A lot of people struggle with social skills. Whether you suffer from social anxiety or don’t know how to correctly read other people, there are always ways in which we can improve our social skills and learn and push ourselves so that our interactions with others benefit greatly.
Feeling awkward at social events or struggling to join a conversation because you are shy, can dramatically impact your social life as well as your career. However, it is possible to improve your social skills and become socially successful by implementing simple strategies.
Keep in mind, generally speaking life reflects who we are, the kind of people we meet and the experiences we have. Success happens to successful people, happy things happen to positive people and interesting things happen to interesting people. So in order to meet exciting new people, you need to be exciting first. If you want your social life to be happening, you need to become outgoing and social.
Here are our TOP 10 strategies to improve your social skills and become socially successful.
#1 Learn to Listen
Active listening is probably one of the most underrated and under appreciated social skills. A lot of people are centered on themselves. They are used to talking about themselves and whenever someone else is speaking, they just wait for the other person to finish to start talking again. However, if you want to become socially successful, forget about yourself for a moment and focus your attention outward on the person you are talking and listening to. Show genuine interest in others, make good eye contact, paraphrase back what has just been said and express your understanding and interest in what has been said. Keep in mind, a conversation is not a competition. Let the other person know that they are heard and that you are interested and you will be able to go far in multiple areas of your life.
#2 Practice
Like any other skill, developing good social skills is a matter of practice, so you need to spend more time interacting with others that you can hone your social skills. Meet new people, have a meaningful conversation with them and get to know them better and with that you will be able to develop your intuition about others and gradually become better at tuning into another person and building a stronger connection. A lot of people are tempted to avoid social interactions because they think they lack social skills, but unfortunately that only means that you will keep lacking social skills. The only way you can improve them is to interact with others.
#3 Shut Down Outside Distractions
These days we are all so connected by our electronic gadgets that we can easily lose the connection we have in a real life situation because of outside distractions. We’ve all seen it before, a group of people comes together for a meal and everybody is on their phone rather than engaging with the others around the table. In order to improve your social skills you need to check out from technology and other outside distractions and completely check in with the people and places right in front of you. You will be amazed how much more enjoyable the experience becomes.
#4 Take Risks
To become socially successful it isn’t enough to just interact with other people. It is essential that you take risks when you interact with others, show your true emotions, feelings and thoughts and be completely authentic. This is so important because if you just play it safe, you don’t get to experiment and explore all the possibilities and this is central to expand your social skills. Express your entire personality and pay attention to how others respond to you and with that you become wiser socially.
#5 Ask for Feedback
It is challenging to adjust your social skills if you don’t have an understanding about how others see you and what effect your behavior has on them, so it is essential to ask for feedback. However, make sure to ask people you trust to give you an honest feedback and who tell you how they perceive your strengths and weaknesses. Get feedback from a variety of people and with that you get a wealth of information that will help you understand yourself as well as others and social interactions better and you can build your social skills.
#6 Be Interested in the Other Person
If you show genuine interest in the people you interact with, you automatically become a better listener and you find out what the other person is passionate about, which will help you tremendously to improve your communication and interaction with that person. You will make the other person feel good because you give them your full attention, validate their feelings and show interest in the connection that is being made.
#7 Don’t Babble On and On
If you just keep talking and talking and talking, there is little to no time to listen. Start to focus your attention on listening and focus outward and with that you can stop babbling on and on and on and can make a real connection to the other person. Nobody wants to listen to endless stories that don’t come to the point, say what you need to say and then stop so you can listen to the other person and improve your social connections.
#8 Keep a Positive Attitude
Most people are drawn to a person with a positive, uplifting attitude, so make it a point to stay positive and react in a positive way. Now, we are not saying you should be positive all the time, when things go wrong in your life. There can be a camaraderie in a common negative situation, but overall and in the long-term keeping it positive is a much more fulfilling and useful approach. Learn to adopt a positive attitude no matter what your circumstances are right now and while this can be challenging in the beginning, once you get started to find the positive in things, your mind will adopt to that kind of thinking and it will become automatic.
#9 Learn to Read Body Language
The majority of a communication is unspoken, which means that our body language and the way we present ourselves has a huge impact on our interactions. A lot of people have a hard time to read the body language of others as well as have an awareness of what kind of signals they are sending out. Be aware of the tone of voice, if someone can hold eye contact and if they use open gestures or close themselves off to the world. Learn to get cues from what the body is telling you and you’ll know if the story you hear is authentic and if the enthusiasm you hear is real.
#10 Offer Compliments Generously
Compliments go a long way and show that you are paying attention and are approachable and friendly. If you give a genuine compliment to someone, you can build trust and open the door to an authentic, genuine conversation. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to hear something positive about themselves?
If you lack social skills, it is important to learn how to become socially successful because there is a significant correlation between social skills and success in any area of your life. If you have good social skills, it is a lot easier to make new friends, interact with colleagues and clients, build strong, meaningful relationships and get ahead in your career.
DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE YOUR SOCIAL SKILLS
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked