3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Social Skills Starting Today

Your social skills is one of the most important and essential things in life.

It is one of those things that make a huge difference if you work on them.

As you improve your social skills you can:

  • Build more social freedom. This is truly wonderful. Instead feeling stuck or staying in your shell you can expand your life in so many ways. By building your own inner social freedom you can connect with more people in better and more fun and interesting ways plus create new and exciting opportunities romantically, in your career or with friends.
  • Deepen your relationships. With better social skills and relationship habits you can explore new depths with friends, a partner, your family and the people that are closest to you in life.
  • Find more happiness and self-confidence. As you deepen your relationships and create more social freedom for yourself you’ll also find more happiness in your life. And as your social skills and relationship habits improve and you expand your comfort zone your self-confidence will grow more and more too.

Those are a couple of the best things I have gotten out improving my own social skills over the past 8 years.

And they are also a few of the most important reasons why I have created my brand new 12-week course, The Smart Social Skills Course.

The course will launch on Wednesday, the 8:th of May at 1 pm EST (that’s 17.00 GMT). And the first 100 people to join the course will get it at a 30% discount.

But that is not the only thing about social skills that I wanted to share today. I also wanted to share three simple ways that you can start using today to start improving your own social skills and relationship habits.

1. Ask yourself: How can I give value to my world today?

We tend to get what we give socially.

So be careful about what you give.

A few of the most powerful ways to give value in everyday life and in any relationship are to:

Help out.

This could be practically by helping someone move, by asking someone you know for good advice that your friend needs or by connecting someone with someone else.

It could be by giving him or her some advice or perspective on a challenge he or she is facing.

Truly listen.

Just be there fully and truly listen to what he or she is saying. Or lend an ear and just let someone vent and figure things out.

Take the first step.

People often stay still and do not take the first step because of fear of failure or rejection, lack of time, laziness or some other reason.

So add value to the lives of your friends by taking care of planning and fixing the party or picnic.

Send out an email to someone in your business world you would like to get to know better.

Ask someone for a date instead of circling around each other any longer.

You can also ask yourself: how can I give value in a way today that I rarely do?

I have found that this question can illuminate how you easily can give more value in overlooked ways in your conversations and relationships.

2. Grab conversational topics from your surroundings.

One thing that I use to find things to talk or joke about or deeply discuss is to have a look at my surroundings and simply find a topic there.

If there is a fish tank at a party you can start talking about that and fishing if you are into that. Or you can move the conversation to hobbies for instance.

If there is something curious or interesting as the two of you walk by the newspaper stand then you can comment on that or ask what the other person thinks about that piece of information.

If you are eating you can talk about what you are eating and then move on to your love of cooking or the best or worst meal you ever had.

Training your mind to free-associate like this and grabbing topics from whatever is happening around you is a simple way to very rarely run out things to talk about.

It is a habit that brings a lot of fun to my own life and it quite often creates unexpected and interesting conversations.

3. Tell yourself you will tell someone else about this conversation later on.

One of the best ways to remember something better is to know that you are going to tell what you learned to someone else. Then you’ll be more alert and what is said in the conversation simply seems to stick better in my experience.

So tell yourself that later on today you will tell someone else about what Bob or Lisa told you in the conversation you are having.

You may not always tell it to someone else or even be able to do it because what you learn might be private. But using this mindset and practicing it and actually telling someone about the conversation when it is possible can be a big help.

By using this technique you’ll also start asking more follow-up questions naturally because you’ll become more interested and you want to understand more deeply. And this also makes the person that is talking to you feel more understood and interesting and so your conversation and relationship will be better.

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About the Author

Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog. Click here to learn more…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Aditya Gaykar

    Hi, Henrik Edberg
    Your articles are really motivating.
    Thanks and keep up the good work :)

  • Hey Henrik great post!

    I especially like your 3rd suggestion. I used to have trouble remembering what I talked about with someone too. I didn’t quite use the same technique you suggest here, but I would sort of go over in my mind what we talked about to help the conversation stick better. That way, the next time we met, I’d be able to bring up topics we previously discussed. So your suggestion achieves the same thing PLUS helps you out in later conversations. I like it!

    Loving your podcast BTW. Keep up the great work!

    • Thank you, Dean, I appreciate that! And I’m glad to hear you found something you think you can make good use of to become an even better listener.

  • Amy

    I just started a new job with a lot of regular members and have found your last point about telling the same story later in the day a fantastic idea and one that i will be able to put into practise. A lot of our members are of an older generation and love telling their life stories, so being able to remember those stories and let others know these wonderful stories will be very handy to do.

    looking forward to checking out your new course,

    Amy

  • Kabeer Singh

    hey Henrik :D just wanted to say that your blogs literally are running parallel to my life (or at least I like to think :P) you took me out of the procrastination period 2 months back during my high school exams well and now I’ll be joining college so, yep, was pretty unsure about my social skills on meeting new people :D – this really helped :)

  • Thanks Henrik, your blog is an inspiration :)

  • Henrik… thanks for another great post. To truly listen is one of the more important skills I believe.

  • Gaz

    What a great way to grab conversational topics from your surroundings I would not have thought of that. Funny the things that are right there in front of us we never think about,….. thank you

  • Hi Henrik
    Your suggestions are insightful and i would like to add that making small talk is an art and an extremely important one.
    In fact in the animal kingdom humans are the only ones with the gift of the gab.Put to good use ,it can do wonders breaking ice between strangers,and even among associates.
    You ideas about bringing value to the world deserve following.
    Thanks
    Mona

  • Listening is a skills that sounds easy to master but many people struggle. They may believe they can listen but to others it does not come across like that.

  • I agree with Dean,

    The 3rd tip really works. Even if you just have to tell yourself later, it really does wonders in helping you pay attention.

  • Henrick, thank you for your positive message. I suffered childhood abuse for many years which resulted in my severe lacking of social skills. I’ve gotten a lot better at putting myself out there and after years of therapy I feel ready to bring people into my life. After reading your article, I gathered some insightful information on how to start meaningful conversations with my peers. Thanks so much!

  • A really very motivating post Henrik Edberg, I enjoyed it and learned some tips, that I am planning to apply in my social life.
    Thanks and keep up the good work.

  • hi,really learn a lot from this blog , thanks for sharing . and i am kinda shy when talking with others , so there are seriously social problem with me . but i will change now to take the first step . i wanna be a outgoing girl :)

  • Social skills are so important. I think it’s great that you have short and easy to follow tips on how to improve that are easily accessible to anyone.

  • Another great way to improve your social ability is to talk a lot about the person you are talking to.

    Instead of using the word “Me” a lot, don’t forget to use the word “You”.

    People love the word “You.”

    When you say it, it makes them feel unique and special (which they should, because we’re all unique and special).

    Sometimes when we have an issue we forget to talk about the person we’re talking to. And before we know it, they’ve walked away…

    But if you start off with “you” then you can be sure they’ll soon enough be interested in…you!