Rybecca Ruffin
HD 205 Section 1
9/9/14

Communication is such an important part of everyday life, and is used in literally every situation you could think of. We use communication in almost every aspect of our everyday lives, with family, friends, acquaintances, professors, strangers, and even animals. Without communication, it would be hard to get very far in life, let alone even get through a regular day. It is how we express our needs and concerns, how we understand what others are saying, and how we discuss things. When it comes to communicating with other people, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, things they can teach others, and things they would like to improve on.
Communication is a way to listen to others thoughts and ideas, as well as express your own. Because of this, it comes in handy that my greatest strength in communication is that I am not afraid to be completely myself, and I encourage other people to be themselves also. I like who I am and I think that it is okay to be proud of your ideas and to want to share them with others. I am not ashamed of my own opinion, and I am also comfortable enough with myself and my views to be open-minded towards other people’s views. I like to hear other people’s points of view, as I feel that it can make you a more knowledgeable, cultured person, and to think that your point of view is the only correct one is ignorant. Along with being non-judgmental towards others, I feel that it is very important to always stay true to yourself and to present the truest version of yourself to others. This comes in handy during communication because people will feel more comfortable around you and able to trust you because they know you are an honest person and not putting on a front or being fake. They might also feel more comfortable with talking to you and sharing their opinions.
Despite all of this, my greatest weakness in communication would be that sometimes I am too nervous to put myself out there and say what I want to say. If I don’t feel especially comfortable in a situation, I won’t speak up and state my opinion. With friends or even acquaintances, I don’t mind at all being completely honest and saying exactly what I mean. In a classroom full of strangers, however, I would never be the first person to raise their hand to speak. I think that this could be partially attributed to the fact that as a child, I was extremely shy. As I grew older, I learned to be a much more outgoing person, and was able to make many friends in high school. Still, I think that deep down, there is still a part of that painfully shy, awkward child in me that comes out when I am in uncomfortable situations. It still takes a little push from myself to make myself speak out and to not hold back and stay silent. Every day, I work on this weakness and try to push myself a little more out of my comfort zone by speaking up during a time when I might not normally say anything, or introduce myself to a new person I am sitting by in class. Slowly but surely, I am making an effort to get over my nervousness!
Communicate is also a huge part of working in groups. When working with other people, my greatest strength is that I am always willing to cooperate to get the job done. I understand that communication is a crucial factor when it comes to working together, and that it is important to exchange new ideas with others to work towards a common goal. I like to share my new ideas with the group but also take into consideration the ideas of others. I am usually willing to compromise with others and take the best out of both of our ideas. I try to be flexible and do the project in ways that would help the other people work best, but I make sure that there are parts of my strongest, best ideas into the project also. Whatever my group and I can do to make the project work out better is in my interest, and I am okay with going the extra mile. This is a helpful quality to have in communicating because it makes it easier to work with people and get the job done when you are willing to work together and find the middle ground on your ideas.
Although I try hard to be as cooperative as I can, my greatest weakness when working with others is that I am not always as patient as I would like to be. Sometimes I can get quickly frustrated for a short time when people are not keeping up with my pace in the conversation, or if they are not understanding the point I am trying to get across. Both of these situations are simply issues of miscommunication, but I tend to blame myself or the other person for a split second. When this happens, I like to just take a deep breath and remember that it is no one’s fault. Sometimes just need to slow down and explain myself better or try harder to better understand what the other person is saying. Keeping in mind that everyone has strengths and weaknesses, the aspect of my communication skills that I would most like to work on improving this semester is to push myself out of my comfort zone more often. This means participating in more activities even if a friend is not there to do it with me, and doing the things I want to do without worrying. I want to join more clubs on campus, get more involved, raise my hand to share my opinions in class, and be able to speak in front of large groups of people with no problem. When it comes to working with others, a communication skill I need to improve on would definitely be to have more patience. This is something that I am already working on and have been for a while. I get through these situations simply by telling myself to stop for a second, take a moment to think about other ways to solve the situation or how I could better communicate my point, and to listen to what the other person is saying as well. A goal I have set for myself specifically in HD 205 this semester is to fully participate in all activities, and make the most of out the opportunities presented to me. To get the most out of the class, it is important for me to soak in all the information and to get a better understanding of myself when it comes to communicating. I want to be able to say I tried my hardest to take in everything that I could out of the class, and that I came out of it with new material that I could use to communicate better in my every day routine. To do this, I plan to come to class every day and pay full attention to the lecture. I will participate in all the in-class activities as well as the activities that my small group will come up with. I also plan to put my best effort into connecting with my small group, and to take the most things I can learn about myself and others out of that assignment as well. As I was writing this essay, I took it as more of a self-evaluation. It helped me to realize how valuable my strong points are, and how to work on the things I need to improve. Looking back, I am glad I took the time to self-reflect on these things and I feel that it will help me to improve my communication skills in the future by just knowing these things about myself that I do now.