Strong communication skills can help you in both your personal and professional life.
How can you improve yournonverbal communicationskills?
Paying closer attention to your nonverbal signals is an excellent place to start.
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The following tips can help you learn toread other people’s nonverbal signalsand enhance your ability to communicate effectively.
With practice, it’s possible for you to become more adept at conveying meaning without saying a word.
For example, eye contact can help establish how attentive a person is.
Tone of voice might reveal hints about their emotional state.
Even posture can help convey how interested and engaged a person is in a conversation.
For example, someone might tell you they are happy while frowning and staring at the ground.
Therapists, for example, utilize these incongruencies to look for how a client might feel during a session.
Be aware that other factors might contribute to these differences.
Tone can be an effective way to amplify your message.
Researchers have found that tone of voice can affect how people respond to healthcare practitioners.
Patients report greater satisfaction when treated by surgeons who use a non-dominant tone of voice.
People who use more vocal variety in tone of voice are rated as more trustworthy and attentive.
Use Good Eye Contact
Good eye contact is another essential nonverbal communication skill.
On the other hand,too much eye contactcan seem confrontational or intimidating.
How can you tell how much eye contact is appropriate?
A good idea is to repeat back your interpretation of what has been said and ask for clarification.
These questions are part ofactive listeningand help demonstrate your interest and engagement in the conversation.
Sometimes simply asking such questions can lend a great deal of clarity to a situation.
Use Signals to Add Meaning
Remember that verbal and nonverbal communication work together to convey a message.
you could improve your spoken communication by using body language that reinforces and supports what you are saying.
This can be especially useful when making presentations or speaking to a large group.
For example, suppose your goal is to appear confident and prepared during a presentation.
A single gesture can mean any number of things or maybe even nothing at all.
The key to accurately reading nonverbal behavior is looking for groups of signals reinforcing a common point.
Some situations require more formal behaviors that might be interpreted very differently in any other setting.
Consider whether or not nonverbal behaviors are appropriate for the context.
This example illustrates an important point about the possibility of misreading nonverbal signals.
A weak handshake might actually indicate something else entirely, such as arthritis.
Always remember to look for groups of behavior.
A person’s overall demeanor is far more telling than a single gesture viewed in isolation.
Interpreting nonverbal communication is complex and relies on various abilities, including interpersonal skills andemotional intelligence.
These people are often described as being able to “read people.”
In reality, nonverbal communication is a skill it’s possible for you to improve.
Nonverbal communication is complex and varied.
There’s is no single approach or signal that is appropriate in every context.
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