Best Communication Ever

Communication is the lifeline of any relationship. It is the solvent of all the problems and is the foundation for personal development.

The best relationship we have is with ourselves. And we communicate the most with ourselves – be it recreating a conversation with your best friend, replaying the recent fight with your spouse, thinking of the reply you should send to that WhatsApp message, or planning for lunch – we do a lot of self-talk before talking to anyone else.

There is term as well to define this self-talk – intrapersonal communication. Intrapersonal communication can be defined as communication with oneself, acts of imagination and visualization and even recall and memory.

From planning to problem solving, internal conflict resolution, evaluations, and judgements of self and others, we communicate with ourselves through intrapersonal communication. It helps us build self-concept or self-awareness. Self-concept is – how we see ourselves, how we would like to be, how we think others see us and how others see us.

Suppose someone has failed in life and has come to you for some advice. Instead of telling him that all will be fine, you told him – “You are a failure. You do not deserve to even talk to anyone. Look at your personality, you cannot improve on anything. Do not show your face to anyone ever again or you will be made fun off”. Do we talk to anyone like this, even if the person is our enemy?

Then why do we talk to ourselves like this even when we face a small failure in life?  Whenever we are talking about us always use motivating communication.

Try saying to yourself – “I can do it”, “I am enough”, “I am open to feedback”, “Its ok to fail” “I can start again this time with experience”.

Self-talk is the most powerful form of communication because it either empowers us or it defeats us.

One of the most important leadership qualities is empathy. Understanding other people’s situation and considering what it would be like is also a form of intrapersonal communication. Based on the previous question’s answer, we decide what to ask next. So, when we keep conversation with ourselves open and positive, then we can become a good empathetic leader as well.

“When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one -third of my time talking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.”

Abraham Lincoln

Writing a journal, leaving ourselves notes on the fridge or door, create to-do lists, etc. are forms of intrapersonal communication, which also improves our analytical and decision-making skills. We can make decisions and actions in the future based on the wisdom of our past self.

As soon as I get a task, I send a meeting invite to myself, booking my calendar at the time I would like to pick up that task. In case, I am not able to complete the task at the scheduled time, I will reschedule the task based on the priority. This also helps to keep me focused.

To successfully communicate with others, we must first learn to communicate with ourselves. Intrapersonal communication is the best and most basic level of communication. We must understand who we are and what we think of ourselves.

Be mindful of your self-talk. It’s a conversation with the universe.