Interview Preparation Series: Article 1- Understanding the Importance of Self Talk

“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.”

   – Tony Robbins

 

This blog is the first part of the series on Communication Skills and focuses on internal communication and external communication. Internal communication can be referred to as the part that we do with ourselves. Please be aware that in organisations, we usually mean internal communication to denote our ‘internal’ dealings with colleagues and co workers. The two are different.

 

The communication that this blog refers to is carried forth in our thoughts, and sometimes even verbally to ourselves. There are different kinds of people, and hence different modes of communication that they employ. People with a heightened auditory sense as found in Neuro Linguistics will have a tendency to indulge in verbal self talk. They use it to create an argument, comment to one self and also because they love to hear how the thought sounds when articulated! On the other hand, some of us do silent communication with ourselves, and that is communication of our subconscious mind with our conscious mind. Some mindless negative self talk, where we compare ourselves unfavourably, rue our lives and our future, complains endlessly and focuses on what we cannot do, creates a sense of helplessness in our lives that gets translated into action in our day to day lives. Also, the same chatter gets manifested in the subconscious mind and embeds itself as a mantra for life.

 

This blog on self talk endeavours to eliminate these factors in our life. While positive self talk is good as it encourages effort and action, we have to be careful about how the sentences are phrased. The negatives can’t simply change into extreme positives overnight. So ‘I hate this’ can’t become ‘I love this’. We must make efforts to change them to neutral from negative and then gradually to positive. Comments like ‘I can’t speak in public’ cannot be changed to ‘I can speak in private’ or ‘I am OK if I can’t speak in public.’ Another example: ‘I feel bad when I score less marks’ cannot be changed to ‘I am ok when I score less marks!’.

 

The image that we have of ourselves may be unsatisfactory but can be transformed and we should strive for it. The blog also deals with how we sound when we are heard by other people.

 

What is communication?

Communication is exchange of ideas where a thought is expressed and received by another person and feedback is given.

 

Importance of communication

  • Expressing Ourselves
  • Building Relationships
  • Making Decisions
  • Manage knowledge, ideas and creativity
  • Develop a distinct personality
  • Succeed in life

 

Mediums of communication

  • Face-to-face
  • Telephone
  • Email
  • Letters
  • Reports
  • Video calls

 

It is always very important to choose the appropriate medium of communication to communicate properly.

 

When do you talk to yourself?

  • Day dreaming and Nocturnal dreaming
  • Mirror talk
  • Talking while doing our work- Monologue
  • Thinking, analysing and decision making
  • Introspection
  • Diary writing

 

Negative thoughts

We are all, at one time or the other, victims of negative thoughts. Let us find out why negative thoughts occur to us –

  • It must have been created by your past experiences,
  • Comparison with someone better or ideal
  • How people have evaluated you.

 

How do you check yourself?

  • Share your mind often with friends and family members
  • Allow friends and family members to point out your negative talk!
  • Every time you catch yourself talking like this… remind yourself/ make a note and promise to never repeat this! Your self-talk creates your reality. Rewire your brain to create new thoughts to achieve the reality that you want.

 

The question is not IF you talk, The question is HOW you talk to yourself

 

Communication with others

It’s the sum total of the feelings and emotions conveyed by the communicator through words and body language. No communication is complete without the message being properly transferred to the listener and rightly interpreted as well. Often communication remains incomplete. Here is why.

 

What makes communication remain incomplete –

  • When the communication is not specific
  • When the communication is too fast.
  • When the communication is too technical.
  • When the communication is one-way.
  • When the communication is giving information back to back, without giving a chance to think.
  • When the communication is too loud or too soft
  • When the communicator does not have clear speech
  • When the communicator looks angry and upset

 

Verbal basics

Here are some of the verbal basics that ensure better communication –

  • Volume : Be Loud
  • Clarity: Be Clear
  • Slow Down: Don’t be fast
  • Open your mouth wide to speak
  • Pause: so that the other person can ask questions!

 

You can improve communication by doing the following –

  1. Listening to the news in English
  2. Copy the words the way they are said
  3. Make a voice recording of yourself, correct it and then re record
  4.  Use grammar exercises on the phone apps
  5. Watch YouTube  & TED videos in English
  6. Watch English movies and shows with subtitles to follow and speak along
  7. Read the newspaper loudly for 15 min every day
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