November 21, 2011

How to Be More Social

If you tend to be shy, quiet or anxious in social situations, learning how to be more social is one of the most important things you can do.

Put into application the right know-how on how to be more social and you’ll see outstanding transformations. You’ll find it easier to make friends, get noticed and have fun in social settings.

As a social confidence coach, most of what I do is help others discover how to be more social and implement this understanding effectively. I want to share with you some of the key ideas that have helped these persons without fail.

I discuss them in more detail and also provide other powerful advice in this free presentation.

Approach Being More Social Progressively

The common mistake that people who want to be more sociable make is that they try to achieve this all of a sudden.

I know you may crave to be the person who talks with everybody at a party, tells captivating stories and mesmerizes others. And you can become that person. But not overnight.

It’s essential to approach this as a gradual process and take it one day at a time.

For example, you may start by simply getting out of the house more; or asking more questions during conversation, and once this gets easier, move on to something more challenging.

Focus on making progress, not on radically changing yourself in an instant, and you’ll get very far. Anybody who wants to teach you how to be more social and promises a total transformation in a flash is just trying to swindle you.

Learn the Rules and Play the Game

I big issue for many people who want to find out how to be more social is that they don’t have a minimal understanding of the basic social etiquette.

For example, they often don’t know if it’s OK to ask a work colleague a personal question (the answer is: yes) or when is it proper to do so (the answer is: after you’ve gotten to know each other a bit at a professional level first).

Now, I typically don’t give a lot of heed to etiquette. But there are some fundamental norms for social interaction that it’s good to understand. And once you understand them, you can feel more confident in social situations and be more outgoing.

So I encourage you to ask yourself: what do I feel I need to understand better about social interactions. Then seek this understanding you require.

Sometimes just asking some questions to a few more socially savvy acquaintances is enough. Other times you may want to actually pick up a book or do a course on social dynamics and the art of conversation.

One small warning here: don’t overdo it. The point is to learn the basic etiquette and try to comply with it most of the time. Don’t try to become the perfect conversationalist who always follows the rules. That’s impossible and frankly, it would make you quite boring.

Focus Externally, Not Internally During Social Interactions

One thing I often notice at people who are reserved is that they’re regularly inside their head while interacting with others.

They scrutinize their behavior, try to find ways impress, or criticize themselves in their inner dialog. It’s no surprise that many times they seem to not be paying real attention to the interaction.

If this sounds familiar, then a crucial step forward for you is to focus more externally during social interactions. Pay attention to the other person, what they’re saying, and sometimes observe the context you’re in. But avoid being in your head.

This switch in your focus will achieve two things: it will lower your nervousness and it will allow you to have better reactions during the interaction. In time, this will make you more confident to initiate interactions and express yourself.

Work On Your Self-Image

Whenever I coach a person and we explore their desire to be more social, we reliably discover that there is a deeper issue that doesn’t permit them to be as sociable as they would like to be.

Many times they have some sort of an inferiority complex, self-image issues or a lack of self-esteem. Having a hard time interacting with others is just a symptom, but it is not the core problem.

In this case, it’s essential to work on the deeper issue in order to get rid of the symptom. You need to change your thinking patterns about yourself, and weed out those limiting beliefs you have about you. Change your thinking, and you change your entire social life.

You’ll find more in-depth guidance on how to do this in my free presentation on conversation confidence. I recommend you go and watch it right now.

You now have the basic guidelines on how to be more social. In order to see real results, it’s important to capably put hem into practice.

Ultimately, it is proper action that separates the winners from the losers; the people who revamp their social life from the people who just complain and dream of a better day.

Image courtesy of Mark Sebastian

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 3 Comments
October 31, 2011

How to Be Yourself

Knowing how to be yourself in social interactions is essential for building a rich social life and rewarding relationships with others.

And like many other people out there, you may need to learn, or better said, re-learn how to be yourself.

Well, I’m gonna guide you on this path towards confident and authentic self-expression.

