Improve Your Social Skills Read online

  Contents

  Manifesto

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Foundations

  How to Use the Guide

  Setting Goals for Your Social Skills Journey

  Overcoming Fear and Social Anxiety

  Social Anxiety = Physical Fear

  Manipulation vs. True Intimacy

  Chapter 2: Body Language

  Comfort/ Discomfort: The Core of Body Language

  A Field Guide to Comfort

  A Field Guide to Discomfort

  Understanding Body Language in Context

  Your Body Language

  Chapter 3: Conversation

  The Secret of Conversation Flow

  Invitation: The Art of Good Questions

  Inspiration: The Heartbeat of Good Conversation

  Inspiration in Practice

  Invitation and Inspiration in Harmony

  Bonus: Ten Easy Tips for Improving Conversation

  Chapter 4: Group Conversation

  Open and Closed Groups

  Joining Group Conversations

  Group Conversation Flow

  Chapter 5: Empathy

  Understanding Yourself

  Understanding Others

  Nonverbal Empathy

  Chapter 6: Meeting People

  Finding Your Group

  Everyday Connections

  Person-To-Person Connections

  Chapter 7: Making Friends

  Finding Good Friends

  Starting a Friendship

  Deepening a New Friendship

  Chapter 8: How to Support Your Friends

  Supporting Friends in the Moment

  Supporting a Friend Long Term

  Taking Care of Yourself

  Chapter 9: Dating

  Healthy Relationships Defined

  How to Have a Healthy Relationship

  Beginning a Romance

  From Friendship to First Kiss

  Building a Relationship Worth Having

  Slow and Steady...

  ...Wins Their Heart

  Chapter 10: How to be a Good Storyteller

  Holding Interest

  Building Connections

  A Satisfying Conclusion

  Chapter 11: Best Blog Posts

  Better Every Day

  Give it 100

  Fight Back

  Take Care of Yourself and Others

  The Case for Small Talk

  3 Hobbies that Teach Social Skills

  How to be More Social

  Making Great First Impressions with the Name Game

  How to Make Eye Contact

  Overcoming Anxiety: One Simple Rule

  20 Seconds of Insane Courage

  About the Author

  Manifesto

  I

  I believe that you deserve a place to belong.

  I believe that you deserve relationships where you can be your whole self, your real self, the self that doesn’t have it all figured out, the self that makes mistakes, the self that hates itself sometimes. I believe that you deserve people who will see your whole self and accept you wholeheartedly.

  I believe that within you is the spark of the divine, that your screw ups and your baggage do not have the power to define you, that no matter what you think of yourself and no matter the names that others have called you, you are overflowing with beauty and passion and potential.

  I believe that it is good that you are alive, and that your life is a gift to the people who love you and to the people who have not met you yet but who will love you one day.

  II

  I believe that you will find people who will help you believe these things, too.

  I believe that you will find people who will know and love all of you, who will know your scars and help in your healing, who will count their relationship with you as one of their most treasured gifts.

  I believe that you will find people who will see tremendous beauty in you.

  I believe they will help you see it too.

  III

  I believe that you will see tremendous beauty in others, and help them see it too.

  I believe that you will speak the words that will encourage someone not to give up, give the smile that will break through someone’s dark mood, be the shoulder for someone who desperately needs a safe place to cry.

  I believe you will love people so much it hurts, and you will help the people you love discover the best of who they are.

  I believe that you will seek the lonely and outcast and be a true friend to them.

  IV

  I believe that everyone is worth fighting for (including you.) I believe we were made to love ourselves and each other and like warriors we must fight against everything that holds us back from that love.

  I wrote Improve Your Social Skills because relationships don’t happen automatically. Apathy, fear, awkwardness – all conspire to thwart connection. You have to be prepared to fight for your relationships.

  So we prepare.

  We study. We practice. We train.

  Like a swordsman who has mastered his footwork, we learn to move smoothly in conversation. Like a general reads the terrain, we learn to read social cues and nonverbal signals. Like a grizzled veteran, we have made peace with our fear – and we don’t let it hold us back from action.

  No matter where we start, we can get better. Whether social butterfly or socially awkward, we study, we practice, we train.

  Day by day, moment by moment, we learn how to build friendships and how to be a good friend to others. We know our new skills will help us – but more than that, we know that our skills will help us protect others.

  When we reach out with love, we protect others from rejection, from shame, from hopelessness. The impact you make can be as small as a smile and as large as a suicide averted.

  In love’s army, you will be a mighty warrior.

