October 11, 2012

The Socially Inept: Symptoms and Solutions

Are you pondering the possibility that you’re socially inept? Many people are that way, so you’re definitely not alone. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t take consolation in this and not do anything about it.

I’ve been working as a social confidence coach since 2007. And I can assure you that, no matter who you are, you can turn yourself from socially inept to socially skilled. You have the intrinsic ability to change how you are, and the tools to do it successfully are out there.

The first important step is to gauge if you indeed are socially inept and to what degree. A good change process always starts with a good understanding of your starting point.

The 10 Sign that you’re Socially Inept

Here are the most important indicators of social ineptitude to take into consideration. Read them attentively and try to recognize how much each one of them pertains to your case.

  1. You feel nervous when you’re in a social setting or you’re making conversation with someone.
  2. You’re particularly anxious around people you just met, attractive members of the opposite sex or people you perceive as being very cool.
  3. You don’t know how to properly start a conversation with another person, so you either not do it or do it clumsily.
  4. You have problems keeping a conversation going and those awkward silences frequently creep in.
  5. You feel that you’re not good at expressing yourself and when you say something it doesn’t come out the way it was intended.
  6. You don’t go out very much, you don’t talk very much and, in group conversations, you barely talk at all.
  7. When you do talk or interact with others, you often end up saying or doing silly things and embarrassing yourself.
  8. You don’t know how to react when you do or say something inappropriate and recover from the situation.
  9. You believe others find you weird or boring and they’re generally not interested in interacting with you.
  10. You have few friends, if any, maybe you see yourself as a loner, and your dating life isn’t looking too well either.

That’s it; these are the 10 key signs.

So, what’s the conclusion? How socially inept are you?

Once you’ve done an evaluation of your social aptitude, whatever level you’re at, it’s time to start thinking about some effective ways to improve your social skills, confidence and life.

The Formula for Social Success

Here are the 4 actions I encourage you to take in order to stop being socially inept and become socially savvy. In my experience, these actions will create the best results, in the shortest amount of time.

1. Get More Social Experience

I know that you may want to find a way to not be socially inept anymore and afterwards go out and socialize, but unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way. It works the other way around.

Social skills come with social experience. As you interact with others, you try various styles of behavior and you notice how others react, this creates reference points for your brain and it improves your social prowess.

So, begin by going out more, interacting with people more and being more talkative, even if it’s challenging. It’s by challenging yourself that you make genuine progress.

2. Build Your Social Confidence

Most problems related to being socially inept will take care of themselves if you become more confident. You’ll feel more at ease in social settings, find it easier to know what to say in a discussion and be a lot smoother.

In fact, social confidence is so important that usually when I coach a person who is socially inept, we focus 80% of the time and energy on developing this trait. And without exception, with social confidence come slick social skills as well.

Building your social confidence is a process in itself, and this article is not intended to describe it thoroughly.

However, I have a special presentation for you which does just that. Go here to check it out and learn the step by step process for becoming confident socially.

3. Hang Out With Socially Savvy Individuals and Study Them

A lot of my understanding of social dynamics, I formed by interacting with people (especially guys, since I’m a guy) who were very good at social interactions. And I studied they’re mannerisms: how they start a conversation, how they keep it going, how they talk, etc.

Soon enough, I began to see patterns. Then I deliberately incorporated several of the patterns into my own behavior. Some of these new behaviors felt weird at first, but as I got used to them, they eventually felt very natural. Model individuals who are very social and you’ll see positive results in your social life.

4. Be Persistent

You won’t put an end to being socially inept overnight. Nevertheless, if you follow smart advice and you apply it consistently, you can make incredible progress fast.

In just a couple of months you will be much more relaxed, active and smooth in social settings than ever before, and you’ll enjoy yourself like crazy. The trick is to have some patience, invest in yourself and be persistent.

By the way, for more free advice from me for overcoming social ineptitude and achieving social success, I invite you to join my social confidence newsletter.  You’ll learn a lot from it.

As your social skills and confidence grow, your social life grows with it. And your fulfillment with yourself and your happiness in life reach a whole new level.

