Self-confidence and social skills are heavily formed around how much our input is appreciated in conversations. Why are we talking about this? Once someone has been through a mental health struggle if they don’t get their social health up they’ll revert to a path of lonely living. It is also a lot harder to pick yourself up after going through mental health struggles because the most common symptom is to believe your peers are happier than you, therefore lowering your confidence. The most noticeable sign of low social confidence is avoiding partaking in social gatherings and having less and less comfort zone challenges every time you decide on a social event.
Most mental health resolutions are done on a one-to-one basis because a deep conversation with a relatable individual can be a huge therapy in itself. But to get close to relateable people you have to build your social presence and that becomes harder the more we avoid it. So I wanted to share the framework commonly covered with clients once we’ve cleared mental health challenges as this makes sure they keep building their confidence through social validation.
2 approaches and one of them is through understanding ‘conversational motives’ and the other is from ‘eliminating expectations’. Understanding ‘conversational motives’ is to know whether a person wants to talk or listen, if they want to talk then you ask them questions about what they are talking about so that the conversation flows. If the person wants to listen then you can talk about your line of conversation freely until you meet in the middle where the conversation has an exchange of listening and talking. Now, where are you going to pick up the habit of becoming good with this? FROM EVERYWHERE YOU SEE CONVERSATIONS! Literally from tv shows to family conversations. You can keep an eye out for this and you’ll soon become instinctive again and understand conversations and how to fit right into them.
The second is eliminating expectation from yourself, the person most socially confident is commonly the one that doesn’t care what others think surprisingly. Everything your mind tells you about social interactions being scary is always revealed as fake after the event. You look back on every social event and think why did I worry so much? It works as a direct coloration, the more you push your social ability the more you receive validation that boosts your confidence, and the less you go into social situations the more you tell yourself they are not for you. The mindset more often than not is that people like people who are less fancy than them – so in theory, you trying not to be better than anyone will make you more socially accepted.
Things like looks, confidence, and reputation are only an issue if you are going into a social situation that doesn’t really represent your type of people in the first place. This is why we focus on meeting people based on your preferred hobbies. That way you have better conversations and more motive. If you are low on hobbies due to lockdown or life situations then consider pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and trying new things is even more necessary.
Overall keep an eye out on your social confidence as due to the ease of social media and effects of lockdown social anxiety is on the rise. It’s a fascinating conversation because humans are naturally social beings so anything that stops that also affects various other things in our life.
Feel free to reach out to me on mental health topics as awareness of these topics is essential to support those around you to live that much easier.
