As you work to improve your social skills, you must approach the process in the right way. Many people struggle to improve their social skills not because they’re up against impossible challenges, but because they approach the task from the wrong angle and get unnecessarily discouraged. With the right mind-set, expectations, and approach to improving, you’ll make more progress. This chapter covers some things you should know before working on your issues. Chapter 2 troubleshoots some common questions and concerns people have about improving their social skills.
Figuring out which skills and traits to work on and which to leave alone
As the Introduction said, you don’t need to change everything about yourself to do better socially. Of course, you’ll want to address clear-cut problems that most people would be happy to be rid of—shyness and anxiety, low self-confidence, unpolished conversation skills, and lack of knowledge about how to make friends.
The traits listed below can also cause social problems. They’re all perfectly valid variations from the norm that you shouldn’t have to change. However, they can lead to practical social inconveniences when either people misunderstand and look down on the traits, or the traits cause you to have competing needs.
- Acceptable, though sometimes impractical, social differences
- Having an introverted personality
- Liking to spend a lot of time alone
- Not needing or wanting a ton of friends
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