The Importance of Communication

Your ability to communicate successfully can be impacted when you’re dealing with high levels of stress. If we’re being honest, as attorneys or law students, it feels like we are all constantly dealing with stress. However, successful communication skills can be incredibly helpful in both the personal and professional aspects of your life.

Being a skilled communicator can help you strengthen your relationships with family and friends while also helping you successfully understand work assignments and how to complete them. Communication can help bring balance to your life when you’re feeling stressed or off-kilter. We have compiled a few suggestions to help with communication skills:

1. Take a moment to truly listen

If you want to improve your communication skills, you need to let other people say what they need to say. If you ever want to discuss an issue with someone else, you won’t get far by focusing on your viewpoint and not theirs. Interpersonal connections are built on discussion and communication, it can’t be a one-sided conversation.

Even if you don’t have an issue with someone, the strongest and most supportive friendships are reciprocal. Let your friends, co-workers and family tell you what they want to tell you, within reason, without interjecting or cutting them off. Chances are, the person you are speaking to will reciprocate the same way for you when you need to say something or express emotion.

2. Don’t forget about your body language

If you’re in the middle of a professional meeting or just meeting with a friend, you need to appear accessible. If we aren’t cognizant of our body language, we can end up looking bored or disinterested. If your body language demonstrates that you’re engaged in the conversation, the person you’re speaking to will feel heard and you’ll be able to get your point across.

3. Write down things that you want to communicate

This is particularly applicable in a professional context. You’re likely a busy attorney or law student, and if you don’t write things down you can end up coming off as forgetful or you might miss out on a great professional opportunity. Even if you have a great memory, writing things down will help you prioritize the kinds of communication you need to have and will likely lead to greater organization.

In a personal context, we tend to push away thoughts that we don’t want to deal with either because they are unpleasant or they add stress to your day. However, if you write things down you’ll remember to communicate them later. To effectively communicate, you need to be willing to deal with issues head-on rather than pushing them away and remembering them during an argument 6 months later. This will just lead to repressed feelings and heightened frustration.

4. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes

This one is a cliché for a reason, it works. Throughout your professional career, there will be countless instances where someone says something that really bothers you, or does something that you think is unfair. This is often also the case in your personal life.

However, instead of quietly getting yourself worked up, try to see why someone did what they did. Taking the time to understand something from someone else’s perspective will help you reduce your anger and see their rationale. Seeing someone’s perspective is powerful in communication and will enable you to have a productive conversation.