How often have you heard people say that you need to improve your communication skills? Have you ever felt helpless in making people understand what you are trying to explain? If effective communication is something that you have always failed at, then read on to understand what are the common myths associated and how to rectify them.

Communications skill is the ability of an individual to effectively send across a message or view to the targeted listener or audience. It is an essential factor that is required for co-existing in a social world. Effective communication skills can earn rewards and accolades in professional and personal life while lack of proper skills often lead to misunderstandings. While improving one’s communication skill is important, it is more essential to know about the common myths that are associated with it.

Many people believe that the extent of one’s expertise in vocabulary and word formation can help them communicate better, but it is not so. Even an entire dictionary at your finger tip will not help you communicate better if you lack the necessary skills for it. Thus the first biggest myth that exists is that words define communication skills.

Communication is the process of conveying the message in a short and crisp manner. Hence it involves usage of words that create an impact in a short way. Some forms of communication do not require words at all. Non-verbal communication forms like body language, posture and eye contact help convey information better at times than verbal communications. It is a known fact that words constitute only about 7% of the total communication and the rest depends hugely on the body language, eye contact, posture, confidence level, etc.

The next associated myth is that communication skills are automatically possessed and cannot be developed. It is not so. Anyone can improve their communication skills provided they are determined to achieve it. There are many online communication tests and a simple test can help you understand your skill level and your weak areas.

Once you understand your current level, you can look out for various schemes and options through which you can eliminate the weak links and build your basics. Once your communication basics are built, you can start developing on your confidence levels and presentation skills. These will enable you to convey your message more effectively.

Two very basic aspects of effective communication skills are confidence and feedback. A communication that lacks confidence will do no good as it will not bring about any seriousness or loyalty on the listener. As long as the listener does not take you seriously, he will not take your message also seriously. Thus building confidence is an essential step so as to ensure that your listener or audience is keen on listening to your words.

Also any form of communication need to be two way and feedback is an important component of a communication system. Feedback can help you keep up with your listener to ensure that they understand what you are conveying.

Listen attentively to their opinions and views to make sure that your message is passed on in the right fashion. Feedback is also provided only in a communication system where the receiver and sender share a good comfort level. Building a rapport with your audience is thus an important step which will instill confidence and openness in the communication system.

Now that you know all the aspects of communicating effectively, as a final point you need to understand the importance of listening. Now you might be wondering how listening can be a part of providing information? Any information that you give will not be received properly if the system is one sided, so learn to listen to your audience.

Listening to your audience not just means paying attention to their opinions and views but also to their moods and reactions. Try to understand when your audience seems bored and modulate your communication methodology to tackle such situations. You can use your voice tone and pitch to show different modulation to support the message being conveyed.

Thus it is important that you understand how you communicate to make sure that the right message is passed across effectively. So think again, do you speak the correct language?