Find out about “Social Skills and Building Interpersonal Relationships.” Strong social skills and ability to build interpersonal relationships in the real world can go a long way in advancing anyone. A person with strong social skills will have better chances at winning friends, maintaining relationships at different levels while a person with low social skills will struggle with many of the things that require interaction.
Basically, human beings are social beings, meaning that we love to be in the company of others. No one likes loneliness or boredom. It is not unlikely that the absence of good social relationships is responsible for some suicide cases that happen in our communities today. When good social life and meaningful relationships are not in place, it can lead to certain emotional, psychological and mental issues among other consequences.
Just like some other skills that can be learnt, social skills can also be learnt if one pays attention to the basic strategies involved. Although naturally, and perhaps coupled with the influence of background also, some people seem to find it easier in social situations than others. Extroverts generally have a more outgoing temperament and will seem more social than introverts, but being productively and effectively social goes beyond just being outspoken. It is important to have the right social skill set and attitude.
If you desire to cultivate the right social skill set needed to build great relationships and connections, then the tips discussed in this article will be of immense help to you.
Look outside of Yourself
This could look very simple, but for some people, it can make all the difference. One of the reasons people may not be relating easily with others around them might be due to extreme self-involvement. A good idea to try out when you find yourself in a place is to forget about yourself for some minutes and look out for one or two people that you can say hi to and probably chat with. When you begin to have this mind-set, it will gradually register in your consciousness, until it becomes like a second nature.
Start Indoors
There is a common saying that charity begins at home. If you happen to be a very reserved or conservative person, it may look very herculean to you if you were to just start talking to strangers at public events, conferences or meetings, but the best way to start out might be to simply begin at home. Start by being more outgoing with the people you live with – perhaps siblings, friends, relatives or parents. Be very deliberate and consistent about it. Start from little, short conversations and try to build the interactions to more meaningful and sustained conversations as time goes on. Before you know it, your confidence level will increase and your understanding of people will likely increase too. Soon, you will begin to feel more comfortable relating with people.
Join a Team
One other way you can build your social skills and initiate good interpersonal relationships is to go an extra mile by joining a club, team or group of people who have a good common goal. It might be a religious group, like joining units in a church if you are a Christian or joining a club in your school if you happen to be a student. Think of what team interests you- the kind of team that you can find in your environment and easily join. You must be ready for different types of attitude and feedback, some may see you as being too reserved or indifferent while some may just like you the way you are. Do not let any criticism get too much at you as you know your goal for joining the team. It could be of help if you develop a solid friendship with at least one person who is part of the team. When you have a person cheering you on, the adventure gets easier.
Learn from Others
It is very likely that you have observed certain persons around you who you can describe as having good social skills, those who are able to get conversations rolling, make friends easily and have very meaningful discussion with almost anybody. Observe such people and notice their disposition, tone of voice, body language and all, you might get a few useful tips through that. You can always try out whatever you observe or learn, see if it works for you, if it doesn’t, adjust it to your own context and style. Being a more social person does not have to always be so much of a work, but when you are trying to build a new habit, there will be the need to first be intentional.
Ask questions and find a common ground
No matter how totally new you are to someone you are just meeting, there will likely be something that you can use as a common ground which you can use in kick-starting a conversation. Imagine you meet someone at a professional conference, and you decide to start a conversation, perhaps you missed some points in the first lecture, you can simply ask if the other person has it in his/her note. From there you can go on to talk about how much you enjoyed the lecture and probably mention some points you didn’t quite get. You must be sensitive to know if the other person is interested in the chat or not.
You can also ask open-ended questions, questions that will make the other person say more than just yes or no.
Build Your Emotional Intelligence
If your goal is to really improve your relationship building skills, then you should pay high attention to your level of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence will teach you to understand people better and how to respond when they act in certain ways. One thing to have at the back of your mind is that once you begin to interact with people, you are exposing yourself to reactions (positive or negative) from them. You must understand that once there is contact, there will be friction, once there is interaction, there will likely be misunderstanding. In order to arm yourself with necessary knowledge and skill to handle people, research, study and learn more about emotional intelligence.
Be Less Virtual
We live in the days of the internet and social media and the fact is, that many people today are more engrossed in the use of their phones than the normal face to face interactions around them. Many live more on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and the rest than they live with the people around them. They talk more with virtual friends and people than with the people who are physically around them. The effect of this is that the social life that is supposed to characterize our environment keeps depleting, and people may not pay due attention to building good social skills as they ought.
There is a limit to how much of a company the phones can be, we will still need real people around us at one point or the other. The best company is real company, not virtual company.
As you work towards a more interesting and productive social life, remember that daily bits of progress will eventually accumulate to significant improvements.
