By Mekonnen Abraha
June 7, 2022
A person is a human being regarded as an individual who has the body, emotions, the mind, the energy, and the soul; and an environment is a surrounding or conditions in which a person lives or operates.
A person goes through cognitive process like observes their environment through their 5 senses like taste, smell, touch, hearing sight and pain. Once the observation is completed the person gives a meaning to each of their observations. What follows after that is a feeling -bad or good feelings depending on how the person is impacted by the experience. Then the person decides to do something about their observation, experience or understanding of what they encounter. Then the person acts and finally pays consequences for their action or actions. In short, that is how a Person’s cognition operates. The person is biological, psychological and social, as we know it.
The person communicates with their environment. The way the person communicates determines whether the communication is constructive or destructive, result oriented or not.
Let us see how communication works:
The meaning of communication is to get the receiver of the message to understand the sender. In other words, it is to understand and be understood. For that to happen, the receiving person must feel like what the sender is feeling about the message. That means it is important for the sender of the message to see where the receiver is, the nature of the message and the context under which the message is sent and received. The emotions, feelings the sender has, and in the same way, the emotions and feelings of the receiver are important factors to consider. Additionally, the experience and background of the sender and the receiver of a message are important factors to consider also.
Additionally, it is important to realize that anger, pride, emotions, and behavior hinder how communication is sent and received. Therefore, good judgment is based not only on intelligence and experience but willingness to engage in sound introspection and self-reflection/awareness. This includes building a mind-set of humility; seeking out feedback and other perspectives, embracing learning new things every day, accepting responsibility for mistaken acts committed, developing the skills of asking questions, and self-awareness consists of emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment and self -confidence. All human beings think but what is important is where the thinking is directed and why.
So, when a person communicates with others, it is important to check the facts, listens carefully, give respect, avoid biases, be open to someone’s fears and concerns, accommodate differences, adapt to prevailing circumstances, avoid thinking that the person knows everything, and give and try to come up with a win-win situation. Additionally, it is important to check that the communication is not vague, muddled, deceptive, misleading, fuzzy, blurred and formless.
Further, it is important to have self-assessment skills that includes work-content, technical skills, competencies/transferable skills, and self-management/personal growth skills.
There are other competency skills needed like continuous learning, assessing and recognizing their own strengths and weaknesses. Further, initiative-setting high standard, interpersonal relations to treat others with courtesy and sensitivity. Still further, the person needs to claim integrity/honesty, behave in an honest, faire and ethical manner. In addition, having personal leadership-a sense of presence and self-confidence and finally, socially responsible who shows commitment to serve the public.
A person also tries to solve problems that they encounter every day.
The first thing to do is to define the problem. The next thing is to find out how the problem came to light. Next is who was involved when the problem came to light. Then, in what condition, context has the problem occurred. When and how often does the problem manifest itself, who does the problem benefit? What would be the negative consequences if the problem is resolved and the problem needs to be defined by the subjects affected by it as concretely as possible in terms of who, what, where, when, how and how often.
In addition, the person must have motivation needed to initiate and maintain any activity. The person must be healthy, the person must have skills and the person must have a conducive/supportive environment to initiate, maintain and achieve goals.
Further, the person also evaluates goals. (Is the goal important to me?); checks mean evaluation (Am I doing the right thing in terms of social, moral, legal norms); also checks performance evaluation (have I accomplished my goal?) and finally checks personal agency beliefs (Am I capable of doing the things I am doing?)
The person also tries to enjoy life. To enjoy life, it is important to have a positive mind-set. The effect of positive thinking lowers the level of depression, lowers level of distress, it permits better psychological and physical wellbeing. It allows better coping skills during hardship and time of stress; it allows better cardiovascular health and reduces the risk of death which means it increases life span.
The person, in addition, solves conflicts. One way of solving a conflict is to develop strategies to avoid conflict. Avoid misunderstanding, avoid making snap judgements, listen to the opponent, offer alternative solutions, stop being defensive, contemplate the situation (rethink), controlling one’s emotions and communicating openly. In addition, goal setting, commitment and building confidence are integrated into the conflict solving engagement. One of the major difficulties in resolving a problem/conflict is understanding the problem/conflict itself. It needs adapting the right mind-set and genuinely seeking for understanding. It is always helpful to realize that winning an argument is not the same as resolving a conflict.
The person wants to be happy all the time. Happiness does not come to them automatically. They have to earn it. Usually, happiness is based on what meaning they give to all their experiences. Giving meaning to an experience is also based on culture, upbringing, knowledge, self-assessment and patience and understanding the experience fully and objectively. A person has to be careful when they give meaning to their very experience.
I will leave you with this suggestion: Happiness is a choice. It is generated from the meaning you give to every experience that you have.
“TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF” SOCRATES.