Blog post 4

          Hello everyone, funny how fast time flies and we have reached the end of the course. It felt like it was just a week ago when I was tasked with writing a blog for this course. The time has come for me to verify if I managed to accomplish the 2 goals that I have set for myself at the start of this course. The 2 goals are improving my self-awareness and communication skills.

For my first goal of improving my self-awareness, I am glad to update that I have made good progress. I can understand myself better now as compared to me at the beginning of the semester. I accomplished this by setting aside 5 minutes to reflect on the day before going to bed. I would start by asking myself questions like "Is there any point of time in the day that I may have mismanaged my emotions?" and "Is there a source as to why I am feeling this way?". These two questions effectively helped me understand myself. I realized how my mood may affect how I communicate with my peers and when I let my emotions get the better of me. This way I will know what triggers such responses and I can plan for a situation similar to this.
For my second goal which is improving my communication skill, I am sad to say that I did not manage to improve communication skill. I still belong to the group of listening just to reply and the only improvement I had made is by holding back some of my comments. By doing this, I can understand what they have to say before interjecting with my comments.
I want to end off this blog post by listing down what I would do to further enhance my interpersonal and work communication skills. I hope to further improve my communication skills by putting in more effort to pay attention and let the other person talk without interrupting him. I also intend to reduce my talking speed so that I can speak more clearly and to process my thoughts.  I also aim to have some time set aside each day to practice my communication skills so that I do not stutter when I speak. I want to improve my self-awareness in terms of the signs and signals of body language so that I can more easily understand and communicate effectively with them.