Self Development & Communication – Business communication

Self Development is a never ending process. It is an ongoing activity and a lack of focus on personal development activities makes people stagnate in their life. Communication acts as a major factor contributing to one’s development in a crucial manner. Without advancement in communication skills, knowledge enhancement remains an untapped resource.

What is Self Development

Self Development is a terminology that does not have a fixed meaning in general. The degrees of development differ from one person to another and so does the meaning of the word. Different people term different achievements as development. While scientists term a success in research and new finding as development, for a Spiritualist, attaining deeper understanding about the concept called self means development. A sportsman may consider breaking earlier records as development while for an Employee, getting promoted to the next scale due to a skill set he acquired is development.

Aspects of Self development

It has four aspects namely Intellectual, Spiritual, Emotional and Physical.

• Self Development is said to be intellectual when the reading, analyzing, writing and visualizing aspects of a person undergoes enhancement.
• It is said to be spiritual when a person experiences elevation in the meditation, values and spiritual dimensions
• It is said to be in emotional when people improve their socializing skills with regard to relationship building and maintenance
• Under physical aspect focuses lies on exercising and nutritional value addition to the physical body to strengthen the body and improve health

Self Development and related goals

Some goals pertaining to self development are listed below in order to relate the same to communication skills which leads towards success. Self Development means:

• Developing overall personality for success in all aspects of life
• Cooperating to foster peaceful co-existence in work place
• To groom oneself to move from the current position to a better future position
• To focus in developing the right hemisphere of the brain i.e. intuitive and artistic skills as well as the left hemisphere of the brain i.e. analytical and logical skills
• Developing skill sets that are professional in nature
• Developing a positive approach towards life
• To practice healthy habits that will improve many aspects of life like money, time, energy and relationships

Self Development and its relationship with  Communication Skills

Self Development refers to increased maturity levels in individuals. Maturity is the aspect that fosters appropriate behaviour in workplace by an individual. The relation between Self Development that offers high levels of maturity and communication skills can be explained through the following:

• Self Development leads to a co-operative environment in the business place leading to high levels of synergy. This synergy motivates people to communicate in a transparent manner with each other encouraging mutual faith on each other
• Matured individuals empathize with others in a typical work environment. This exerts high levels of influence on their communication style with others in the work place.
• Individuals focusing on personal development ensure that they maintain healthy relationships at work place. Their choice of words, communication style, mode of communication etc. affects their relationships and helps in maintaining relationships.
• Self development being a continuous process produces leaders at all management levels in an organization. This leads to strong communication chain at all management levels.

Communication and its relation to self development

The following points substantiate the contribution of strong communication skills to self development.

• Persuasion through effective writing makes an individual strong in written communication skills. Such strong written communication skills lead to development in multiple ways
• Good communication requires in-depth listening. Effective Listening helps in empathizing with others. This paves a way for endless learning leading to development.
• Speaking in an eloquent manner tends to fetch respect from people which acts as morale booster
• Communication through facial expressions, body posture, gestures, eye movement, and touch helps an individual to convey his maturity level in terms of mental and physical attributes. This earns tremendous respect and encourages people to groom themselves further.