My Communication Perceived as by Others

     “God said to me: Your task is to build a better world. 

I answered: How can I do that?     The world is such a large, vast place, so complicated now, and I am so small and useless. There’s nothing I can do. But God in his great wisdom said: Just build a better you.”

-Anonymous

     I have always thought of myself as a competent communicator, not great but not the worse, with room for improvement.  This week I was challenged to evaluate myself and to allow others to evaluate me.  I tried to be as honest as possible and the people that I chose to complete the evaluation did not have me hovering over them so I hope that they were completely honest.  So here goes...

     The biggest surprise to me in this exercise was my verbal aggressiveness scores.  I rated myself a little bit lower than my mother did.  According to my results I scored low on the verbal aggressiveness scale which I tend to agree with.  I am not overly pushy about getting people to see my side of things, I am not disrespectful of others when speaking to them and I don't try to make them feel less than when we disagree.  I asked my mother to complete this test and she scored me in the moderate range which I think is the old me.  Actually I think the old me would have rated even higher because I love to argue!  I do not believe in personal attacks at any point but I used to be the person that HAD to have the last word and who HAD to be right all the time.  Thank goodness for deliverance!  Needless to say I was surprised by these results even though I knew I would not rate in the none category I expected it to be low.  


     My level of verbal aggressiveness was one insight in this exercise because as I stated I was surprised by the results.  Another insight I gained came from the listening styles profile.  I learned that I was part of group 1 which indicated that my listening style was people-oriented.  This insight wasn't so much because I am not empathetic but because in reading the scores I would think I fall more into group 2-action-oriented. I thought about it, though, and realized that I do have several meaningful relationships that began with me simply listening to someone.  Even when I was in college, standing on the bus stop, people would walk up to me and tell me their whole life story.  I am able to listen to people and be patient as they are talking.  I thought about this again this morning during Children Church, we were talking about Joseph and the children began telling me all kinds of stories.  Of course, I wanted them to understand the lesson at the same time I wanted them to feel free to express themselves.  So the insight that I gained was that my perception of myself is not completely accurate especially since I had my sister in law complete this test and her scores placed me in group 1 as well.  


     As with any self-evaluation I appreciate learning new things about myself and this exercise was no disappointment.  I see areas that require improvement such as my verbal aggressiveness and I see areas that I am proud of, being an empathetic listening but overall I have a clearer picture of who I am and how others perceive me.