Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
August 17, 2021 · 7 min read
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
Due to the advancement of technology, there are multiple ways to communicate and convey the right message to the right person.
With plenty of options, we are still unable to rescue our relations from misunderstandings and confusion.
Indeed, various communication barriers are playing a pivotal role to restrict our professional and personal growth.
Due to barriers to communication, we do not get enough feedback or response that we generally expect after conveying a message. The core reason is, we neglect communication barriers and always end up with conflicts.
If you’re also struggling to overcome barriers of communication, then this article would be a perfect fit for you.
Before sharing multiple strategies to overcome barriers, we have to identify all emotional and physical barriers for better consequences.
Let’s discover all barriers that are adding discomfort and distress to our lives. But first, let’s tackle with the importance of communication.
Why communication is important?
Communication is important because there is hardly other way to express our opinions, thoughts, intentions to the other person. Communication is not only important just for the sake of expressing ourselves, but it is also happiness. The reason is that people are social beings and thrive for interaction.
Without effective communication, we cannot interpret our thoughts to others. Of course, nobody will try to delve into your intentions behind your words.
Therefore, you have to share a clear message that could hardly strike the ears of the right person without creating doubts.
Moreover, effective communication is the key to a happy and successful life. If you’re willing to grow in your professional life then you have to enhance your communication skills for better understanding.
Due to strong communication skills, you have the chance to get preference over other employees and stand alone in a highly competitive market.
For example, when we give a job interview, we have to exhibit our intelligence with the support of effective communication skills. Most of the recruiters prefer to select a person with better-communicating skills.
Indeed, landing your favourite job or expanding your business around the globe demands perfection in communication. In this way, you can convince your audience to believe in you through your powerful words.
Otherwise, conveying an unclear and doubtful message will only propagate tangling thoughts in the reader’s mind.
Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing. - Bryan Tracy
Above all, you may notice various billionaires and all successful people who are potential communicators and inspire people through their inspirational words.
Besides, if you want to build a strong relationship with your partner or loved ones, then you have to polish your communication skills. Without effective communication, you may only end up with unhealthy debates and conflicts.
As a result, you may lose your supportive family or partners due to your inability to deliver what you want to say.
Learning better communication skills will rescue you from poor decisions and will catalyze your personal and professional growth.
Therefore, barriers to communication need to be uprooted from our lives so we could live happily and peacefully
What are the top 9 common barriers to communication?
Communication Barrier #1: Physical barriers
Social distancing, separate offices, closed doors, different working timings, workplace sophisticated environment are major physical barriers.
Due to these physical barriers, each of us is confining ourselves to deal with daily tasks and rushing to homes.
These barriers are responsible for the ineffective performance and poor results in the workplace. Sometimes, people working in the commonplace do not communicate with each other for consistent days.
To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. - Tony Robbins
As a result, when group tasks are assigned to them, they tend to invest more effort to understand everyone’s views. This will only lead to wastage of time and rising conflicts between them due to miscommunication.
By overcoming these physical barriers, we can reach a different level of professional growth. For that purpose, everyone should express their thoughts and ideas with other colleagues.
To solve this issue, there should be a commonplace in every organization to cherish lunch and tea breaks. So, all employees could discuss all emerging issues regarding work and suggest valuable solutions.
Communication Barrier #2: Emotional barriers
Emotional barriers are also the major cause of miscommunication. Most people do not express their thoughts or feelings because they are afraid to share their intentions with others.
They believe that communicating with others will only bring negative consequences.
They mistrust everyone and feed fears within their souls. As a result, they do not experience improvement in their careers and personal life.
Without a doubt, emotional barriers only keep people within specific boundaries.
To overcome emotional barriers, we have to change our mindset of expressing feelings to fix all fears and negative thoughts.
Communication Barrier #3: Language barriers
To communicate with others, most of us choose verbal communication.
For verbal communication, language is the essential medium that we have to adopt to share our words. Due to a language change, we become helpless to express the genuine message to others.
Your intelligence will not help you until you convey a perfect meaningful message to others.
Working with people belonging to different nations will not reap benefits until we put aside language barriers that are the real impediments in the way of success.
If you’re losing confidence in life, then you should concentrate on all critics that are turning your life into a miserable situation.
Remember that, you can’t change others’ minds that are already fixed, but changing your mind will change your life.
If you want to be more confident, then turn a deaf ear and blind eye toward critics to live a peaceful life.
Communication Barrier #4: Cultural and Religious barriers
Cultural and religious barriers are also hampering people to share their school of thought.
Indeed, every culture and religion has its own set of beliefs and traditions.
People belonging to different religious groups and cultural groups do not understand others’ religions and cultures.
Consequently, people seek difficulties communicating with other groups.
A different language is a different vision of life. - Federico Fellini
In that regard, we have to put aside religious and cultural differences and communicate clearly without confusion.
To overcome these barriers, we have to understand everyone has a different level of capability to understand a certain subject.
Communication Barrier #5: Lack of interest
The most common barrier to communication is a lack of interest.
If a person is not interested in a job or not willing to communicate, then you can’t force someone to pay attention to your words. Due to a lack of interest, it becomes difficult to deliver a message correctly.
As a result, you have to bear the negative consequences because the person sitting next to you is not willing to share his opinions.
