A wise heart instructs its mouth and increases learning with its speech.
Proverbs 16:23 Holman CSB
Your skills as a communicator will have a profound impact upon your relationships, your career, and your life. The more quickly you learn how to communicate effectively, the more quickly you’ll give yourself an instant jumpstart.
Would you like to become a better communicator? Here are a few simple rules that can help:
- Think First, Speak Second: If you blurt out the first thing that comes into your head, you may say things that are better left unsaid.
- Learn to Be a Good Listener: If you want to be listened to, then you, too, must be a careful listener.
- Don’t Be a Complainer: You simply can’t whine your way to the top, so don’t even try.
- Don’t Say Things “Behind Someone’s Back” That You Wouldn’t Say Directly to that Person’s Face: Gossip isn’t nice, and it isn’t smart since the people you talk about will eventually find out what you said, and they won’t forget.
- Be a Trustworthy Communicator: Don’t hedge the truth, don’t omit important facts, and don’t make promises that you can’t keep. If you shade the truth, people always find out anyway, and they remember.
Today, make this promise to yourself: vow to be an honest, effective, encouraging communicator at school, at home, at work and everyplace in between. Speak wisely, not impulsively. Use words of kindness and praise, not words of anger or derision. Learn how to be truthful without being cruel. Remember that you have the power to heal others or to injure them, to lift others up or to hold them back. And when you learn how to lift them up, you’ll soon discover that you’ve lifted yourself up, too.
More From God’s Word About Communication
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Proverbs 25:11
Pleasant words are a honeycomb: sweet to the taste and health to the body. Proverbs 16:24
And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32
There is one who speaks rashly, like a piercing sword; but the tongue of the wise [brings] healing. Proverbs 12:18
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14
I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. Matthew 12:36-37
References:
“56: Becoming a Great Communicator.” New Beginnings … Finding God’s Path for Your Life. Nashville, TN: Freeman-Smith LLC, 2008. 231-33. Print.
