Over the past few weeks I have been experiencing difficulty in maintaining my motivation around blogging, working, exercising and more. This week I found myself in a state of anxiety around my yard as it was flooding and was about to run into my house (I have no basement) and I realized how difficult it must be for people who suffer from anxiety on a daily basis. I was so scattered I couldn’t sit down for more than 10 minutes at a time. I couldn’t concentrate on anything that I should be doing with my work – emails, contacting clients, etc.
Has this happened to you?
I got wondering how may others are feeling like this. Our world seems to be spinning faster and faster and the expectations to do more and more seem to be piling up. I hear from my clients that they are being asked to do 2 or 3 jobs now as their companies are laying people off, but the work still has to get done.
Many people are losing their jobs as our economy is going from in-person shopping to on-line/digital purchasing. Everything (almost) is now available online. Stores are encouraging people to use automated check-outs instead of going to a cashier. (I still am refusing to do that – I want to keep people employed.)
As a Career Counsellor, I work from home and talk to my clients over the phone. It is important to have good communication skills in order to do this. To be understood and to make the person on the other end of the phone have a connection with you, you need to be able to listen and understand where they are coming from and you need to be able to communicate some potential solutions.
I have been using my 30+ years of career counselling plus my 17 years of public speaking at Toastmasters to hone my skills.
How are Your Communication Skills?
Do you find that people can easily understand you? Do they really “hear” what you are telling them? Do you truly “hear” what others are telling you or are you just listening to the words and thinking about how you are going to respond or how what they are saying affects you. It is important to “hear” everything – voice, inflection, words, body language, etc. Then you truly do hear what someone is saying.
For the past few weeks we have been dealing with dwindling membership in one of our Toastmasters clubs and it has led to reduced motivation to presenting speeches, enhancing our skills, but we have decided to persevere, to keep on trying to make people understand the value of Toastmasters in any walk of life. If you talk to people, good communication skills are essential.
So for now, I am becoming a little more motivated to work on my speeches again. I have booked in to do a speech next week and I am working on my client files today.
How about you?
How are you feeling these days? I am happy that the days are becoming brighter, that spring is just around the corner. (A little worried about the water in my yard and my ditch, but will remain positive about that.
Have a wonderful day/week/month/year.
Fran Watson
P.S. If you would like some speaking tips, simply comment below and I will get in touch with you. Or PM me on my Facebook page where I share some tips: https://www.facebook.com/simplestepstospeakingsuccess/
