Good communication skills are key to any success in life, work, and relationships. Without effective communication, a message can turn into error, misunderstanding, frustration, or even disaster by being misinterpreted. We assume too much, not asking enough for clarification nor what was meant by what we, or someone else, said.

On the other hand, when communicating a message, we need to be clear and even ask the one we are communicating with what they heard or understood about what we said. Communication is only successful when both the one communicating a message and the one hearing the message understand the same information. How many times have we heard, “Well, I thought you meant this,” or, “I really believed you wanted this done,” etc.? It’s because something wasn’t clear. What was being communicated and what was being heard were not the same.

Clear communication will cause our lives to be less stressful. We need to ask questions. When communicating, we need to be clear, and we must work hard at not assuming anything. Our lives, our world, will be much more peaceful and fruitful if we don’t assume.

Just a thought,

PSS