The Journey of Learning How to Be Yourself

A friend of mine once went to a therapist and told him he wants to be himself more. The therapist asked him: Well, who else do you think you are?

It’s a thought-provoking question. As a social confidence coach, I think for many people, the answer is that while they are themselves most of the time, during lots of social interactions, they put up a front.

They don’t reveal themselves authentically and instead they create this fake social person which they show to others. This persona typically tries to embody all the qualities that others will like and approve of: niceness, chivalry, humor, competence, confidence, a good mood and so on.

Usually this tendency to hide the authentic self is grounded in some kind of insecurity, perhaps an inferiority complex or a negative self-image.

Essentially, learning how to be yourself is the process of dropping this fake persona, replacing it with your genuine person, and becoming comfortable with expressing it.

Now, I’m going to teach you a 3-step process for being yourself, which has been used successfully by my coaching clients.

If you want a more thorough understanding of this process, check out this free video guide.

1. Get In Touch With Yourself

I find that many persons have lost touch with their authentic self. They’ve gotten so used to putting up a fake self in social interactions that they don’t really know who they are anymore.

They don’t know what they truly like and dislike anymore, what they want, or what their real opinions are. Sometimes, they feel seriously alienated from themselves, which can be a source of anxiety or depression.

So the first key step in learning how to be yourself is to get in touch with yourself; with your passions, values, opinions and natural inclinations. The main way to do this is through personal reflection.

Ask yourself questions designed to reveal to you your real self. For instance ask yourself:

  • What movies do I really like?
  • What are my opinions about the current economy?
  • What subjects do I enjoy to talk about?
  • What values do I treasure the most?

Take some time to really think about these things. The better you know your true self, the more you can bring it out in social interactions. This leads me to the second step.

2. Make Small Steps Forward Towards Authenticity

The big practical issue regarding how to be yourself is that most people try to do it all at once. They wanna completely drop their mask all of sudden and be totally authentic with others.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. You need to identify the specific ways in which you are inauthentic in social interactions and then correct them one by one.

You need to gradually get out of your shell and become more authentic. And you do this by setting small change goals for yourself and working on achieving them.

In time, these small goals add up and soon enough, you find yourself behaving in a radically new way when dealing with others.

In fact, many people may actually say to you: “Wow, you’ve changed!” Becoming more authentic leaves external clues, and this is definitely one of them.

3. Calm Yourself Down

The vast majority of people who have a hard time being themselves feel somewhat anxious or tense when interacting with others. And when they even think about being real in a context, their anxiety shoots up.

The trick here is to calm yourself down and assure yourself that it’s OK to be yourself. Nobody else is going to do it for you, or at least not forever.

You do this through your self-talk. The fundamental skill to master is talking to yourself, in your inner dialog, in a manner that’s constructive and reassuring.

For example, when you feel anxious and the need to hide your true self, you can say to yourself something like: “Is perfectly fine to be myself. This person will probably like me as I am, and if they don’t, that’s their problem.”

This kind comforting self-talk will make the anxiety slowly dissipate and make it easier for you to be yourself during a social interaction with somebody.

You can find out more details about changing your self-talk and enhancing your confidence in my free conversation confidence guide. Make sure to check it out.

As you implement these three steps, you’ll create a positive shift in your self-image and you’ll become a lot more confident in social settings.

How to be yourself is something that’s absolutely learnable. The important thing is to take the right steps, to execute them effectively and to be committed.

I’ve seen numerous persons dramatically boost their social confidence and become truly genuine when dealing with others. If they can do it, so can you.

Image courtesy of I’ethan

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 5 Comments
September 29, 2011

The Truth about Being Weird

Me, I’m an oddball.

I follow a healthy eating plan although I’m thin as a rail (which most people find strange), I believe in polyamory, and I often say some of the most retarded stuff you can imagine in conversations.

Many of the persons I coach have this belief that they are weird and that if most people would know them as they are, they would ridicule them or reject them.

So they frequently keep to themselves in social interactions and they avoid showing their true personality.

