How to Avoid Misunderstandings

Ever felt misunderstood?  Misunderstandings are a failure to clearly communicate and are pretty common in today's society.  We misunderstand others in conversations, emails, text messages, and social media. Personal and relationship problems often come from a lack of communication and understanding.  Effective communication is a two-way street in which we must be effective in sending messages, as well as we must be effective in receiving messages to avoid misunderstandings.

Conversation Misunderstandings can be cleared up with a few common tips:

• As the listener, utilize Active Listening
• Be engaged in conversations as the listener by using "following" words such as "ye, uh-huh, really"
• Think about your body language...make eye contact, nod, lean slightly forward towards the speaker
• Pay attention and ask follow up questions or clarity questions
• Paraphrase the message
• As the speaker, send clear and accurate messages by
• Be specific 
• Consider how your body language matches your words
• Look for non-verbal cues from the listener to see if they are understanding the message
• Say what you mean

For written communication, such as email, text messages, etc., misunderstandings may increase due to the lack of tone of voice and body language cues provided in the conversation.  In some ways, that is why emoticons are becoming increasingly popular because they can provide a visual cue to the written words.  Whether you approve of emoticons or not, here are some types for avoiding written misunderstandings:

• Read your message out-loud before sending the message
• Have a co-worker/friend read the message before sending as a tester
• Don't use all caps as it is considered yelling
• Use emoticons
• If the message sounds to harsh upon reading, don't send it! Maybe a phone call or in-person conversation would be more gentle
• Always re-read your work, especially with auto-correct

Hopefully these are easy tips (or most likely reminders) for you to consider and re-incorporate into your communicate skills.  With more mindfulness awareness misunderstandings should be limited!

Brought to you by Thrive Counseling Center LLC in Metairie, LA at www.thrivecounselingcenterllc.com.