Clear, Conscious Communication in Life and at Work

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The Spring season brings a sense of renewal, and can be the perfect time to begin to practice new habits. The habit of engaging in conscious communication can make that spring-like sense of renewal a constant in our lives, work, and relationships. Conscious communication requires control, clarity, and confidence – and helps us attract and create the relationships we desire. The habit of making conscious choices in emotion and behavior helps us to control what we say and do and become more clear and confident about who we are and what we want. Effective communication and satisfying relationships require time, dedication, and a great deal of practice. Having a coaching partner is a constructive and fun way to get started. The payoffs are invaluable.

As a life and communication coach, my focus is helping women and men achieve greater success and satisfaction by improving interpersonal communication skills. Many of my clients want to change something about their communication style that is resulting in frustration, discontent, and dissatisfying relationships. We work together to understand different communication styles and intentionally cultivate certain habits including self-reflection and self-management to improve interpersonal relationships. However, the foundational habit my clients begin to cultivate within our coaching programs is the habit of continually working on their relationship with themselves. This often involves establishing a new sense of self during a major life or work transition and realizing the significance of self-acceptance and self-worth.

Cultivating New Habits
Deborah, a middle-aged communications professional in career transition aimed to plan an effective communication strategy to find a new and satisfying professional position. The volatile economy and months of job-hunting with no success made Deborah feel disempowered. Her demeanor reflected disappointment and personal insecurities. She repeatedly received feedback that she had 'low energy' and appeared defensive and closed-off during interviews. Through coaching, Deborah increased awareness around her emotional and behavior choices and intentionally began to cultivate the habits of self-reflection and self-management. Deborah's weekly coaching assignments included  journaling about her job interview experiences, emotional triggers, and how those triggers affected her behavior. Deborah began to understand that she had more choices in how she felt about and talked to herself. She realized that her lack of self-confidence and energy created a pattern where she was devaluing herself and her past professional accomplishments when speaking with potential employers. Deborah was also unclear about what type of work she really wanted to do. Over the course of our three-month coaching partnership, Deborah tapped into her personal power, reframed her perspective, and chose to view her career transition as an opportunity for self-exploration and discovery. She redefined her career goals and improved her interpersonal communication skills to reflect the strong, professionally competent, and personally energetic woman she truly was. Today, Deborah is gainfully employed and reports feeling more in touch with her true self than ever before and more satisfied professionally than she has been in years.

As Deborah's story reflects, gaining insight through experience is vital when creating new communication habits. Clearly seeing our contribution to situational and relationship dynamics is the first step toward change. Negotiating with ourselves to make conscious shifts in how we choose to communicate is the second step. The third step is practicing our new habits. Often. Reflecting on the consequences of your current interpersonal habits helps you identify what is and is not working about your communication style. Being silent longer, listening actively, slowing speech, changing voice tone, adjusting body language, and being more or less direct are useful examples. There are also many equally important intrapersonal habits like being more honest with yourself about your feelings, making more time for yourself in life, and treating yourself well.

David is an intellectually inclined, 50 year-old, divorced engineer, looking for love. His major frustrations are low self-confidence and an inability to make meaningful and lasting connections with women. Whether dating on-line or while attending local singles events, David frequently feels out of place, nervous, and 'up-in-his-head' instead of fully engaged in social interactions. He had become ‘stuck’ as the result of emotional and social habits that no longer served him. The coaching program that David and I are co-creating focuses on cultivating his ability to stay present and not allowing his nervousness and feelings of insecurity to get the best of him. In addition to weekly journaling and self-reflection, David practices his listening and speaking skills through conversational role-playing during coaching sessions. He is becoming increasingly more controlled, clear and confident in his communication style and reports feeling more comfortable when meeting new people in social and business situations. David is also actively managing his thoughts, emotions and behaviors. When he feels himself getting anxious, he practices deep breathing, repeats empowering mantras, and consciously reminds himself that he is worthy of attracting people that meet him at the levels of interest, integrity and authenticity he requires. David continues to cultivate the habits of self-acceptance and being more kind to himself.

David's story reminds us that the habits we choose create the essence of who we are. Taking the time to stop and examine how we are showing up to the world helps us get to know ourselves better. Being honest with ourselves during this self-discovery process is crucial.  A lack of self-reflection and self-management around our communication style is often the most unrecognized source of discontent and frustration. This makes sense. It is easier to deny unpleasant self-truths than to admit when we are out of alignment with how we like to see ourselves. It feels safer to act out habitual communication patterns than to try something new.  However, when we become stuck in these patterns - we become 'stuck' in life, work, and relationships.  Being ‘stuck’ is the result of choices and habits that no longer serve us.

Ask yourself...What are my communication habits? Where am I stuck? What do I want to change?

Cultivating You

We can stretch into new versions of ourselves and replace old habits that no longer serve us with new and effective ones. Like Deborah, we can consciously choose to become more open and curious instead of closed-off and defensive so that we can make more graceful life and career transitions. Like David, we can choose to empower rather than diminish ourselves in any personal or professional context by being more controlled, clear, and confident in our communication style. Having a clear sense of who you are and what you want helps you make decisions according to your best interests. Understanding yourself enough to intentionally make adjustments in behavior is a fundamental life-skill. Managing your emotions and behavior is a life-long process - and the basis for creating healthy relationships, success, and happiness. 

So, this Spring season I encourage you to cultivate the habit of clear, conscious communication in your life and work. You are absolutely worth it - and so are your relationships.

Jill Mazza is a Certified Professional Coach and corporate trainer specializing in interpersonal communication and presentation skills. She can be reached via her website http://www.mazzacoaching.com/ and emailed directly at jill@mazzacoaching.com.

© 2010 Jill Mazza Coaching. All Rights Reserved.