Public speaking and communication are dynamic leadership skills with applications in every profession and industry. Whether you work in the healthcare sector or the IT industry, effective communication skills can open doors to lucrative opportunities. Our ability to communicate effectively serves as an edge to self-expression and helps others understand our thoughts and opinions.
People who lack this ability struggle in various life domains, be it professional or personal relationships. They fail to articulate their feelings, thoughts, and challenges, costing them relationships, clients, investors, and opportunities at the end. The ability to convey your ideas and input comprehensively and understand external perspectives is instrumental for success and growth.
If you want to influence others and win applause for your thoughts and ideas, try to find your voice and develop communication skills to articulate your thoughts confidently. Reading subjects such as psychology, sociology, literature, and history can make you a strong and impressive public speaker.
These subjects can help you play on human psychology and pick up exciting anecdotes to lace your conversations with fascination. Are you reading to start exploring subjects to enhance your communication skills? Keep reading for inspiration that will help you get started right away! Below is a list of disciplines that can help you in becoming a great communicator.
History
The science of human evolution, history teaches us a great many lessons in public speaking and engrossing an audience. Studying and discovering the rise and fall of great empires, stories of humans’ survival, and heritage equips us with knowledge. This knowledge makes us well-informed and enables us to keep up with current affairs and political discussions.
We all form opinions once we understand the dynamics of an issue, be it global warming or malnutrition in children. History introduces us to different perspectives and encourages the development of analytical skills. Hence, if you’re interested in exploring the subject academically, you can pursue an online degree in history without altering your life-plans.
Tracing Earth’s history back to Herodotus, the first historian, and exploring the events over the centuries, is endlessly fascinating. And you’ll pick up lots of clever anecdotes you can throw around to impress influential people at networking events.
Psychology
How can you captivate an audience while holding the floor for over an hour? Most people don’t get opportunities like that, so let’s try a more familiar scenario. How can you inspire and motivate an employee going through a divorce with depleted productivity levels at work?
Making an impact with our words requires us to understand their effect on other people. There are no hard and fast rules here because everyone is different and unique. If you want to be heard and make a powerful impact, you must understand the art of reading people. Although it may seem otherwise, this endeavor does not require any special abilities.
Psychology is the study of human thoughts, behaviors, emotions, and inclinations. You can understand different personality types and learn more about their preferences, drives, and communication styles. This knowledge will help you establish a good rapport when you socialize with these textbook personalities in real life.
Since it is almost impossible to acquire all knowledge through books, psychological concepts shed valuable light on the human mind. The subject teaches you how to present your arguments and opinions tactfully, without hurting or overshadowing any political or religious sentiments. It further guides in adopting a mindful approach towards interacting with different people in a variety of settings.
Interestingly, psychology will also help you deal with complex and toxic people you encounter in your personal and professional life.
Media Studies
If you’re pursuing a journalism career or broadcasting, you must have encountered this subject in high school or college. In case you haven’t, it offers valuable insight into using digital and print media to express our creativity. Today, people of all ages and genders are actively turning to social media to express themselves and demonstrate their creativity.
If you’re aspiring to start a successful YouTube channel, media studies can help you develop a strong and distinctive voice. This subject will encourage you to explore various tools and mediums and learn from great artists’ works. If you enjoy watching movies and documentaries, media studies will introduce you to practical techniques and public speaking styles.
More importantly, the subject will introduce you to the concepts of using community media to spread social awareness. You can explore subjects like international journalism, social activism, and the power dynamics in media. This discipline will also help you develop strong ethics and morals and explore social media content creation techniques.
Gender Studies
An interdisciplinary field, gender studies is dedicated to exploring concepts of gender identity and representation. Studying subjects that offer insight into human behavior and societal concepts equip us with analytical skills. Gender studies deal with many issues, such as politics, gender identity, queer studies, feminism, and men’s studies.
These complex, challenging, and seemingly controversial topics encourage us to think, reason, and analyze events to understand concepts of gender dynamics. As we struggle to digest these multifaceted concepts, our brain begins forming strong opinions supported by facts. Forming opinions is a lot more different from adopting those we naturally encounter in books, classrooms, or social media.
The opinions we develop through critical thinking, reasoning, and analytical processing inspire confidence and a strong sense of conviction. This conviction also strengthens our communication skills by cementing our ability to present a well-thought argument supported by facts. It is a standard practice to share opinions and conclusions derived from research and observation with great confidence. The pursuit of knowledge also makes us humble when proven wrong or corrected.
Political Science
Political science is the study of human interactions, collaborations, and hostilities. It will equip you with diplomatic and strategizing skills. For many, it is a fascinating subject that introduces you to the theories and philosophies of some of the world’s greatest thinkers. As you explore philosophies from the ancient Greek civilization to Karl Marx and modern economists, your worldview broadens considerably.
A strong understanding of political concepts will also benefit you as a democratic citizen, making you more aware of your rights. Political discourses will help you increase your civic participation and exercise your voting right with mindfulness.
Conclusion
Effective communication is indeed not an easy task. Many people even struggle to articulate their thoughts with their family and peers. So, how can you cultivate the confidence and grace to express your thoughts and make a good impression? It will take consistent learning and a healthy attitude towards identifying your flaws and improving without belittling yourself.
Turning to academia and knowledge is the best course because knowledge is power. Studying any given subject will empower you with the correct information and enrich you with multiple skills, including the ability to communicate flawlessly.