Image courtesy of ohhector

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 6 Comments
December 15, 2011

6 Signs That You’re Socially Awkward and How to Fix This

If social interactions don’t go for you as well as you would like and you sometimes tend to put your foot in your mouth during conversations, you may be asking yourself: “Am I socially awkward?”

Drawing from my experience as a social confidence coach, I want to explain the characteristics of socially awkward people and help you comprehend if you are socially awkward or not, as well as show you what to do about it.

The Profile of Socially Awkward People

Socially awkward persons possess a set of distinctive traits. The more of these traits you have and the larger their degree, the higher on the social awkwardness scale you’re likely to be. Here they are:

1. Feeling nervous in social settings. The typical socially awkward person doesn’t feel comfortable in social situations. They are anxiety producing.

This is one of the main factors that often make them behave in weird ways around other people. Nervousness leads to a creepy demeanor, and realizing that your demeanor is creepy creates even more nervousness, so we have an ongoing negative cycle.

2. Not understanding social norms. Often when I talk with a socially awkward person, they tell me they often don’t know what’s appropriate for them to do and what’s not in a social situation.

They don’t know how is it OK to start a conversation, what conversation topics is it best to talk about and when, or what is it suited to joke about and what is it not. Obviously, this lack of understanding can lead to either weird or shy behavior.

3. Often having a different impact than intended. It’s common for socially awkward people to joke about something and others to find the joke uncalled for, or to try and give a compliment, only for it to come off in a distasteful way.

In other words, they intend to generate one result, and they end up generating a totally different one. This mismatch is a sign of a deficiency of social calibration.

4. The lack of conversation flow. Everybody has conversations that don’t flow, have awkward silences or end abruptly. But for socially awkward people, this is the rule, not the exception.

Their conversations are habitually like a rough wagon ride on a bumpy country road.

5. Frequently being avoided or ridiculed by others. If others actively try to dodge interactions with you, or they often mock you during them, they probably see you as the weird person in the group.

And if they see you this way, it can be a sign that your social behavior is awkward and makes it easy to attract the derision of others.

6. The lack of meaningful connections with others. Since they struggle with making conversation, feeling at ease around others and expressing themselves effectively, socially awkward people typically lack strong connections with others.

They generally have few friends, if any, and a very small social circle. They spend a lot of time alone and to say their social life is less than fulfilling is an understatement.

OK. These are the 6 distinctive traits of socially awkward individuals. Taking them into consideration, this is a good moment to ask yourself again “Am I socially awkward?”

If The Conclusion Is “I Am Socially Awkward”

If the conclusion of this self-assessment is that you are socially awkward, this is likely an issue with a visible negative impact on your life. You could have much better relationships and be a lot happier if you deal with this effectively. I have three essential pieces of advice I can offer you.

The first and most important is to develop your social confidence. To a very large extent, social awkwardness is produced by shyness and anxiety in social settings.

When you’re anxious, you can’t think straight, you stumble, bumble and fumble around, and thus you embarrass yourself. Work on improving your social confidence, and I promise you that most of this will take care of itself.

Check out this free presentation I’ve created to learn how to eliminate anxiety and boost your social confidence.

The second advice is to learn the basic social norms. The basic principles of social interactions can be learned from books, courses or socially savvy people. Knowing them and applying them will aid you adjust your social behavior to the situation.

However, beyond the basic principles, everything else can only be learned through experience. No other person can tell you exactly what to do and say during a social interaction.

This is why the third advice is to gain lots of experience interacting with others. Meet new people, make conversation, experiment, notice the results and fine-tune your behavior accordingly.

In time, this real-life social experience will transform you from socially awkward to socially intelligent. And of course, a huge part of the nerve to do all this socializing comes, again, from developing your social confidence.

If you want to discover exactly how you can do this, make sure you watch my social confidence presentation.

Fortunately, overcoming social awkwardness is absolutely possible, no matter who you are. You can become a socially calibrated person who makes conversation effortlessly, has awesome friends and enjoys a great social life.

The key is to use focus on achieving this with determination, seek the best advice available and implement it.

Image courtesy of DaveAustria.com

Filed Under: Communication Skills, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 189 Comments