Allyson Markham

COMM 1010 517

Ashley Givens
May 2, 2019

Myself as a Communicator: Self-Assessment

Communication involves many qualities and requires certain skills to be done effectively.

Everyone communicates differently. While evaluating myself as a communicator in this paper, I

will reflect on how I articulate my thoughts, how am I as a listener, what are some of my

strengths and weaknesses, and what can I improve upon. The end goal is to determine what it's

like to have a conversation with me.

I am a talkative person, and always have been. Along with being so talkative, I tend to

speak quick, sometimes before I think. When it comes to articulating my needs, I am better in

written communication. When I right down my thoughts, I am able to be more clear, concise, and

ensure that it is expressing what I want it to. When I speak, especially about something

important, I can sometimes go off on tangents or be repetitive. Written communication allows

me to better when I need to express specific needs and thoughts. Written communication is more

effective for me when emotions are more heavily linked to my needs or thoughts. I am more

willing to express my personal needs and thoughts with those closest to me. When it comes to

expressing opinions, verbal communication is effective for me. I can express thoughts well

verbally if they aren't too personal. Personal things need more thought from me to articulate.

Verbal and written communication each help me to communicate more effectively in

their own respects. I communicate a lot, I love to talk to people, but how am I as a listener? Most

people are surprised by how well I listen because everyone knows me as the talker; there's even a

common joke that I talk too much. I love to listen to people though. Psychology is a passion of
mine, and once I learned that, it all connected as to why I love listening to others, being there for

them, and trying to help them. When people need to talk, I am there and ready to listen, and I am

very aware not to interrupt because it was a big problem I had as a child. I have been working on

my listening skills for a long time because of feedback and tendency to talk a lot, so I am a good

listener, especially when it's an important matter to someone.

Everyone's communication skills vary, and everyone had their strengths and weaknesses.

I feel that my outgoing, extrovert personality gives me an advantage in communicating. I am

often more comfortable when speaking to others. I also have over five years of experience

working in a restaurant, so I am not anxious around people most times. Some skills I have

strengthened since graduating high school are my self-awareness and ability to look at multiple

perspectives. Becoming more aware has allowed me to work on skills I knew needed

improvement in the last few years. Coming from the experiences I had growing up, I try to look

at other perspectives to get a better understanding of why people do certain things. Since

studying psychology in a college course and then after for my own interest, my self-awareness

has increased significantly. One quality I have that is both a strength and weakness is how in

touch I am with my emotions. I am more empathetic about what others around me are feeling. I

have some strong communication skills, many because I've been told what I needed to work on

over the last couple of years.

I have my strengths in communicating, but I definitely have my weaknesses too. Being in

touch with my emotional side allows me to be more empathetic, but it has also been one of the

biggest weaknesses in my communication skills. I am very sensitive when it comes to people

close to me and I can take some things personally. I am much more resistant and able to maintain

a more quality communication level with people I don't know well. I am easily affected by the
emotions of those close to me. If someone hurts me, my getting upset causes communication to

be more difficult. If there is an issue with someone, and they are angry at me or rude to me, I

want to confront the issue immediately because of the emotions that come up. I also have a big

flaw of jumping to conclusions in certain situations with my closest relationships. I am more

likely to get into conflicts with others when I am emotional as well. The biggest skill that I need

to improve in controlling my emotions and thinking more logically instead of by emotion.

Overall, I feel I have a good core communication skill set. Having a conversation with

me is honestly interesting because of my personality. I am loud, energetic, and talkative. I am

very passionate about some subjects, so I will get very invested in those conversations. If

emotional, conversations with me can vary depending on the emotion I am feeling. Emotions do

make some conversations more difficult with me. Most times I am very happy, and the energy is

infectious in conversations. I have unique points of view from the experiences I've had in my

life, so I will get into some interesting conversations. I am very attentive in one-on-one

conversations. I tend to socialize more when around a lot of people, so I am more likely to get

distracted and maybe hop around unless I get invested somewhere. I am constantly working on

trying to be more aware when communicating and improving those communication skills.