People with excellent communication skills are more likely to succeed in life and in love. Learn why effective communicators have an advantage and what you can do to get it.

The matching of two complete strangers on eHarmony is an exercise in pure communication. It starts with words on a page (or in our case a computer screen), and can quickly move to the telephone or quiet restaurant. But wherever it takes place the majority of a couple’s first weeks together are spent in focused and vitally important communication.

Most people think their communication skills are just fine. It’s easy to progress through life as a relatively happy and productive person with poor communication skills. It’s the type of problem that erodes at your quality of life in subtle, indirect ways. If your appendix becomes infected and starts to swell, you will know in short order. Before long you’ll be in the hospital taking care of a problem that has demanded your attention. Unfortunately for many, poor listening and poor communication skills never grab their attention in the same way. They unknowingly endure the consequences of an ailment they never even recognize.

Once you make a commitment to work on your communication skills the results are immediate.

Every relationship you have will improve. It doesn’t matter what relationship it is. It may be a relationship with your boss, a relationship with your closest friend, relationships with the other people on your softball team, or maybe a relationship with the eventual love of your life. Every relationship will get better, and then your own enjoyment of life is going to go up. I have to tell you that any person who is a great communicator enjoys life more.

You have the sense of getting more of the really important innermost stuff from inside of you across to other people. You have the sense of their not only receiving it, but understanding it and liking it, and more than that you have the sense of getting clear about your own inside world for yourself.

Your efforts at becoming a better communicator will straighten out the wrinkles of your life. Most wrinkles in life have to do with poor communication. When you aren’t very good at communicating with other people, then all kind of difficulties start occurring.

Four things are needed to be a great communicator:

1. You need to be able to access your innermost thoughts and feelings. - Now accessing your innermost thoughts and feelings should be easy, but it’s not. It’s especially difficult for men, but there are a lot of people for who it’s difficult. As I go around the country I talk about the conspiracy that I think has existed in relation to little boys in our culture that has kept them from becoming great communicators.
   
   That conspiracy has to do with our fear that they will become sissies and so, in order to keep them away from their tender feelings that might cause them to cry now and then, we keep them away from all their feelings. We get them to hit balls and to shoot baskets and to throw a football with a spiral and we keep them from all their tender thoughts and feelings. Because they’re kept away from all those tender thoughts and feelings they lose contact with those thoughts and feelings. They’re not able to access them at some point in their mid-twenties or early thirties when their new wife says to them, “Let’s talk about deep things. Let’s be intimate with each other.” They just don’t know how to be intimate because they just can’t get hold of what they can share that would be intimate.

2. You need to be able to identify and verbalize these thoughts and feelings. - The only way that I know to develop a better ability to verbalize your deepest thoughts and feelings is to practice reflecting on what those thoughts and feelings are until you really have a good hold on those thoughts and feelings, and then constantly practice trying to say what it is you think and feel.

3. You have to be able to accurately understand what another person is saying. - One of the things that our research has shown over and over and over again is that it’s not enough just to understand, or to try to understand, where another person is; you have to be able to accurately understand where they are. It is that accurate understanding of another person’s deepest thoughts and feelings that creates a feeling of connection and bonding.

4. You need to be able to make conversations as personal as possible. - In other words, when you’re talking to someone about the weather and they’re going off on a trip, if you can say, “Boy, I can hear some real concern for you about the high winds today, because you’re going to be out in your camper aren’t you?” All of a sudden, you’ve understood the concern they have about the weather. It’s not just concern about high winds, it’s concern about high winds that might affect them in some personal way.

Virtually every conversation you have, if you can not only understand what another person is saying, not only understand what your inner thoughts and feelings are, if but you can make it personal in some way, you turn an ordinary conversation into an intimate conversation. It is intimate conversation that makes people think of you as a great communicator.


Other Helpful Topics to Improve Your Internet Dating Skills:

• Is online dating the way to go? - Internet dating services have become extremely common in society today. Most people know someone who has found love through dating on the Internet. If you're new to dating online or just learning more about it you can find out what to expect and find out how the process really works.

• Make a great first impression in five easy steps. - A first impression can make or break that crucial first date. It can be a deciding factor on whether or not there will be a second meeting between the two of you. Find out what you can do to help your chances in securing a second date with your date.

• Are you in a trusting relationship? - Building trust in any relationship takes time and energy. Communicating what you need from your partner to build trust is the first step. As your dating relationship moves forward, trusting each other should become easier.

• Three steps to improve your relationship. - Spending time together as a couple may sound like an easy task, but for some couples it may be harder than you think. Because of the hectic nature of today's schedules, more and more couples are setting aside some time each week and promising each other to have a date night. Having a ritual like this will keep the communication lines flowing and make you happier as a couple.

• How can you be more romantic? - Romance is a critical part of any good relationship. Make a serious effort to learn your partner's likes and dislikes in the romance department early on when dating. Being romantic with your partner will bring you closer to each other. And remember, small gestures are just as romantic as large displays of affection!

• Breakup survival. - When you go through a breakup, whether you initiated the breakup or not, it will most likely be an emotional time. Take time to evaluate the situation but don't analyze what went wrong and try to fix it. Slowly move on and get support from your friends and family to get through this difficult time.

• Nine secrets to staying committed. - Relationships develop in many different ways, through friends, church, online Internet dating etc. Once a solid relationship is established, the job is not over. Maintaining your commitment to each other takes work. Follow these tips to refresh the love in your dating relationship.

• Is your relationship on the rocks? - All relationships go through their ups and downs. Sometimes it's easy to work through the issues, but sometimes it's best to end things and move on. Learn how to weather some of the tougher times in your relationships.

• Dating and attraction. - Do you have specific criteria as far as attractiveness in a potential partner? Attraction is usually thought of as a physical desire, but you can and need to also be attracted to a person emotionally in order for a relationship to succeed. Find what attractiveness means to you.

• Find happiness after a breakup - Moving forward after a breakup is essential to being happy again. It's okay to reflect on what happened, but try not to focus on finding an answer to why it happened. Focus on the positives in your life.

More Online Dating Service Tips Provided by eHarmony:

• How to fight fair. - Any healthy relationship will have its disagreements at times. It's an unavoidable aspect to dating. Hopefully, conflict and resolutions will bring you closer together as a couple.

• Honing your communication skills. - (Current Topic).

• Finding love in your opposite. - Dating your opposite brings a new set of ideas and values to your life. Instead of dating a person with similar interests your life can be enriched with your opposite's hobbies and beliefs. It can pay off if you don't go into a relationship assuming that your love match has to have all the same interests as you.

• What do eHarmony women want. - Women are becoming more independent than ever. With eHarmony's online dating profiles and questionnaires, compatibility should be much easier to find. Since each individual's ideal match is unique, dating online through e-Harmony provides you with the proper tools and in-depth questions to help you find your soul mate.