I want to shed the light once and for all on this weirdness issue. This will help you embrace your weirdness and accept yourself as you are.

Pretty cool, ha?

Everybody Is Weird

Whenever I talk with a person that believes they are quirky or strange, I realize they have this mistaken feeling of being the only one like that. They think just about everyone else is normal, except for them.

In my experience, things couldn’t be further from the truth.

We all have are own peculiarities, we are all deviations from what is routinely considered a ‘normal, respectable person’.

Let me tell you something: that normal person doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up social concept.

The only reality about weirdness is that:

1) Some people’s weirdness is easier to notice because it has to do with the way they look, dress, talk or commonly behave, while other people’s is harder because it relates more with their intimate life.

2) Many individuals are really good at hiding their bizarre side and putting on what they deem as a socially acceptable facade. Get to know them better, and you may find out they attempted suicide twice this year, or who knows what.

The suicide example is a true story, by they way. I recently met this girl who seemed so normal, until… well… I dug deeper. I’m good at that.

Weird Is What Makes People Bond

Okay, some perilous types of weird, like attempting suicide or being a wife beater, can be a turnoff. Although, you’d be surprised how even a trait like that will make you more endearing in somebody’s eyes!

But the general rule is this: it is our weirdness and vulnerability that makes us bond as human beings.

When a person seems to fit the standard pattern too well, they may appear like a quality individual at an intellectual level, but at an emotional level, it’s very hard to bond with such a person.

It’s our peculiarities and our rough edges that make us human and allow us to connect at a deep level, not fitting some unrealistic social standard.

Here’s something essential to know about those individuals who seem (and I stress the word ‘seem’) to be very ‘appropriate’.

You know the type: great job, perfect physical shape, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t offend anybody, has all the correct opinions, etc.

Most people I talk with have one thing to say about such individuals:

Booooooring!

Unleash Your True Self

Now, taking into account all that I’ve emphasized so far, there is one proper course of action regarding weirdness:

Bring it into play!

Instead of hiding your true self because you don’t want others to judge you, consciously open up more and express that side of your personality you traditionally hide.

And I don’t mean express it just with some people, if they seem to approve of it. I mean express it with everybody, no matter what they may think of it. This is how you build your self-acceptance.

This only thing that should matter to you is whether you’re OK with that side of your personality. If you are, anything else is secondary.

In my case, I know that I have some bizarre opinions or I make some lifestyle choices that many don’t understand. But I understand them, and they make sense for me. So I have no hesitation in displaying them.

Ultimately, embracing your weird side comes from putting it out there more and changing the way you think about it.

More on this changing your thinking part coming soon, in my social confidence newsletter.

In the meantime, remember that everybody is an oddball in some way; and at the end of the day, those that show it confidently and unrepentantly have the most to gain.

Have fun and stay tuned!

Image courtesy of rishibando

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , 10 Comments
August 24, 2011

Where Does Social Confidence Really Stem From?

Social confidence is the term I use to describe the type of confidence that concerns social situations and dealing with other persons.

I think most people have a profound misunderstanding of what it takes to develop social confidence. The problem is that they treat social confidence like any other type of confidence, and they believe developing it requires the same approach.

But it doesn’t. And so they end up going on this strenuous and unnecessary journey towards social confidence. Ironically, they often don’t even reach their destination, because they took the wrong road.

Social Confidence vs. Mechanical Confidence

I refer as mechanical confidence to the confidence regarding certain tasks or roles, and how well you can perform them.

Confidence as a singer, as a football player, as a car driver, as a lawyer or as an accountant, these are all forms of mechanical confidence.

Mechanical confidence in a certain area is reliant on the education, experience, results and appraisals that you’ve received in that area.

For instance: if you work as an accountant and you’ve received training at a top tier accounting school, you have over a decade of accounting experience, you have done correctly all sorts of convoluted accounting tasks and your clients habitually praise you for being such a good accountant, it’s reasonable to have ‘accounting confidence’.

