For most people, the new year comes with new goals and expectations. Whether it’s getting that promotion at work, working on your relationships, or just figuring out how to be a healthier, happier version of yourself the goals almost always include figuring out how to live with less stress.

Lisa Mitchell, Communications Expert & Founder of Power Body Language, shares ways to improve your communication skills, which are the quickest and easiest ways to reduce your stress and move you closer to those New Year’s goals. 

At Work: 
Email is a huge source of stress and annoyance for most people but it’s a necessarily annoyance that you need to navigate. Be strategic on how and what you communicate professionally. For email, use a subject line that is short and specific. For the body of the email, remember that most people are reading email on a smartphone or device and the more they can figure out what you’re talking about and what you need from them quickly and with ease, the more likely they are to respond with the correct action or information. 

Instead of group texts, which can quickly become overwhelming, consider a  professional group communication tool like Slack instead. These tools let you keep everything in one place, add tags and topics for easy sorting and prioritizing, and easily figure out where you left off on any given topic. Having organized communications can save you a ton of stress in the workplace and make your coworkers like you more too!  

In Relationships:
Miscommunication can be a real source of stress in personal relationships. Whether it’s communicating with a family member or a romantic partner, it doesn’t take much for a misunderstanding to happen and for conflict and stress to arise. This is especially true when communicating via text, which makes it almost impossible to accurately convey your intended tone. When possible, include emoji’s that accurately depict the tone of your sentiment, to more clearly demonstrate what you mean in addition to your typed words. If you’re getting the vibe that your messages are still not getting decoded as you intend, pick up the phone or FaceTime if possible so you have the benefit of both verbal words and the non-verbal communication to help you accurately communicate and erase confusion or misunderstanding. Knowing that you have communicated clearly and have been properly understood as you intended can help you breath of a sigh of relief, especially when dealing with important emotional stakeholders in your life. 

Poor communication increases stress in our daily lives. By taking a more intentional approach to how you communicate professional and personally, you can start the New Year with less stress and move closer to your professional and personal goals. 

For more information, visit www.powerbodylanguage.com, or connect with Lisa on Instagram: @lisamitchellindy.