  V

  I want to live in a world where nobody feels like a reject.

  I want to live in a world where nobody stands alone.

  I want to live in a world where love and acceptance matter more than success and power.

  We don’t live in that world, for the most part. But we can help create it.

  You can help create it.

  Start today.

  Introduction

  Improve Your Social Skills is a comprehensive, practical guide to social skills. It explains the core principles of social interaction in clear, easy to follow lessons.

  I wrote Improve Your Social Skills to be the guide I desperately needed during my own social struggles. Growing up, I was the most socially awkward kid you would ever hope to meet. But when I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in high school, I realized that my social problems were caused by a lack of social skills, not by some inherent flaw in my character.

  After my diagnosis, I studied social skills for more than a decade. On January 1st, 2012, I launched ImproveYourSocialSkills.com to share what I'd learned with the world. Hundreds of thousands of people visit the site every year, and today I'm proud to help an even wider audience through the Improve Your Social Skills book.

  The guide you're about to read is a compilation of the social principles I've learned during my lifetime of personal social skills study, as well as the techniques I developed while offering hundreds of hours of social skills coaching. It offers detailed blueprints for basic skills like conversation and body language in depth, and provides clear explanations for complex topics like empathy, making friends, and dating.

  I wrote Improve Your Social Skills to share the principles that have changed my life. These principles led me to a life full of close friendship, satisfying connection, and tender romance. I wrote Improve Your
Social Skills because I want everyone to have that kind of life.

  I believe you deserve a place to belong. I believe that you can live a life full to the brim with friendship, connection, and love. I wrote Improve Your Social Skills to help you believe it, too.

  Chapter 1: Foundations

  When I was in college, I signed up for an internship with Students International, an organization that works among the poor in the Dominican Republic. I was assigned to the construction outreach where Rudy, the Dominican construction leader, taught me a great deal about both construction and life.

  One day, after we’d spent hours painstakingly laying a foundation for a house and making sure everything was perfect, he turned to me and said,

  “We always spend more time on the foundation because the foundation is everything. If the foundation is solid, the house will be strong. If the foundation is crooked, the house will be flawed. It’s the same thing with your life—if the foundation of your life is in solid things, you will be strong. If you set your foundation in crooked things, you will crumble.”

  (He talked like that ALL the TIME. It was like building houses with Yoda.)

  I think Rudy was on to something.

  If you take the time to lay your foundation right, then you will be successful in whatever you’re building – whether a house, a life, or a set of social skills.

  That’s what this “Foundations” section is about. I wrote it to help you think through the way social skills affect your own life. This guide is a very powerful tool, but before you pick up any tool, you need to know what you’re trying to build. I know you are probably eager to get started on the “meat” of the guide, but trust me (or, if you prefer, trust Rudy.)

  The foundation must come first.

  Foundations contains four lessons:

  How to Use the Guide

  Here are some guidelines to help you get the most out of the guide

  Setting Goals For Your Social Skills Journey

  Why are you trying to learn social skills? What are your goals? What has your history with social skills been? Where are you, and where are you going?

  Overcoming Fear And Social Anxiety

  Social interaction can be scary, and it’s easy for fear to hold us back. But it is possible to overcome your fear, and in this section I show you how.

  Manipulation vs. True Intimacy

  Some other social skills gurus recommend using social skills to manipulate others into doing what you want. But truly fulfilling relationships are built on trust and respect, not manipulation and deceit.

  How to Use the Guide

  You may use the guide however you see fit. Read the entire thing in one sitting. Skip around to the sections that interest you most. Read it out loud to your cat. The world is truly your oyster.

  But if you want to get the most out of the guide, I have some advice for you.

  Read the guide in order. The later chapters reference concepts from earlier chapters and cover more advanced topics. It is particularly important to read in order within chapters, since the sections in each chapter build directly on one another. You are welcome to skip around all you like, but if you find that a certain chapter or section doesn’t make sense, your best bet is to go back and read what you missed.

  Practice what you learn. The only way to learn how to apply the principles in the guide to the real world is, well, to get out and apply them to the real world. So take some time every day to practice. Watch TV with the sound low and study the body language of the actors until you can recognize comfort and discomfort. Strike up a conversation with your coworker and practice maintaining conversational flow. Spend a bit of time at the end of the day to think through your social skills goals. Pick a social skill you want to master, and put in some time every day practicing it. You’ll find yourself richly rewarded.