And it makes sense, as you’re likely a very good accountant, with first-class accounting skills.

In the realm of mechanical confidence, skills and confidence go hand in hand. The way to develop your mechanical confidence in a specific area is typically to increase your skills in that area.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t excellent accountants who lack confidence as accountants, but still, the fact they have those excellent accounting skills creates a solid foundation to develop that confidence.

Social confidence is different. Although for the most part, people treat it the same as mechanical confidence.

By this I mean that they think social confidence needs to be based on social skills and social likeability, so they try to increase these elements in order to become more socially confident.

Most people I work with as a coach believe they need to learn how to be funny, how to make captivating conversation or how to impress others in order to feel confident in social settings and become more outgoing.

But they’re making a profoundly wrong assumption.

The Truth about Social Confidence

The fact of the matter is this: social confidence is not dependent on social skills. You don’t need to be a master conversationalist and a charismatic person in order to have social confidence.

Sure, these factors can elevate your social confidence and it’s a good idea to develop your social skills, but don’t believe for a second that without good social skills, you can’t have and shouldn’t have social confidence. Because that’s a bunch of bullshit.

Social confidence is something you expand from inside yourself. Its foundation is not in your social skills, but rather in your thinking.

Some of the most socially confident people I know are complete slobs with no goals in life, and little intelligence, creativity or allure to bring out. They have little that other people can passionately like them for, apart from their confidence in and of itself.

Yet they can feel confident in a social setting, not because the people in that setting like them, but because it doesn’t truly matter to them whether these people like them or not. They don’t need other people’s approval.

If you’re trying to develop your social confidence by trying to become a better, more likeable person, you’re pointlessly taking the long wrong.

Really, the best way to go is to just work on your social confidence directly. Focus on weeding out your limiting beliefs, embrace the notion that you don’t need the people around you to approve of you, and your social confidence will rise naturally.

And it’s not that unreliable confidence you have during a conversation when you know the other person is fond of you. It’s a lasting and reliable confidence that comes from your outlook on yourself, others, the world and life.

Once you have this natural social confidence, developing yourself and becoming more socially skilled is just an afterthought.

Image courtesy of iChaz

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , 3 Comments
May 22, 2011

How to Be the Life of the Party

You know those parties you read about in fairytales, that last three days and three nights? I just got back form a kick-ass salsa party that actually lasted that long.

In light of this circumstance, I decided to write about a social life topic I know many people are fascinated with: how to be the life of the party.

I believe that when you know how to be the life of the party, not only that you enjoy festive events more, but you enliven everybody else present as well. You become the core that attention goes to and positive energy flows from.

Here are my top four principles on how to be the life of the party:

1. Make Having Fun Your Main Focus

If your focus is on being charming and impressing others at a party, you’ve hit a dead end. Typically, there is nothing that will get you in your head more than concentrating on obtaining some form of validation from others.

The individuals who are naturally the life of the party, interestingly enough, don’t focus on being the life of the party. They just want to have fun and try to find as many ways to do so as possible.

Their entire attitude at a party stems from this mindframe. Paradoxically, in learning how to be the life of the party, you need to forget about impressing and focus on entertaining and enjoying yourself instead.

2. Talk with Lots of People

If you study the social dynamics at parties, you notice that the person who is seen as the life of the party is the person who behaves in a highly social way. Well, you want to be that kind of a person.

When you’re interacting with just about everybody in the room, you’re meeting people, shaking hands, telling stories, cracking jokes and being outgoing, you boost your mood and you’re spreading it to everybody around you.

Even if you’re somewhat shy, you can still get sociable by making baby steps. Start by talking with the people you already know, then with people you don’t know but seem really friendly, and so on. In no time, you can end up talking with everybody at a party.

3. Dance, Learn To Dance and Dance Some More

In my experience, most good parties tend to involve some music and dancing. The parties that are strictly conversational in nature often end up being quite a bore. Somehow, movement and dancing seems to be an integral part of social fun.

