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People who say “just get out more” or “just practice more” don’t know what they’re talking about. If you’ve ever been shy or introverted, you understand that “just getting out more” isn’t good advice. Ditto “just tell a funny story.” That’s like telling someone bad at swimming to just go jump in the pool.
I know what it’s like to build social skills and confidence from nothing. I was horribly shy and had no confidence as a teenager. I studied the best conversationalists for years and discovered what they did differently, how they succeeded, and I modeled that behavior. Now I love socializing and I have all the confidence I’ve ever wanted.
If you are serious about improving your social skills, then a comment here won’t really help much. Social skills are very complex - do you want help with starting conversations? Maintaining conversations? Want to know how to be interesting? Want to know how to talk more effectively at work? Real improvement takes time and effort. You need to learn foundational/advanced skills first before practicing. I’ve written books on all these topics; you can find more at Social Upgrader - Upgrade Your Social Skills
Just in case you never visit my blog, I’ll give you a little insight here:
I discovered that the best conversationalists typically generate comments from one of the following seven categories, in the form of a statement or question: Feelings, Observations, Opinions, Facts, Action statements, Autobiographical, or Events.
How should you use the seven categories? Your brain has millions of thoughts and memories to scan through every time it needs to generate a comment – you need to give it direction. Sometimes, the smarter you are, the harder conversation becomes because there’s too much information in your noggin to digest and process for every conversation.
Let’s check out an example. You visit a friend and meet their dog. The aforementioned framework provides your brain direction for an assortment of comment possibilities to cycle through.
FEELING: I absolutely love your dog.
OBSERVATION: You have such a well-behaved dog.
OPINION: I think Pugs are the best kind of small dog breed.
FACT: I was reading that Pugs are usually…
ACTION STATEMENT: I want to adopt a dog like that.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL: My brother has a Pug too…
EVENT: Did you hear Frank just adopted a dog last month?
Start thinking about which of the aforementioned categories you lean on too heavily, and which do you neglect? Try to become more well-rounded in your comment selection.