Developing your communications skills

I present. I sit on committees. I advise charities. Yet I wasn’t always this person.
I was an afraid, timid teenager, who always considered presentations at school to be the scariest thing. With 30 eyes watching, I was waiting to be judged. I was even told by my English teacher I’d fail the subject.

I passed both my language and literature exams, adding my coursework passes and here I am writing John’s Road to Volunteering.

Considering I was never a school lover, on many occasions I’ve considered why John’s Road to Volunteering works despite my education nightmares. The passion I write and speak with is why it works. It’s why anything works.

Development is based on learning something new or building upon our current repertoire of skills, but do ever consider how the entire process starts?

We sit with headphones in (this is what I do) trying to understand how we reach our next goal and maybe it’s to develop our communication skills, but does this resemble who we are or want to be?
Is developing skills not needed to showcase who we are? You tell me.
To have gone from the shy, shaky deliverer of presentations at school to now chairing conferences and sitting on panels, what’s been the two things that’s got me to this point?
1. Me – We hear it all the time, but you really do have to believe in yourself. Self-belief translates in our communications and it’s our platform. Others respond to self-belief in your ideas and concepts.
2. Volunteering – I could be over dramatic here, but it’s saved my life. I wouldn’t have developed my self-belief without giving back to society.

Volunteering gives you an opportunity to say ‘Here I am!’. It’s the activity that allows you to put your ideas and concepts into practice and practice provides the development. The development that’s the one thing to bring to life your volunteering education and to educate others.

You might be helping to write a funding bid, maybe you’re writing an article or maybe you’re speaking at an event, what’s the one thing that’s at the forefront of the article?
Your passion. It’s the passion which puts words to paper and visuals to slides, so next time you wonder how volunteering can develop your communications skills, look at yourself and see why you want to write or speak.
Your personal development is in your mind and fingers, not the opportunity.
Volunteering boosts your communications

This post was guest written by John Sennett from John’s Road To Volunteering – 

John’s Road to Volunteering isn’t just any old platform; it’s an opportunity for voices to be heard. Working across the volunteering and blogging worlds, JRTV brings thoughts, insights and collaborations to life through the art of story-telling,

My story has only just begun and JRTV100 is coming on January 1st.