Social skills are the set of skills that helps an individual to interact and communicate with others. It teaches an individual to behave in a certain way when present in social settings. When a person has a good set of social skills, they’ll be able to speak to strangers, make friends easily, earn respect and reputation. Social skills include using verbal communication like speaking, writing and nonverbal communication like gestures, facial expressions, body language to express oneself.
It works like a key component in being able to create a social circle of our own, giving an opportunity of meeting new people and representing ourselves with the help of social skills. So, it’s quite important to be efficient in having social skills which could help us in socializing well with others and also to excel in professional life.
Also Read: What is Social Intelligence?
Here are some of the ways to improve social skills that would help in a long run
Read self help books:
Books are a great source of acquiring knowledge related to any topic of interest. Books like ‘how to talk to anyone’, ‘how to become a people magnet’ and ‘how to influence friends and family’ could help in learning specific social skills and will teach us ways to initiate the conversation and strategies to keep it going fluently. Reading about the skills and Applying them in social setting are two different things and one will only be able to apply them in real life, if practiced properly. We can even listen to various podcasts talking about ways of improving our social skills.
Work upon the body language and facial expressions:
Positive body language and appropriate facial expressions are non verbal way of communication and is equally important as the verbal, as it helps in making an impression of ours in front of others. Be confident, sit straight with arms or legs unfolded, avoid blinking eyes too much and maintain an eye contact with the person talking. Using hand gestures and appropriate facial expressions while conversing adds an effect to the conversation thereby making it appear more meaningful, which leads to enhancing the social circle.
Also Read: How does Socializing improve your Quality of Life?
Be content with yourself first:
our inner world reflects upon the outer world, so in order to expand our social circle and enhance social skills, we should think positively of ourselves without being self critic and judgemental towards ourselves. Try to be in the present moment and listen to others carefully. Being able to enjoy ones own company gives inspiration to others and they gets attracted to us.
Meet new people to let go of your shyness:
Approach strangers and Try to talk to new people having different backgrounds and culture. It will boost our self confidence and help us in improving our social skills by being able to remove awkwardness from our side and talk openly to any kind of person without any hesitation. Meeting and talking to unfamiliar people gives an opportunity to know about others personality and thought processes of them which could help us in getting acclimatized with talking to other people when needed without hesitation. Also, we gets more bold and confident when we get in habit of talking.
Let others speak as well:
Get in habit of listening to what others are saying or wanting to say. Listen to understand, not just to reply or respond back to others. Practice active listening. Avoid using mobile phones when one is talking. Indulge in two sided conversation and get to know others by asking open ended questions. Asking about their opinions while presenting ours too is a great way of communicating and knowing others better. It’s a good way to let others know that we are interested in what they has to say and care about them or their opinions as well.
Also Read: Social Psychology: The Landscape of Human Interaction
Take responsibility for one’s own actions:
When we take responsibility of our actions, we seems to be confident and mature in front of others. It’s one of a quality of a great leader who is dedicated to their work and shows commitment. No one is born perfect, it takes a lot of effort and practice to get better in what we’re doing so if we make mistakes or If something doesn’t go as per our plan, instead of getting worried, take responsibility of it and look for the solutions to make it right. This attitude helps in gaining trust of others and helps achieve milestones.
Try not to be serious all the time:
People generally avoid befriending serious and rude people. Be humorous and make others as well as yourself happy. Work seriously but while socializing, be that happy jolly kind of a person. Don’t be shy and boring and be able to crack jokes in social settings.
Genuinely compliment others around:
Learning to express oneselves and complimenting others what we liked in them could help build a great connection with them and makes us appear friendly and genuine to them. Complimenting others for their smile, quality, appearance or work is the bare minimum we can do for others which also make them happy. It’s a thoughtful way to appreciate others and to get to know about them. Compliment others but don’t make it look like buttering them to get some work done. We should work upon our tone of complimenting too while giving someone a compliment.
Have some good manners:
Behaving nicely and having good etiquettes is an important social skill. Our manners show how well behaved we are as a person. Be good to others, treat them well. While going out with a group of people, make sure to add your contribution. Help others when they ask for it. Sit properly and speak slowly. Don’t make noise while eating food or talk and shout unnecessarily. These all things gets counted by others while analysing our nature. The more well behaved we are , the more others prefer to be with us and like our company.
Also Read: Strategies for Managing Social Anxiety
Set small goals to step ahead:
Goals help us track our performance and shows how far we’ve come further. We could create small goals with respect to achieving any specific social skills that we could be lagging like speaking softly, approach new people, go to a social event, help others or ask for help when needed.
Get updated with current affairs:
Read newspapers or watch news to know what’s happening around. Staying updated with daily happenings and accumulating knowledge could help us join conversations or lead the topic further, when discussing in public. It gives a topic for us to talk about or present our own views. It’s a great way to taking hold of conversations when we don’t have anything to say or talk about And at the same time it also makes an impression that we are aware of what’s happening around us.
Challenge yourself to be better everyday:
Challenging oneself and pushing up the limits helps us getting out of our precious comfort zone and do something better for ourselves. Set small targets to achieve specific social skills, one at a time, and Thrive to be a better person personally as well as socially.
Embrace the quality of empathy and sympathy:
Sympathy is showing genuine concern for others, supporting them and understanding their feelings better while empathy refers to be able to feel what others are feeling or experiencing at the moment. Both sympathy and empathy are a great set of social skill needed to be able to socialize with others. If a person is sympathetic, he’ll most probably be helpful and be able to work with others around. However, when a person is empathetic, he could be able to connect instantly with others and form a bond. Empathizing is like putting oneself in the shoes of others and getting to experience what they are feeling. It helps us in knowing them so that we could be able to respond appropriately and in a precise manner.
Also Read: Why are Human Beings called Social Animals?
Practice is faking being a social person until you make it:
No one knows what to do and how to do. We are all here figuring out our way so it’s better to appear that we are doing it great then others. Behave just the way a social person does. Acting and feeling ourselves to be a social extroverted person could do wonders as what you think is what you become. It makes other people think that you are a social person who loves engaging in conversations and attending events willingly. Improving social skills is like opening gates full of opportunities. Even if we are fine by ourselves and have all the talent required to be successful in life, we still need others to appreciate it and to share it with them. Socializing with others helps us gain knowledge about different things and understand human nature as well.
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