Lack of interest in a job, business, or relationship will only wreak havoc in life that needs a dose of effective communication.
Communication Barrier #6: Passive listening
Active listening is the essential ingredient of communication.
However, passive listening is one of the leading barriers to effective communication.
Remember that communication is a two-way street that demands the attention of both individuals.
If you’re good at conveying your message to others but unable to listen to others or paying atttention to their words, then you’re not an effective communicator.
Therefore, we have to understand others by listening to them and paying attention to their body language.
Communication Barrier #7: Depending on various modes of information
Excess of information will only lead you nowhere, because most modes of information try to mislead users by manipulating information.
Therefore, only specific and authentic platforms should have permission to deliver information to people.
For instance, if a person is doing a job in a company and he has to follow multiple modes to scrape information from different groups, then he will waste his time.
One specific mode to deliver information according to his subject will save him from misunderstandings.
As it actually is a good practice to scrape information from different sources of literature, but if the work has to be done quick, it can take too much time to find out which piece of information is reliable and which isn’t.
Communication Barrier #8: Generation gap
The substantial barrier to communication is the generation gap.
People belonging to different generations have a distinctive school of thought regarding everything.
Most importantly, individuals belonging to the 21st century depend on various sources of technology to communicate and consider these sources as better.
On the other hand, people belonging to the 20th century (mostly from the 1960s,1970s,1980s) seek problems in understanding the complexities of technology.
In that regard, every workplace should come up with a common solution to fix communication-related issues.
Communication Barrier #9: Lack of confidence
Barriers to communication play a considerable role in the personal and professional life of a person.
If a person is not confident enough to express his opinion in front of others, then it would only restrict his growth.
People with low confidence cannot express their ideas or thoughts due to fear of rejection or to face judgemental issues.
The best way to solve problems and to fight against war is through dialogue. - Malala Yousafzai
For instance, if a person is giving a presentation but has no confidence to defend his point of view with logic, then nobody will consider his efforts.
Developing confidence to overcome communication barriers will enable people to grow in their lives.
5 Potential Ways to Overcome Communication Barriers
The barriers to communication are the root causes behind your professional and personal growth. To overcome communication barriers, you will have to improve your social skills.
It’s not that hard as you might think, it is all about how much you will practice on improvements.
1. Listening carefully
If someone is trying to communicate and willing to share his thoughts with you, then you have to listen to them carefully.
Active listening and paying attention to their non-verbal gestures will assist you to understand them.
Moreover, this tactic will enable you to sense the intention behind their words. This way will be helpful to strengthen your bond with your loved ones, colleagues, and friends.
Besides, you can also grow in your field by listening carefully to your teammates and boss.
Consequently, you can recognize all requirements of the projects and will follow a clear and transparent path to chase success.
2. Engaging through technology
Technology can enhance your communication skills and will help you to deliver a clear message.
Before enjoying the perks of technology, you should consider technology as a second option to share your thoughts.
For long-distance relationships, you can utilize technology to reap the benefits. The key secret to your personal and professional development lies in the right use of technology.
There is only one rule for being a good talker - learn to listen. - Christopher Morley
Pouring engaging content within yourself from different modes of technology is one of the perks of technology.
Without a doubt, technology brought the world closer, but you should value all people in your surroundings and never neglect their presence.
3. Designing relevant content
Due to the generation gap, people seek difficulties communicating effectively in the workplace.
To deal with multi-generations, every workplace should design relevant content according to the age group.
Indeed, designing relevant content for every group will be helpful for the development of the organization.
Every organization should categorize all employees into various groups and assign them relevant content to ease things for them.
However, senior citizens have their preferred ways of communication that they cannot alter simultaneously.
4. Convey clear message
You can overcome barriers to communication by conveying a clear and transparent message.
In that regard, you should identify whether the person next to you is interested in listening to your words.
If your desired person is not willing to listen or not in the mood to listen actively, then you should choose some other time. A message that rushes a sensation of positivity and clear understanding will directly affect the listener’s ears.
Otherwise, an unclear message will not reach the ears of the listener and will diffuse in the air. Using complicated vocabulary or meaningless sentences will only feed vivid thoughts and confusion.
Therefore, to avoid confusion and to strengthen your relations, your message should be clear to understand.
5. Non-verbal communication skills
Non-verbal communication skills will also help you to communicate effectively.
To eradicate barriers of communication, we should practice non-verbal communication skills along with verbal communication skills. Paying attention to someone’s body language, facial expressions, gestures, and cues will enable you to acknowledge others.
Sometimes, introverted people feel reluctant to share thoughts or feelings with others. Indeed, they become incapable of choosing words to express their opinions.
To save this struggle of word selection, they try to embrace non-verbal communication skills.
Prepare a good visual presentation with tables, figures, so in that way everything is clear to the audience and as a result, minimal explanation will be required and the subject will be simplified.
Final Words
You can conquer all battles of life by adopting the right tools of communication. If you’re striving to approach your favourite job or to build a long-term and blissful union with your partner, then barriers of communication must be trespassed.
Without a doubt, communication is the key to a happy and successful life.
Due to effective communication, you can explain your point of view and understand others without generating unhealthy debates.
Therefore, communication barrier is nothing more than a wall – with the right equipment and tools you can definitely push it through.