The Mental Emotional Health Blog

Two components of communication are speaking and listening. Although I plan to concentrate more on listening as this website develops, today I’ll start with speaking.

Speak with purpose.  What you say and the way you say it guide/drive communication.  Recognize that people think ahead based on what you say and how you say it.  Many, and I’m still guilty at times, form their response before the message is even complete and jump to conclusions. A great example of this is game shows in which the host warns the players to listen to the full question before answering. It happens every so often that one contestant buzzes in too early, and gives an incorrect answer because the last part of the question is the key to the answer. In everyday life, we aren’t in the spotlight of a game show, but in my opinion the communication we have with friends, loved ones, and co-workers has great importance. The interactions we have influence our moods, thought-patterns, motivation, relationships, and decisions. 

Have you ever had a conversation in which you ended up on a completely different topic than what you wanted to discuss? Obviously, people have directions in conversation that they would like to take. But if you make your purpose clear at the beginning, the focus of conversation has a much better chance of remaining on the original topic.  Help them get a better understanding of you and your perspective.

Speaking with purpose doesn’t take much time, and can make conversations more productive and less frustrating.