Introduction
Most of the duties in life require one to have a good interpersonal relationship with others to do them better. Effective performance of the tasks we are accountable for requires an excellent understanding of others and even our interpersonal skills. There are situations in social life that need one to possess the ability to compromise for a win-lose outcome and strive at best for a win-win outcome or at the very least, an acceptable result. In achieving this, he or she must be able to recognize the needs and perspectives of other people. Adhering to a basic model of learning as it applies to changing one’s behavior leads to one acquiring and increasing interpersonal skills. Learning this is a complicated process, yet its fundamentals are sub-divided into a five-part series. For one to change his or her behavior, and hence advance, one needs a goal and a method of assessing the current reality against this goal. One also needs a method of measuring that reality and the technique of getting feedback on the progress of the change of behavior. In this paper, I am going to describe a project on how I will improve my communication skills, hence my interpersonal relations in my social life.
Goal or desired state of affairs
To effectively change my behavior and improve on my interpersonal skills, I need to have a clear goal or a preferred state of affairs. My goal, in this case, relates to what I desire to achieve due to my relentless efforts to change my poor communication skills. Developing this goal gives me the upper hand in making progress to improve my performance. This goal allows me to burn the midnight oil until I attain it. In the process, my satisfaction and performance on the duty improve. Setting this goal enables me to know areas I have not thoroughly worked on; as a result, increase my efforts or adjust the mechanisms for reaching the goal.
In getting a solution to this problem, I will have to accomplish the general goal of improving my relations in my social life and support it with a more specific goal of practicing good communication skills. I will strive to achieve this by having a profitable conversation with everyone all the time, and by avoiding unnecessary confrontations with my peers especially when I am moody. In talking to people, I will analyze and match the progress of the conversation, thereby build a rapport with them. For example, if he or she talks slowly, I will follow suit.
Assessing Reality
This is the second most significant way of changing my behavior. In carrying this out, I can evaluate how far I am from realizing the goal, and about the perception of others concerning my poor communications skills. The following questions may linger in my mind: “What is the status of my interpersonal relationship with the others?” “Is there anyone who thinks that I rub him or her the wrong way in being a bad communicator?” “How many inadequacies do my friends identify me to possess?” A starting point in responding to these inquiries may require that I request a close friend to assist me to answer these questions since he is better placed to provide timely feedback on how other people perceive my social life. I may also request the services of an external confidant, mentor, or the advice of my parents.
Action Plan
The learning environment requires some ways of altering the connection between the person and the environment. The sequence of steps necessary to achieve a goal is referred to as an action plan. Without an action plan, my ambition of improving my social life may be elusive. An individual who comes up with ambitions may not initiate steps in realizing the fulfillment of his or her dream. Coming up with deliberate actions to improve my interpersonal skills, especially with my rampant poor communication problem, is a worthy course. My action plan may involve various steps. I may attempt to comprehend the effects of my words on various audiences. For example, I will not underrate the significance of my emotions on my friends. I will avoid at all costs conversations that may annoy them. I may also train to control my behavior to avoid bad language even when I am working under pressure, pursue a course in communication skills, and ask my best friend to occasionally remind me when he hears my engagement in bad communication.
Feedback on actions
This involves measuring my actions against reality. I get reliable feedback on the results of my actions. When my communication skills improve, I will have to measure my degree of advancement in different ways. Short and long-term measures of the sufficiency of my actions will be mandatory. Long-term measures play a vital role in sustaining the long-range implications of skill development activities. To get short-range feedback, I will confer with my best friend to ascertain whether he has seen any observable improvements in my communication. He may also gather feedback from the rest of my peers. The feedback will be of profit to me for one or two years to come. My best friend will be on guard to monitor the change from a bad communicator who mistreats people to a skillful communicator who enjoys good interpersonal relationships.
Frequent Practice
This is the last step in this learning model of improving interpersonal relations. It involves putting into practice the new behavior and employing feedback for fine-tuning as a commendable starting process in the acquisition of new interpersonal skills. To ensure that the skill lasts long, I must incorporate it into my usual lifestyle. I will need to practice good communication skills most of the time until I embrace it as a positive habit. This good interpersonal relationship is regarded as a lifelong habit once I program it into my system, hence my social life will dramatically improve.
Conclusion
I feel good about this process of transformation in overcoming my rampant problem of being a bad communicator. All these five steps are fundamental in avoiding disappointing results in terms of interpersonal skill improvement. Implementing these steps require self-discipline such as focusing on situations when bad communication is manifested and situations when good communication behavior is manifested. After achieving this, my next challenge would be to spearhead education forums on the role of good communication as a precursor for maintaining interpersonal relations. This is because good communication is the hallmark of great members of society. All of us should be able to modify our communication style to suit the diverse need of every unique situation.