Four ways to communicate better:

1. Work to reduce self-imposed obstacles to getting your point across, such as judgments, prejudices, or assumptions about the other person's intent. Doing so will allow you to give them the benefit of the doubt with regards to their ability to understand your message.

2. Reduce environmental distractions prior to having important conversations. Avoid having important conversations in hallways, stairwells, busy public areas, etc. Avoid answering cell phones, returning emails, watching television, etc.

3. Make certain to get a “receipt on delivery" for your message. This can be as simple as asking, “Do you understand what I am trying to say?" and allowing the other party to convey their understanding as such.

4. Don't dumb down your language in everyday discussions. That's disrespectful to the person you are talking to (because you're assuming they won't understand), and is also an easy way to lose control of the discussion. Work to consistently improve your vocabulary, which will make your verbal communication style more powerful and cogent.

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Three new titles I'm working through this coming month:

1. Flip: How to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head, by Peter Sheahan

2. Washington's Crossing, by David Hackett Fisher

3. The Liar in Your Life: The Way to Truthful Relationships by Robert Feldman

How many of the obstacles in your current life are those that you've unintentionally strewn about your own path? I ask this because I'm finding more and more that many of us are sabotaging our own chances at personal and professional success via the limiting beliefs that we consistently adhere to. Many of these beliefs were passed down for generations. Some are seemingly innocuous. Others are more obviously harmful. Some of the worst that I've come across, in my own life and in the lives of those I help, include:

• "I'm not good enough"
• "I don't deserve success"
• "I can't change things"
• "I'd rather be safe than take risks"
• "Others have life figured out, but I don't"
• "I don't have much to offer others"
• "If people knew me better, they'd realize that I'm not that smart, pretty, funny, etc"
• "Don't be confident, or people will think you're being cocky"
• "It's better to be safe than sorry"
• "I can't change my life"

These ten beliefs, in their myriad forms, do an enormous amount of damage in our lives, which takes the form of decreased self-confidence, reduced self-esteem, decreased risk-taking, and lowered quality of daily life. Too often we fail to stop and analyze the damage that our thinking patterns are doing until it's too late, and we've put ourselves in a terrible position, or worse yet, a mediocre position. We spend our lives playing it so safe, and trying so hard to avoid standing out, that we fade into obscurity and quiet desperation.

Are you happy with your basic belief system? If you aren't, you need only to start disassembling it, piece by piece, and thought by thought. Use reason and logic to destroy those limiting beliefs that you've carried around for so many years. For example, ask yourself these questions: “Where has this belief gotten me in my life?" Or, “What are the consequences of carrying this belief around in my interactions with others?"

You won't like the answers during this battle in your mind, but at least you will have identified the enemy.

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