Communication and personal growth: 5 key factors to grow and connect with others

How well you communicate is an indicator of your personal growth. The better you can connect with others, the more you will want to take on situations that extend your personal development. The more “on purpose” conversations you have, the more you’ll look for opportunities to learn and grow.

All conversations come with some level of risk attached. Some conversations, like an exchange between you and your dry cleaner, may carry little risk. Compare this to asking your boss for a raise or confronting a challenging client where the stakes are at stake, and you’ll find that higher-risk conversations naturally increase your personal growth. The more frequently you engage in “higher risk” conversations, the more confident you will feel and the more empowered to act on your own behalf.

Consider these five factors of effective communication:

Intention: Communicating with honest and true intent is not as easy as it seems. You will need a great deal of self-awareness to realize if your intention is purely for your own benefit, even if it is cloaked in helping others. Consciously observe your conversations over a period of time and notice your true intentions.

Empathy: Much has been said about the ability to be empathetic or the ability to vicariously experience the feelings of another. The truth is that without this component communication becomes hollow and lacks energy. It is the energy of empathy that promotes personal growth. Truly empathic exchanges can provide new insights, and isn’t that the foundation of personal growth?

Confidence: The ability to trust yourself, to own everything you know and own everything you don’t, is the basis of self-confidence, to declare what you don’t know but are willing to learn. The confident person says “tell me more”. The more you learn and put it to good use, the more you will scale your own development.

Commitment: Although engagement is a common business buzzword today regarding employee engagement, engagement is the key to avoiding misunderstandings. In a conversation it is more than an active listening. It is the ability to integrate the interpretation of messages between the parties. Your message may sound different in your listener’s mind than your intended message and vice versa. Engaging your listener means holding their attention and interacting like a set of aligned gears.

Patience: It takes time to develop effective communication just as it takes time to develop personal growth. It takes strength to become proficient in handling difficult or higher-risk conversations. Allow yourself the freedom of patience.

Take the challenge and increase the frequency of high-stakes conversations and enjoy the rewards of becoming a more confident communicator.