  Study slowly but consistently. It’s certainly possible to fly through the entire guide in one sitting, but there’s a lot of content to take in. Give yourself the chance to really absorb everything you can. I recommend a bit each day, reading a subsection of a chapter or two, and then making sure to practice what you read during the day.

  Don’t go it alone! Ask friends, family and mentors to help you with your social skills journey. Your support network can be a great source of advice and encouragement.

  You should have specific goals in mind as you work through the guide. Improving your social skills just to improve your social skills is good, but it’s hard to stay motivated if you don’t have clear goals. Having clear goals allows you to track your progress towards that goal and stay motivated.

  Supplement the guide with other sources. Improve Your Social Skills has a lot of great content, but there are other social skills resources that can build on what you learn in Improve Your Social Skills. Even today, I keep an eye out for great social skills books so that I can continue to learn and grow my skills. I’ve compiled a list of some of the best books on social skills that I’ve found, which is a great place to start.

  However you decide to use the guide, remember that practice and persistence are the two biggest keys to your success. Be diligent to practice the things you learn. If you do, you will be well on your way to social success.

  Setting Goals for Your Social Skills Journey

  A good friend of mine likes to ask me, “Where are you, and where are you going?”

  He asks this because he believes that life is a journey. The person you were yesterday is different than the person you will be tomorrow, because the person you were yesterday was not shaped by today’s experiences. You will change as you go through life.

  It’s inevitable.

  But how you change is up to you.

  You will be changed whether you spend your weekend watching TV or helping a family build a home, but it is your choice that determines if you pick up the remote or the hammer. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make the decision to change for the better. It’s easy to put off a beneficial change until later or to give up as soon as the change becomes difficult.

  That’s why it’s important to know where you are and where you’re going. When you don’t, it’s like trying to make a long journey without a map. You won’t have the first idea of how to start, and you won’t know if you are drawing closer to your goal or just walking in circles.

  But if you understand where you are and where you want to go, then you can draw a map. You can plan for the journey and prepare yourself for the obstacles that you might face along the way. The journey may still be a long one, but you know you will not give up because you are focused on your destination.

  In social skills, knowing where you are means that you understand your current social strengths and limitations, and you understand how those strengths and limitations affect your life. And knowing where you’re going means you have a concrete set of social goals, as well as a plan for reaching those goals.

  I have some questions to help you find out where you are and where you’re going, and I encourage you to think through them in depth. Let the questions inspire your thinking, and don’t worry too much about how you respond to each question. There are no right or wrong answers; the questions are only there to guide your thinking.

  Where are you?

  What are your social strengths? Social strengths are the positive elements you bring to relationships and social interactions. They can be social skills, but they don’t have to be. Being loyal to your friends or having a genuine desire to get to know others both count as social strengths, even if they might not be social skills.

  Think about the best relationships in your life. These might be current relationships or relationships from your past. What were those relationships like? What made those relationships so good? How did those relationships affect your life?

  How have you tried to improve your social skills in the past? Have those methods been successful? If so, what made them successful? If not, what would help you be more successful this time around?

  What are the
current gaps in your social skills knowledge? What are the elements of social interaction that you don’t understand, or that you struggle to do successfully?

  Why did you decide to start reading Improve Your Social Skills?

  Where are you going?

  What are the practical areas of social skills that you want to improve? Practical skills are the “nuts and bolts” of social interaction. They include stuff like making conversations flow smoothly, understanding how other people are feeling, and avoiding needless conflict.

  What are your “short term” goals for social skills? Some examples might be making a new friend, having a fun time at a social event, or deepening your relationship with a specific friend. These are goals that you think could be accomplished in the next few weeks or months.

  What are your long term goals for social skills? Some examples might be having someone you consider a close friend or feeling completely comfortable in social situations.

  Who are the people who can accompany you on your social skills journey? These might be friends, family members, or mentors who can encourage you, act as a sounding board, or provide a safe place to practice your social skills.

  What is your motivation for embarking on this journey of social skills improvement? How can you help yourself stay motivated, even when the journey becomes hard?

  I encourage you to write down your answers to these questions and return to them on occasion as you progress through the guide. As your understanding of social skills improves, your understanding of where you are and where you are going will change as well. Take the time to ask yourself “Where am I, and where am I going?” every so often, and you will make sure that you keep growing in the right direction.

  Also, remember that slow growth is still growth. It might take you a long time to accomplish your goals, or even to see clear progress. But don’t give up. Every time you try something new or learn a new skill, you are making progress. Learning social skills is a journey, not a race. The speed at which you accomplish your goals is not important; what’s important is that you keep journeying forward.