>In all aspects of life from health and fitness, career or school goals and even day-to-day tasks, there is a serious need for PROPER communication between all parties involved . It has become that much more difficult to properly communicate today with all of the technology out there no one REALLY converses anymore. I’m sorry but text messaging, facebook messages and emails just aren’t REAL communication. Sure these methods assist with contacting but as I am sure many of you have experienced, things get lost in translation or misinterpreted. Does anyone remember the studies proving that body language is 55% communication??? Then of course you have pitch,tone and inflection that give the real story behind what is being stated as well. You can only get that through face to face and to some degree phone and video conferencing but text, bbm etc nope just doesn’t cut it.
How many times have you been in a situation where you mean one thing when you reply to a text and get into a heated argument with someone and you don’t even know why, only to find that the other person took your “tone” the wrong way. Words do not have feeling or express emotion nor do they tell the real facts. How many times have you missed a deadline or meeting with someone or went to the wrong address or blah blah blah only because part of the email, text etc got lost in translation out there in the world of technology? Oh one of my favourites too is when the piece of technology you are using to send a message takes what you are meaning to say and just puts its own twist on it by adding the word programmed in instead of what you might really mean to say. It is so sad that we are all forgetting the importance of contact with eachother and in person communication.
I think it is awesome (especially since I reach out and do programming for people around the world) that we have tools like the internet, android phones, blackberry’s etc to help reach out but I think that it has gone a bit too far when we are no longer even contacting with eachother when we are in the same cities. What is better getting a message from a loved one or hugging that loved one? What is better and helps you to better perform your job, an email from your boss or an in person or even video conference with him/her? Pick up the phone and call or set up a video conferencing centre, schedule in a one on one meeting and I guarantee there will be less errors made, less confusion and a better overall outcome for both parties. I think of it this way, if you cannot accommodate to a phone or in-person form of communication if you are in the same area, you are hiding something. I’m sorry but this has been proven to me time and time again. If you are legit in your motives, you will put forth the effort. Isn’t the other person worth the effort and aren’t you worth it too? Isn’t your work end-result worth the effort?
That is another issue with communication I have seen and experienced. I find that having a clear goal or outline of what is expected of you helps a TON with ensuring that the end result is a positive one. How are you supposed to do a good job if you don’t really know what is expected of you? This can either be in relation to a job task or relationships or many other things in between. Studies have proven that people perform at a more superior level and are more satisfied when they are given not only an overall job description or task performance goal. This is clear in athletics and really any training, nutrition or health situation. I guess this is related to the post here http://melisscious.blogspot.com/2010/11/are-you-ready-to-change.html and in regards to relationships, this is also clear. If you want the other person to do something, be clear about what you want don’t just piddle around it say it! I struggle with these things a lot now whether it is due to my scatterbrain but I am working on these things too (who knew communication was one of my best subjects in school…what happened lol) I have spent more than enough time listening to others while they didn’t listen to me (hearing and listening are two very different things) and this too is a major factor that lacks in communication that tone, body language and so on can help to fix vs text, emails… I have learned that it is often best in communication to just state it bluntly but yes oh yes there are times when subtly works wonders too 😉

Ultimately you NEED to speak up and you need to question or you will NEVER do YOUR best or get what YOU want…Just keep practicing on putting yourself out there and getting better communicating and soon you will really get what you want.