Strengths and Challenges in Communicating - Edit 2, 28/5/17

Communication refers to the sending and retrieving of information. This can be done through various medium such as face-to-face meetings, letters, telephones or computers. By knowing your strengths and challenges in communicating can improve your communication style.

Strengths
One of my strengths in communication is listening. By listening, one can make sense of and understand what another person is trying to say. Listening also help me ask questions if I am unclear about what the other person is saying. In addition, it can make the other person feels comfortable talking with me because it shows you are interested and attentive. Hence, listening the other person will make he/she comfortable talking to me. A good example would be when a friend of mine was talking to me about his family problems. Not only he feels comfortable talking to me about it, he also feels that he can trust me. Hence, improving our friendship.
The other strength I have in communicating is that I can easily sympathise with another person. After listening to them and understanding them, it is easy for me to relate that what they are feeling. Other than listening, looking at their expression and hearing their tone helps in understanding them better. An example for this is when Grace, my classmate in secondary school, told me that her pet dog passed away. Even though, I do not own a pet before, I can easily felt sympathy when she told me all those stories with her dog as tears dripping slowly from her eyes.

Challenges
One main challenge I have in communicating is empathising another person. To emphasise someone, I need to know what they went through. It is easier to sympathise rather than to empathise what the person feels as I may not experience what they have been through. An example would be Grace losing her dog. I would have not understood the feeling of a pet because I did not own any in the first place. However, I do feel terribly sorry for her loss. This is where I feel sympathy. Sometimes, it is not possible to put yourself in someone else’s shoes if you do not have the same passion, interest or understanding that they have. Due to this, I find it hard to give advises. All I could do is be a listening ear to her.
The next challenge is that I may sometimes communicate too much. This occurs when I ask a lot of questions or just talking about something which is not related at all. This can lead to annoyance and hence, stopping the communication. This occurs when I was in primary six. I tend to ask a lot of questions during class because I was a curious boy. However, during class time, while my teacher was teaching, I would interrupt her. After a few times of interrupting, she scolded me so that could finish teaching the whole class. Afterwards, she ignored whatever questions I want to ask. Then, I realise I was being selfish to my classmates who are trying to listen to her as they have the right to learn as much as I do.

Two objectives

The first objective I set for myself is that I would want to be able to give good feedback or advice after listening to the person. It would be nice to be more than just a listening ear. I would want to be someone who people would come to you and ask for advices. The other objective is to learn not to interrupt someone when they are talking. I am not on referring to lesson time but also when a friend or anyone talking to me face-to-face. This to show the respect they deserve when they are trying to tell things.

Comments

  1. Brad Blackstone12 June 2017 at 23:38

    Thank you, Azziz, for this reflection on your communication strengths and weaknesses. You focus on your skill as an active listener, and as a person who exhibits lots of sensitivity for others. I guess that means you have good EQ.

    As for some weaknesses, you mention how as a kid you were a bit of a chatterbox, and also, that you have difficulty empathizing. This confuses me as in the discussion of your strengths, you had mentioned that you can sense well how others are feeling. I see you're using the words empathy and sympathy quite interchangeably, so your meaning gets blurred in this part of your post.

    In the goals section you address some of these weaknesses. I look forward to working with you on various issues during the rest of this term.

    ReplyDelete

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