So, it’s time to get your dancing groove on. The most valuable piece of advice I can give you here is: don’t just sit in a corner with your arms crossed and watch others have fun. Rather, be on the dance floor, dancing like it’s 1999.

If you generally feel somewhat self-conscious when you’re dancing, I can totally relate to that. From my perspective, there are two ways out:

  1. Realize that people are not looking at you and making fun of your dancing (it’s a party not a dance contest) and thus, relax;
  2. If you really believe that you’re a terrible dancer and have a hard time getting over it, get some dancing lessons.

4. Do Stupid Stuff

Think of a party as your one chance to do almost anything you want and get away with it. In a party environment, many of the conventional social norms no longer apply and you can get away with doing lots of stupid shit.

So, embrace this opportunity. Don’t be the dreary person who talks about the state of the world all night long. Be the person who sprays champagne on everybody, and jumps in the swimming pool with their clothes on.

Trust me: the more stupid stuff you do at a party, the more you animate that party and draw people towards you. As long as you don’t end up doing something illegal, in my view, just about anything else goes.

Think about it this way: you only have one life to live. You might as well enjoy it and help others enjoy it as well. Having fun is one of the most important things you can do. Therefore, learning how to be the life of the party matters first and foremost because it increases the fun factor all around.

Image courtesy of sfmission

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 4 Comments
April 17, 2011

How to Impress a Girl

One of the most popular questions among guys is: How to impress a girl?” The desire for men to be successful with the opposite sex is undeniable. Frequently, it is much stronger than the desire to make money, advance their career or live a healthy life.

Considering this, I want to give you my perspective as a communication coach and as a guy on how to impress a girl. I don’t think this inquiry has a simple and straightforward response, but there are some key points that you want to take in and focus on primarily.

If you’re expecting ideas for romantic gifts or cute compliments to impress a girl, this is not it. First of all, because I believe such methods are short-lived, and secondly because any other guy out there who’s not retarded can easily do the exact same things.

I’m going to take a broader and deeper approach on the topic of how to impress a girl. So, buckle up.

How to Impress a Girl Is the Wrong Question

In my perspective, if you’re wondering how to impress a girl, you’ve gone astray. A much better question to ask is the subtly different question “how to impress girls?” I firmly believe the best way to impress a girl is to develop an attractive personality and communication style that girls react to in general.

If you’re focusing just on finding ways to astonish one particular girl, this will probably get you to start obsessing about her, to act desperate and needy around her, and to become a chameleon in order to create a positive impression on her. Of course initially, it may just seem like you’re being nice.

On the other hand, if you learn to impress girls in general, this creates a shift in your attitude. You have more options, become more self-assured and interestingly enough, this is what has the best chances of wooing that particular girl you like.

Dress for Seduction Success

Yes, you look does matter. However, notice I said your “look”, not your “looks”. Your look goes beyond your body and face constitution (your looks). It entails the way you project yourself visually, through clothing and accessories.

While you can only change your looks to some extent, your look is completely under your control. And creating an appealing look for yourself, although it’s not a necessity, will definitely help you a lot in impressing girls.

Here are the main things I believe you want to know and apply in terms of personal fashion:

  • How to choose high quality clothes (not the same as expensive), that fit you really well;
  • How to match clothes in terms of colors, fabric and style and how to add the proper accessories;
  • How to express your personality and stand out in a seductive way, using the way you dress.

Lead

One of the most attractive male traits is leading. This trait is the raw manifestation of masculine confidence and power. In the process of learning how to impress a girl or more, this is a chapter you simply cannot skip.

Now, leading in this context doesn’t mean being the CEO of an international corporation or the president of the United States (although I’m positive that would be of assistance). It means the strong inclination to lead in the interactions with a girl.

Leading is a behavior, not a status. Leading in interactions with a girl involves making decisions quickly, taking the initiative and being firm but gentle. It means saying “Let’s go out for drinks this weekend” instead of “Amm… would you like to… I don’t know… go out sometimes, or something?”

