Personal Change Final Report

Stacy Symons

Salt Lake Community College

 Personal Change Final Report

This semester’s interpersonal communication class has given me so much insight into

how much power there is to be had when interacting with others. Interpersonal communication

defined is “a distinctive, transactional form of human communication involving mutual

influence, usually for the purpose of managing relationships.” At the same time, I better

understand there are limits to that power. We have the power to encode our own messages and

decode those of others, however we do not have control over how our communication partner

chooses to interpret those messages. One of my favorite understandings is that the degree to

which we can handle uncertainty is correlated to our ability to feel confident and successful. To

become better skilled at something means you can better control and predict outcomes of the

activity to which you are skilled at. The knowledge I have gained in my Interpersonal

Communications class has given me more confidence in my ability to manage my relationships.

There have been a few select skills from this class that I have been focused on throughout

the semester to become more proficient at. One of the more affective abilities I consistently

utilized was empathic listening. Our textbook describes being empathic as the “essence of being

other-oriented.” To practice this skill, I attentively listened to friends, family, and acquaintances.

I truly paid attention to the many channels through which messages are encoded in order to better

understand the sentiment and emotion behind the words. By making myself more aware of the

various channels, I was able to glean better insights into the experiences and lives of others. A

key aspect of empathic listening is to do so without judging your communication partner and

his/her experiences, opinions, and beliefs. One tool that helped me in this regard is mindfulness.

To be mindful is to be present in the current moment and to be the observer of your own

thoughts and emotions. By practicing mindfulness, I was able to minimize noise coming through
my own filters and experiences and pay more attention to what is being said and shared by my

communication partner. The affect this skill had on my conversations was impactful, to say the

least. The more the semester went on, the more I found people warm up to me and become

willing to share what they had to say with me. Several times, people I hadn’t gotten to know

very well would divulge information that they admitted they don’t often reveal about themselves.

Becoming a more empathic listener has truly improved my interpersonal communication.

On a similar vein to empathic listening, I also chose to work on avoiding characterizing

behavior on a spectrum of extremes. I had noticed this as a problem in some of my relationships

because I would jump to conclusions as to what certain behavior indicated as to my significance

in their world. For example, if I sent a communication message and failed to receive a message

back in a timely manner or in an expected fashion, I noticed it was easy for me to assume that it

meant I wasn’t as significant to my partner as I desired. This would lead to unnecessary stress

within the relationship. Once I gained the awareness and intent to modify this behavior, I

noticed that I had a lot more control over the meaning I assign to other people’s actions. After

several months’ practice now, it has become easier to separate my worth and validity from being

influenced by other people’s actions or perceived lack thereof.

In order to better utilize both previously mentioned communication skills, there were

times where clarification was necessary. To better express myself, I used the skill of “I” and

“extended I” messages. These are message in which I encode messages related to my

perspective and experience. I would most often use this tool for expressing what I had decoded

through communication and to code my feelings. I felt like using “I” language was a good

opportunity to take ownership of my feelings as well as to indicate whether my communication

partner’s message was decoded accurately or not. By using this, I was able to de-escalate

potential misunderstandings, as well as work through difficult emotions.

As humans and as a society, we cannot escape interpersonal communication. It is a

common facet of every life as well as a skill that we can all improve with. During the four-

month course of the semester, I gained and utilized a lot of information that made a significant

impact on my relationships. I presented myself as a capable communication partner by applying

empathic listening skills. I grew closer with friends and family by taking ownership of my

feelings, employing “I” and “extended I” messages where appropriate. And I also took a more

centered approach when observing and assigning meaning to behaviors, avoiding extremes of

“good” or “bad.” By improving how well and how frequently I used skills, I was able to become

more confident and feel more successful in my interactions with others.

 References

Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others. Beebe, Beebe, Redmond. Pearson

Education, 2017.