This is an article written by Social Life Expert David Morin.
8 years ago, I realized that something in my life had to change. I was tired of spending evenings and weekends on my own and promised myself to build a powerful social circle with a lot of close friends. The only problem was, I had no clue of how to proceed. So I started analyzing socially successful people to learn what they did differently. What I have found out has had a significant impact on my life and now I share these with you. This is what I found out.
1. They Focus on Their Positive Traits, not their Negative Ones
When you see socially successful people, what is one trait they all embody? They have self confidence. I started to realize that self confidence is something anyone can build up over time. These people have flaws like anyone else. But they are aware of what they actually do well.
There’s a huge power in focusing on your positive traits. When you do, you begin to form a healthy perspective of yourself. This will give you confidence you need to become more outgoing around others. As an exercise, if you had to list five positive traits about yourself, what would those be? Give these traits some thought every day.
2. They Live in the Moment, Not in Their Minds
Have you ever entered a party, and felt like there were pairs of eyes watching every move you made? When we experience this, we become very self aware and nervous. To counteract this, when you attend social gatherings it’s important to “force your mind out of your head”. When you detect that you’re wondering what others think of you, start asking yourself questions about the people around you instead. “How do these two people know each other?” “What is she working with?” “Where is he from?” In a study, people who were instructed to focus on their environment reported feeling much more self confident.
3. They are Outgoing
To become socially successful, you will have to take the initiative on occasion. Even if you’re not naturally born a social butterfly, being outgoing is something you can learn. Instead of waiting for someone to invite you to a party or gathering, find groups that interest you. Many cities have groups based on occupation, hobbies, religion or other interests where you can join to meet others. This is a great first step out of your comfort zone. When you do this, have confidence in knowing that others attending the group may have the same social anxieties as you do. Once you find a group, it’s important that you stay persistent and attend meetings regularly. The more you attend the more comfortable you will feel being there.
Note from Brendan: If you live in Sydney, I have established the Sydney Activity and Adventure Group which now has over 3,000 members. Join us for some fun sometime!
4. They are Adventurous
If you want to become more socially successful, it’s important that you open your mind to try new things. By trying new things such as taking a cooking class or learning karate, you expand your horizons, you acquire new skills and you meet people in the process. This is an excellent way to enrich your life and grow your social circle as a result. Is there something that you are interested in doing but haven’t tried yet? Try to realize that interest.
5. They are Great at Helping Others
Another trait that many socially successful people have is that they are willing to help others. Whether it’s finding volunteer opportunities or finding ways to help their friends, socially successful people are willing to go that extra mile. If you’re better than others at something and use your skills to help others out, people will respect you for it. You shouldn’t help people for the sake of making friends – then you risk coming off as needy. Help people because your skills would actually solve the problem they’re having.
What skills do you possess? In what way could you use these skills so help others? When you’re seen as a helpful person, people will become increasingly willing to give back. In that way, helpfulness is often a win-win.
6. They are Authentic
Simply, good reputations attract people. People of good character aren’t quick to judge, they won’t talk poorly about people behind their backs, they follow through on their commitments and they are friendly to others. When you practice these behaviors, others will notice your authenticity and this will make you more attractive as a person.
You’ve probably been in the situation where it’s tempting to talk down on something or someone. Try to resist that urge. If you refrain from this behavior long enough, the urge will eventually go away – it’s no longer part of your personality to talk down on others. People will trust you more with their thoughts and secrets as you’re seen as a reliable person.
In Summary
Ultimately, these six steps are good mental approaches you can take to improve your social life. While you won’t experience an overnight transformation, these tips can help you develop the mindset needed to improve both your life and to help you gain more friendships.
Author Bio: David Morin is an entrepreneur at Social Pro Now.
Did you enjoy this article? You might like these related posts:
- How Being a Little Bit Silly Can Build Your Confidence and Enhance Your Relationships
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- How to Expand Your Comfort Zone
Great post!
I like #6.
Being authentic does create a lot of attraction and its rare. Being true to yourself is definitively powerful, and fun!
Great list David! I would add one thing, what I think is the most important item: they show interest in other people. If someone does all the things on your list but only talks about themselves, they’ll come across as self-centered and boorish. Listening and asking questions is still the most important social skill!
Great post David. These are six things that you see in socially successful and they also tend to be in highly successful people career wise. They realize that being a cynic and negative will get you no where and no one will want to be around you except other negative people. Then it is just a negativity party where everyone is unhappy.
I love that you utilize meetup. I am actually running a meetup tonight in my hometown. It is a fantastic way to meet people and I recommend it to everyone I meet haha.
I will stumble this for you mate. Hopefully it can help some people start to embrace life.
This is an excellent article, but, unfortunately, if one has an innate, biologically-based developmental problem that prevents him/her from developing adequate social skills, then they are screwed, from day one. No amount of effort on people with innate social problems to do the above-mentioned things will help..at least not enough to attract people, because when people with innate developmental problems do try to do those things and to fit in, ordinary people either make fun of them , or turn them off all the more.