Descriptive Reflection: Strengths and Challenges in Communicating

What is communication? To me, words are merely a medium for us to relate meanings which leads to communication. Instead of using a river as a metaphor, mine is a magnet. For interpersonal communication, two magnets with like poles that repel symbolises both parties cannot be speaking at the same time. To build relations, only one party should be speaking while the rest are listening. The constant magnetic field surrounding it would be the environment and the noise and could also symbolise intra-communication. Personally, I feel that one of my strengths in communicating is that I am very open-minded as I can talk to anyone about anything under the sun. I love to interact and I find joy in making new friends, having heart to heart talks. I also believe that I am a good listener. Stories make me ponder and like a sponge, I absorb every bit of information from the speakers. Through these stories, I will be able to learn and gain experiences, without having to physically go through them myself. Yet I would know the outcome and even the precautions to take when I encounter such events.

However, my strength can be pose challenges too. Being equipped and exposed to these experiences, sometimes I feel that I am actually “entertaining” my friends when they share their common stories with me. This is because right after I know what they are implying or suggesting I already relate to their stories and already know how to advice, console or react to their actions. Another challenge is that I feel after years of experiences in the sales and marketing industry, I tend to be overly convincing and with such magnitude of influence, it is easy to manipulate others, sometimes even without me knowing. Thus I have to constantly remind myself to put myself in the others shoes. However most of the time I will have a dilemma, what if my decision and the results are for his own well being but he could not see the it. Should i still enforce it or let him regret only when he finally realised? For me, I am the type of person that I would rather you hate me now, than to go against my morals and let you be.

Today, during the lesson, when discussing the topic on “meaning are words”, I came out with the example of person 'B' scolding person 'A', person 'A' should not react by scolding him, but understand that he is angry and at that point of time, words are not the real meaning whereas the reason behind his actions are. It struck me that being a hot-tempered person myself, I always fail to react appropriately. Thus, one of the objectives I would like to achieve towards the end of this module would be understanding and decoding others’ messages in as many perspectives as I can in the shortest amount of time, before my body or rage takes over my mind. All these while, I thought it was because of anger management but maybe it is because the message conveyed is unclear which leads to misunderstandings. Another objective would be to broaden my perspective and learn with an open heart. Thus I hope to be able to contribute as much as i could in class, to be able to induce thinking so that others would be able to learn as much as i learnt from them. Lastly, i would like to end this post with this quote below, which I find it very meaningful.