from their own behaviors of one’s outlook on life.
By examining myself and friends’ feedback to me to become aware of myself. Conscious of my privileges, perceptions, prejudices, beliefs, core values and behaviors. Aware of blind spots, my strengths and weaknesses. I have learned many things throughout the semester. I can say effective communication is about understanding the intentions and emotion behind the information, we also need to listen and gain full meaning of what others say or convey to us and make them feel that we are hearing them and also understanding them. Yes, it is about more than exchanging information.
Effective communication sounds like it is done without conscious thought, but many times when we try to communicate to people something goes away from the correct path. People have different perspectives and maybe misunderstand us or have frustration, there might be conflict. This can cause us difficulty at work, relationship or college.
For us communication skills can intensify our connection with others, improve team work, our overall emotional and social health, problem solving and build significant respect and trust. So, we need learning skills to improve communication with our sir, friends and family.
Weaknesses
My first interpretation is I usually get tense and overburdened when there is assignment or any types of workload. I usually avoid taking risky or even related activities. Yes, it is not good characteristic as an aim to be IT manager in future. I should always be ready to take risk and deal with it. My behavior changes with a people around me when sometimes things do not work out properly. Because a leader should have ability to tackle and manage tough situation instead, I get hyperactive, which is not good characteristic of my personality.
Common barriers that stops me from communicating effectively:
Lack of Focus: We need to stay focused and avoid distractions. I easily get distracted. When we are multitasking, we can’t communicate effectively. If we are checking Facebook, we are likely to miss some clues in conversation.
Out of control emotion and stress: We can learn how to rapidly calm down before continuing a conversation to avoid misunderstanding and conflicts. When I am emotionally overwhelmed or stressed out, I am likely to misread another person.
Negative body language: tapping my feet, crossing my arm or avoiding eye contact are my negative body language. If I disagree with somebody’s saying I usually use these body languages. Avoiding sending negative signal is important.
Inconsistent body language: My body language mostly doesn’t match what I am saying. Our listener can feel like we are being dishonest with them.
Strengths
My strength actually is my special skills. I think they are gift to me. Everybody has some special skills. I have many skills one of them is athletic. I love sports weather I’m playing them or watching them. I always know what I want and I try my hardest to get it. I can also say myself as very hard working and very determined person. Currently my strength includes my passion and honesty toward my work. I am always confident and positive regarding my targets and aims. I can take quick decision and right or good decision among all of above. Along with these, I can motivate group of people and do team work. If I make target I work day and night and I achieve my goal since I am responsible person.
Personal Areas of Development
Looking back to everything that I have learned in effective communication. I knew that I have some personal areas to be developed. I am not kind of listener person. I have poor body language. I am not engaged listener.
Here are some areas that I will be developing:
Focusing fully on the speaker: We can’t listen consistently to anyone for long time. My main distraction here is phone. We need to be focused on the moment to really pick up fine details and important clue in conversation. We can try repeating the speakers or influencers word to stay focused if we find hard to concentrate.
Spiritual Development: Spirituality plays vital role whether you follow religion or not. Truth be told, Religion and spirituality are actually two altogether different things and we can be spiritual without being even the slightest bit religious. When I work on improving my spirituality, I am making deeper connection with the world around me. This help me learn more about myself and it can help me in other area of personal development.
Conclusion
Personal development refers to a set of exercise that one can participate for the propose of enhancing identity and self-knowledge. It includes ability and potential advancement, working of human capital just as employability, improving the quality of life, and last but not least playing a role towards the realization of aspirations and dreams.