Know Psychology

Myself and many of my close male friends have a huge passion for psychology. So I can’t pass on the opportunity to talk about knowing psychology, because I’ve seen this trait at work numerous times and I think it’s an incredible trait to have as a guy.

Girls simply adore applied psychology. They are fascinated by this topic. Whenever you give a girl the opportunity to learn something interesting about human psychology, to understand herself or others better, she’ll be blown way.

I really encourage you to make the next book you read a book on human psychology; something that’s very practical and preferably not too scholastic. Especially if you’re a guy who spends most of his time reading about Java programming or nuclear physics, this can change your conversations with girls significantly.

There are many other ways to impress a girl. I just pointed out the ones I believe create the foundation of a naturally attractive and impressive guy.

In the end, effectively learning how to impress girls is not done by accumulating tips, tricks, lines and gimmicks to use. It is done by developing your people skills, your confidence and your personality in a seductive direction.

Image courtesy of sebastien.b

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills, Success Tagged With: , , , 20 Comments
April 11, 2011

‘I Have No Friends’ Help

Some of the people I work with as a social confidence coach have a decent social life and they’re just looking to enhance it, while some will tell me right off the bat: “I have no friends and barely any social life. I need help.”

When you’re in the ‘I have no friends’ category, you’re in a deeper hole than most people and there is a lot more work to be done in order to lift yourself out of it. However, don’t presume that this makes it harder. Rather, it simply makes it longer.

Why Do I Have No Friends?

If the number of friends in your social circle is zero, you are probably wondering: “Why do I have no friends?” This is a key question to answer. One thing I’ve noticed is a recurring set of characteristics that people with no friends share.

If you’re in the “I have no friends’ category, one or more of the following explanations are probably valid for you:

1. Shyness. Almost every individual with zero friends that I’ve coached or met struggled with shyness or social anxiety. This made them uneasy about meeting new people and expressing themselves authentically, which makes friends making almost impossible.

2. Poor conversation skills. It’s also common for individuals who have no friends to lack certain conversation skills. This is usually shyness related. They often have a hard time keeping a conversation going and moving it beyond fluff. Thus, it’s difficult for them to create a connection with others.

3. Being too nice. Contrary to popular belief, being a very nice person who always listens to others and never says a rude word doesn’t make you the popular person everyone respects. In fact, you come off as needy and desperate; not the kind of person one wants to be close friends with.

4. Having a one-dimensional life. Often, people who have no friends whatsoever not only lack a social life, but they have a one-dimensional life altogether. They may only focus on study or on work, so they find it nearly impossible to carry a meaningful conversation on any other topic.

Now that we know what the roots of the problem are, let’s take a look at the solution.

Focus Primarily On Social Confidence

As a person with the “I have no friends. What to do?” dilemma, the single most important step you can take is to overcome your shyness and boost your social confidence.

Commit to making this transformation, as it will have the most resonating impact, in your social life and beyond it. With more social confidence, it’s easier to get involved in social activities, meet people, make conversation, develop and edge and be yourself.

The process of boosting social confidence basically involves two forms of actions:

1. Getting out of your comfort zone. Interestingly enough, you typically don’t gain confidence first and go meet people second; you go meet people despite lacking in confidence and this helps you develop it. Your internal reality follows your external one.

2. Changing your self-image. I’m willing to bet that if you have no friends, you have a pretty screwed up view of yourself. Thus it’s important to improve your self image and self esteem directly, by changing the way you habitually think about yourself.

If you want to learn how to skyrocket your social confidence in just a few weeks, check out this presentation, where I’ll show you my proven method for building social confidence.

Tune-Up Your Conversation Skills

As you regularly push yourself out of your comfort zone and become more outgoing, this creates more opportunities to practice your conversation and people skills. You’re accumulating social experience and you’re training your social muscle. And just like any other muscle, the more you train it the more it grows.

