The Key To Communicating Is Understanding What Is Being Said

Since we are social animals, the biggest part of our lives is to communicate with others. Sharing and receiving thoughts, by exchanging concise vital information, understanding the other person’s feelings or intent.

These are essential skills needed when it comes to communication, in business and every social situation.

So it’s not surprising it’s misunderstanding that creates a divide, which has caused wars to begin, and closer to home, people arguing.

Not understanding is what most struggle with. With cooperation, what’s needed is both parties to communicate better, to speak, listen, and react accordingly.

For humans, miscommunication occurs either verbally or written. The elements include the sender, the receiver, and the message sent and understood accurately.

Nonverbal signals, such as body language, tone, and gestures, are secondary indicators of relaying a message. The key remains saying and precisely understanding something.

Issues In Communication

The way we’re able to listen, to encode and decode the various messages sent by others, is based on how we learned to communicate when we were younger.

The words we speak, regardless of language, are just symbols of sound which represents certain things.

Every person who relays or receives this information, may have a slightly different interpretation, even if the words are identical.

What also influences communication is the actual number of words one understands, and the degree of language alteration which occurs in different settings or experiences.

The ways on how we code and decode these messages are determined by our culture, education, and life experiences.

Issues in communication can then emerge, as no two people has the same experiences as the other, which can alter communication definitions.

Communication Issues By The Sender

The most common problem when we’re attempting to send a message, is concisely coding our thoughts, feelings, or what we want.

And to do so in a way it’s properly relayed, and fully understood by the receiver, where there’s absolutely no doubt in what you meant.

How you might code or verbalize the message you’re feeling hungry for instance, is different to a 5 year old, to someone who speaks a different language than you.

What you will have are different options. So choosing the best way to send a message, becomes vital in making sure the receiver completely understands.

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To Concisely Understand

Another common issue is our thoughts, ideas and feelings on certain issues are extremely complex and difficult to relay.

We can also blame ourselves, as we may not have a good sense or understanding of what we’re trying to say.

Sending out a message about something we don’t completely understand ourselves, has no chance of being understood by the receiver.

Communication Issues By The Receiver

The biggest issue when it comes to we receiving a message from someone, is misunderstanding or decoding inaccurately.

This can occur when we’re not paying attention, not having the skills to understand the message sent.

What we tend to do is add our own interpretation to the message, one that wasn’t intended by the sender.

What we also do is rarely pay attention and listen to what someone is saying, because our mind is busy preparing for a response.

During this time, the true spirit of the message can be misinterpreted. We could easily miss the critical elements of it, resulting in misunderstanding.

I Think I Understand

What can also occur is certain words are not known, such as “urban slang,” or the message is too complex, then the chances of understanding its true intent is missed.

What many also have is a habit of automatically adding things to the message, which forces us to miss or alter what was truly intended.

Suppose someone is just hungry, but because the other person was late making dinner, will decode the message as criticism and will be offended.

There would likely be conflict, because of misinterpretation by the receiver, along with poor context from the sender.

This is also common in text and emails if it’s poorly written.

To Communicate Better

The key becomes learning to communicate better. To insure the message is accurately sent, received, and understood precisely by the other person.

There’s no magical formula, or the need to start learning a variety of methods to phrase or code better, or to subscribe to rules such as using “I Statements.”

What we all need is to become more mindful by having a better awareness of how messy communication can get.

Be more thoughtful about sending messages so the other would understand. Also ask to verify if the receiver completely understands or not.

Know Your Communication Mistakes

We’re all guilty of sending messages which are confusing or incomplete, or we completely miss the drift, when it comes to someone trying to tell us something.

Once we become more aware that anyone can make mistakes when communicating, we can then adjust to how we send and receive messages.

Choose Your Words And Actions Carefully

Make sure you tailor it to who the receiver is. We just can’t assume our parents, kids, coworkers, partners, to just automatically know what our needs and feelings are.

We think they should be able to accurately interpret everything we say, but realize they can’t, so make sure you are satisfied they understand you’re message.

All we can do is conscientiously send better messages by thinking how that specific person, at that specific time and state of mind, would be able to receive it.

Formulate the best possible language so they’ll understand, and deliver it to them. Always make sure you ask if they understood you.

Once you hear something, especially if you don’t completely understand or it strikes you differently, make sure you ask if you heard correctly.

Once you stop using your own interpretation if you don’t understand, arguments can then be prevented.

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