Improving Social Skills
September 14th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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Rick Cecil made a post on Developing Social Interaction Skills that may be of help to you if you want to grow in this area.
I think the best advice I can give for improving social skills is simply: Practice. You can study techniques like matching and mirroring to build rapport, and you can memorize cutesy acronyms like SOFTEN (Smile, Open posture, Forward lean, Touch, Eye contact, Nod). But I don’t think those are all that helpful. I think they’re likely to make you even more self-conscious. If you’re in the right frame of mind to begin with, you’ll naturally perform the correct actions like smiling and mirroring — if you have to think about them, you’re in the wrong mindset.
With practice you’ll develop more comfort in a variety of social situations, and when you become comfortable, you’ll naturally be yourself. And that’s the basis of effective interpersonal communication — just be yourself and feel perfectly at ease with who you are and what you bring to a conversation.
When you feel totally comfortable with who you are, your ego dissolves. You aren’t thinking at all about yourself, how you look, how you sound, etc. You’re thinking about the topics you’re discussing and about the other people. This is true whether you’re having a conversation with an old friend or giving a speech in front of hundreds of people. When you feel comfortable with yourself, your focus is on the content of the communication and on the other people, not on yourself.
As you practice and gain more “stage time” in a variety of social situations, the unknown will become the known. You’ll be able to feel comfortable in new types of interactions.
Think about the social situations in which you do feel perfectly comfortable, such as talking with long-term friends or family members or even playing a character in an online role-playing game. When you do communicate effectively, are you thinking about low-level techniques like remembering to smile, or do you simply do what feels most natural to you? What would happen if you could bring that level of comfort to every other social situation?
September 15th, 2005 at 9:52 am
Very good points, Steve. I’ve been working to improve my social interaction skills for the past 4 months or so and have felt that my biggest successes come when I relax and go with the flow of the conversation. Like many shy people, though, relaxing in new social situations is tough for me. I am very resistant to engaging in conversation with people I haven’t met before or engaging in conversation with a large group of people. I do excellent in one-on-one situations or in small groups, though, and am working to overcome my resistance to these other social situations. That’s where I find some of these low-level techniques helpful.
I think that most people, introverts and shy people included, know how to engage people in conversations, but it’s resistance or fear that keeps shy people from engaging people in uncomfortable situations. I’ve found that remembering one of these low level techniques and actively applying it helps me to relax–helps me to get into the flow. When I actively apply one of these tehcniques, the act reminds my mind how to communicate with other people and helps me to relax. It might take 1-2 minutes to get into the flow, but off I go.
Anyway, I know you’re getting a bit of flack for this series of posts about introversion vs. extroversion, but I found it very interesting and worthwhile. Keep it up, man!
-Rick
September 15th, 2005 at 11:30 am
Once again, great information, Steve. And thanks to Rick for your insights into social skills. Clearly practice makes perfect here, but every little bit of advice helps, especially in those awkward moments of silence where you’re not really sure how to keep things going.
September 15th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
To take this another step once you are in a social situation, say on your own in a room of people who are all in varying sizes of groups how do you join in a group? Just stand on the edge, listen and join in if interesting? Guess I answered my own question
How about the other side of the coin - if your talking with one person and the conversation is ‘finished’ and it’s time to mingle more how do you move on? You could say about getting another drink or going to the toilet, but your can’t use these ‘excuses’ too often! Any polite ideas people can use?
What about the situation where you are standing next to the chairman or senior manager, what’s a good opening (and open) question to start conversation off? Without sounding wishy washy or trying to ingratiate yourself.
Some great articles Steve and they get you thinking.
September 15th, 2005 at 4:14 pm
I recently read “The Art of Living Consciously” by Nathaniel Branden in which he related a suggestion he gave a shy person to try at a party. He told her to concentrate on noticing how much you can see and hear. Notice in detail what people are wearing. Notice the furniture and decorations in the room. Observe the color of the eyes of whomever you’re talking to. Pay attention to the tone of voice in which people speak. Try to hear every word said in your presence. Aggress on the environment with your senses.
He says when we are frightened, we typically pull energy in to our center, seeing less, hearing less – shrinking consciousness precisely when we need to expand it. Keep your energy flowing outward to let consciousness triumph over fear.
I’ve tried this once it is does help.
September 16th, 2005 at 1:31 am
Please excuse my bad English. I am not a native speaker.
I was a very shy individual even before high school. In high school, I’m not sure why, but I became more and more shy.
I lacked social skills completely.
Maybe this has to do with being raised until 6 years old by a relative who didn’t let me play with other children and who was criticizing me every day.
In college I tried to find a fix for my shyness problem. I read lots and lots of psychology and self-improvement books, and tried to apply them.
Almost nothing worked. When I tried to reach out and talk to people, I made bad mistakes and was rejected. I was getting more and more shy.
I couldn’t talk to girls at all - I blushed very hard, etc.
I was close to dropping out of college because I feared the social interaction. I done ok in classes, but every day I dreaded going to class and meeting my mates.
At the end of college I got a part-time job. I loved programming, but I could barely handle the social interactions. I started taking Xanax from time to time to control my social fear.
At the age of 21 I was very depressed about this, so I went to see a psychologist. I went to therapy 2 times a week. Each therapy session took about 2 hours and consisted from:
1. hypnosis
2. REBT (Rational Emotional Behavioral Therapy) or role-play (psychodrama)
In 4 months I had already made HUGE progresses. My social skills improved a lot. I was no longer afraid of social interaction.
My college grades and job situation improved a lot.
I have continued my therapy, and after 7 months of therapy I was able to get a girlfriend, and I was very happy.
After that, I stopped therapy because I felt that I could improve on my own… and I did.
Another thing that helped me improve my social skills, but only after therapy was the fact that I became substitute teacher at a high school. This has made me always dress OK, talk to groups of high school students, etc. It was very hard in the beginning but after a while it got easier and it paid off.
I also had a few ocasions of speaking in front of many people, and they went ok. Unfortunately Toastmasters is not available in my country.
I believe the most important social skill is to like being in society and interacting with people. If you have this very important social skill, the other social skills will easily improve.
I am VERY glad that I went to a psychologist, and I’m very sorry that I didn’t do this earlier in my life. A lot of pain could have been avoided.
September 16th, 2005 at 7:05 am
For me - who’s having low self-esteem and is constantly thinking of not being as ‘good’, ‘beautiful’, ‘interesting’… you name it, as other people - the best way to get over my fear of being around strangers or people I barely know is… well, to just go and be around them!
This might sound quite weird, but I think one of the best ways to improve your ’social skills’ is to ’stretch’ yourself. I’ve once heard this quote by someone whose name I’ve sadly forgotten, anyway, it goes something like “Being afraid, shaking in my boots in order to stretch myself is probably my favourite state.” I didn’t use to understand that, but actually, when you’re in a situation that’s quite unknown, not ordinary, your brain starts to work and you become very productive. So I can only recommand that!