In addition to this, if you want to accelerate your progress, learn and apply specific principles and techniques for improving your conversation and people skills. For example: learn to read body-language better, learn to communicate expressively or to lead a conversation smoothly in any direction.

Get a Life, Not Just a Social Life

Last but not least, keep in mind that the people who find it the easiest to make friends commonly have a rich live overall. They travel, read, meet lots of people, have hobbies and try new things on a regular basis.

When you live this kind of a life, making conversation, being interesting and connecting with others happens effortlessly. On the other hand, when all you can talk about are a rather repetitive job and a tedious TV watching experience, that’s not a lot to go on.

So don’t wonder “Why do I have no friends?” and dwell on this question too much. Instead, get out there, get a life in general and your social life in particular will flourish organically.

I’ve seen people achieve incredible progress in making friends and improving their social life. The overall blueprint is laid out for you. Put it into practice, learn to calibrate the fine details and keep at it. You’ll see some stupefying results.

Image courtesy of Bert Kaufmann

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 42 Comments
March 27, 2011

If You Are Shy This Is Definitely For You

Many people try to make shyness seem like a cute and innocent trait to have.

Nevertheless, if you are shy and you know firsthand how shyness can disrupt your social life, you probably find it hard to view it that way. And if you have more than shyness, if you have social anxiety, the upheaval it breeds is even worse.

Well, today I’m going to let you know about an excellent ebook for people with shyness or social anxiety that I’ve reviewed and I sincerely recommend.

The Shyness and Social Anxiety System

The ebook is called The Shyness and Social Anxiety System. Its author, Sean Cooper, presents in it effective and little-known psychological techniques to destroy shyness and social anxiety.

You can get the full details about the ebook here.

I had an interesting conversation earlier this week with Sean about the way this book was born. Sean fought with shyness and social anxiety for many years. After loads of research and personal experimentation, he eventually discovered how to overcome shyness and implemented this psychological know-how successfully.

As a former shy, “invisible” guy myself, I find something fascinating in what Sean teaches in this ebook because you can tell he’s been through it, he knows personally what it’s like to have shyness and social anxiety, and he grasped how to beat it.

I think this is something few people who give advice on this topic can say. Many of them don’t really understand what it’s like to be shy; they just know part of the theory. As a consequence, a lot of the advice on how to overcome shyness is insipid and trite: “Just be yourself”, “Just do it”, etc. Yeah right!

I talk in more depth about this and issue and about the real science of social confidence in this free presentation.

My Review of the Ebook

I was pleasantly surprised by The Shyness and Social Anxiety System. It presents a both cognitive and behavioral approach to boosting social confidence, with a bit more focus on the behavioral part.

The ebook is extremely simple to read, to understand and most importantly, to apply. It contains ideas and techniques for beating shyness that you can take immediately and start applying, and you’ll see results.

On top of that, I find these ideas to be highly consistent with the scientific psychological research in this area, which is something I’m big on.

The Shyness and Social Anxiety System got me realizing things I wasn’t aware of about overcoming shyness. This is probably the finest proof I can give of the quality of this ebook, considering that I coach shy people almost on a daily basis and I believe I know a thing or two about overcoming shyness.

To conclude this review, if you struggle with shyness or social anxiety, coaching is out of your financial range and you’re looking for a quality information product to help you make real progress, this ebook is it.

Check out The Shyness and Social Anxiety System here.

Also, check out my Conversation Confidence guide here.

Shyness is a serious psychological issue to deal with and it can be dealt with successfully. But you need to use the best tools available.

Image courtesy of Ed Yourdon

Filed Under: Attitude, News, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 1 Comment
March 22, 2011

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Think of avoidant personality disorder as shyness taken up a notch. It’s a condition that’s present in almost 1% of the general population, and its consequences on ones social life are debilitating.

As a communication coach, I deal with individuals with avoidant personality disorder quite often. The seriousness of their situation makes them keen on finding solutions to become more outgoing. So this article is my comprehensive intro to avoidant personality disorder and its treatment.

