why are social skills so hard to improve for introverts? Find out my 5 step process to fixing it

If you've ever wondered how you get better social skills and why it's so hard to tackle it, this video might just be for you. In this video you'll learn why I think social skills are so hard to improve and my five step process that helped me. I've spent a significant part of my life now trying to understand what makes good social interactions and how to actually build skills that you could use in the real world, especially for people like me. So why are social skills so hard to improve? A lot of guidance out there seems to be idealistic and doesn't really help when you actually try and do it. They don't really talk about, say, the nerves and anxiety, the sweaty palms you feel in the moment when you're supposed to come and talk to people. And these are all things that are really hard, if not impossible to control. More crucially, there is rarely a framework to actually learn the ability to build social skills. It's more like here's a list of things you should do that will give you good social skills, now go and do them. There's no sense of difficulty. What is best to try first, for example, or what you're likely to experience when you do it, or how you can try these things without completely melting down. So what chances have you actually got? Given this, it's no surprise people feel helpless even after one or two attempts at trying to socially engage. Assuming people can just walk up to strangers requires far more than the act itself. There is little discussion about fear and anxiety and understanding where your, say, stretch zones are or where or where you're going to get overwhelmed. I think a lot of people simply are not aware of these factors at all and therefore they not understand the role of working these through. People who have succeeded well, good for them. But they may have either lucked out or perhaps they have a process themselves, who knows. But one thing I have seen is when they do give advice to others, middle steps are often missed. It's like suggesting to a new driver to just get on the motorway or highway at full speed when they haven't even driven around on the small roads yet. Would you be happy sitting in a car with them? The progression models and concepts I use are well understood, particularly in the sports world, where frameworks and structures are well established and they're kind of, they're designed to nurture someone through the skill progression stages. But with social skills it's just like just go away and just do it. You'll get it. Where's the sense in that? After all, it is a Skill to learn, no different to sport. So I'm going to attempt to share my experiences at least and how I built my own framework to make this all work. But for now, I'll give you an overview of how I approach it with the detail coming in a future video. So I've kind of narrowed it down to five steps. The first step is identify what I'm concerned about and what I desire. What do I fear and what do I really want. Then I find out what apparently works, what kind of tools you can use. Then I tune it to my strengths. And you need to understand what your strengths are. As an example, are you a good listener? Are you good at understanding where people are coming from? I also look to accommodate my weaknesses like I struggle to talk where there's more than four or five people. The next stage is to design a process taking all of this into account. But the crucial bit is to have a beginner, intermediate and advanced level so you can actually try things which are, you know, which are easier and they get harder with time. Then I go out and try the beginner level. I evaluate what happens when I put it into the real world and experience it. Then I modify it and repeat the whole process. If you do this, you will know you've been pretty efficient with the process and like the most important thing is you have kind of respected yourself by not exposing your mind to unnecessary overwhelm and anxiety. And I kind of think of it trying to keep in harmony with yourself. You know, this is crucial. Without a mentor or coach to kind of do, to get the whip out, you have to build this system internally. It has to be harmonious with yourself so you will be motivated to listen to your, to that inner voice. As an example, you have to be excited when things are going well and you want to do the next thing, but also be disciplined when you're going through hard times and things are not quite working how you expect them to. The next stage is to see how this all goes. In the next video in this series, I'll discuss the experiences I found when I deployed my strategy. So that's it for this video. Drop a comment below if you've got any thoughts on the social engagement concept.