What It Is and What It’s Not

According to the forth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), avoidant personality disorder (AvPD) is a psychological condition characterized by a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

It’s important to note that avoidant personality disorder is not a mental disorder. Also, be aware that if you have AvPD, there is nothing physically wrong with your brain or the way it’s functioning.

Any chemical imbalance that may exist in your brain is not the root cause of avoidant personality disorder, but a mere symptom of it. This is why medication, although it can improve the mood, does little to actually overcome avoidant personality disorder. It addresses the symptoms, not the causes.

AvPD is considered a psychological disorder. I even use this term lightly, because it often reinforces the belief people with avoidant personality disorder have that they are somehow broken, which they are not.

Overall, I think the best mode to look at avoidant personality disorder is as a learned way of thinking, feeling and behaving that doesn’t create results, sometimes based on certain predispositions. And the best news is that anything you’ve learned, you can also unlearn.

Avoidant Personality Disorder Symptoms

You can recognize avoidant personality disorder correctly by understanding its symptoms and taking note of them. The following are the most important symptoms visible in people with AvPD:

  • Avoiding social activities and spending huge amounts of time alone;
  • Having a very small social circle and only carrying brief interactions with the people in it;
  • A major reluctance to meeting new people and a strong feeling of inadequacy when dealing with them;
  • Being generally reserved and quiet when interacting with others, due to fear of saying something improper and being shamed;
  • Being over-preoccupied with how they are seen by others, due to fear of being disliked or rejected;
  • Frequently fantasizing about having social interactions that turn out the way they want them to;
  • Not rising up to their potential in their career, due to running away from opportunities that require them to be social;
  • Seeing themselves as socially unskilled, awkward or inferior to others.

Avoidant Personality Disorder Treatment

Although ‘treatment’ is the conventional word, it may not be the best one. Remember we’re not talking about killing a virus; we’re talking about learning a new way of thinking, feeling and behaving.

I’ll start off with what you probably want to know most: yes, avoidant personality disorder can be ‘treated’. It does take time and perseverance, and it does require using the proper methods, but it is doable and there are hundreds of documented cases that point this out.

Successfully getting rid of AvPD typically involves a three folded process:

1) Challenging and changing dysfunctional thinking. People with avoidant personality disorder tend to have a lot of limiting beliefs, plus an unrealistic view of social standards and of themselves. These need to be corrected by consciously changing the way they think.

2) Gradual exposure. People with avoidant personality disorder need to gradually face those exact situations they’re afraid of and they typically avoid. Systemic exposure, combined with combating unrealistic thinking will set their mind and emotions on the right path.

3) Improving people skills. Since individuals with AvPD avoid social situations as much as they can, their people skills have often atrophied or they’ve never truly developed at all. Thus, training key people skills and learning how to start a conversation, how to keep it going or how to connect with people is crucial.

The methods of intervention that have been proven to work best for overcoming avoidant personality disorder are cognitive-behavioral therapy and coaching. There is a raft of research that confirms the success of these methods. No other methods even come close to the elegance and effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral methods.

If you have avoidant personality disorder, the first essential step is to recognize it without making a big deal out of it.

The second step is to realize that there is hope for you and to fully commit to overcoming this condition. This can be tricky particularly because people with avoidant personality disorder will sometimes tend to avoid the very things that will lead to overcoming their condition.

Using cognitive-behavioral principles and techniques on your own, you will see progress. However, given the seriousness of the condition, initially working one-on-one with a competent coach or a therapist is a good idea.

You will make much faster progress, you’ll successfully get passed those first hurdles and get the wheels spinning in the right direction.

One more thing: If you want to learn more about building social confidence and overcoming your insecurities, then check out this presentation I created, in which I share some of my top advice on this topic. I’m sure you’ll find it very useful.

A rich and fulfilling social life doesn’t have to exist only in your daydreams. Pick the best tools to use, put them into practice and keep moving forward despite the struggles, and you will make it real.

Image courtesy of NicoleAbalde

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , 29 Comments