Simple ways to feel less anxious while socializing
Athirah Mokhtar | 26 September 2018 | Social
The art of socializing
We as human being always look for ways to build connections with other human being as we are social creatures. We do this to feel a sense of belonging.
We believe that by widen our social circle, we’ll secure more opportunities for personal growth and wealth.
The challenges with trying to build new connections with other human being is the emotional baggage that comes with it such as approaching someone we don't know and attempting to form a connection or interacting with someone we don't get along with.
The whole process is extremely dreadful.
It makes us nervous, we tend to say the wrong things and most of the time we suspect other people are bored with us just because we fail interest them. As a result, these horrific experiences impact our self-esteem negatively.
In the end, we feel that socializing is not meant for us. So, we look for ways to avoid any social interaction even finding a job that fulfill this need (less human contact).
If you're heading down this road, you're going to find that not having authentic human contact can get pretty lonely. When you're ready to mingle, you're back to square one. Unsure, insecure and doubtful.
So, you're only option is to use the general approach to socializing that you're already know. That is:
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Greet and shake hands
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Introduce yourself
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Have a normal chit chat
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Paying close attention to the conversation until it gets bored
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Attempting to form connections
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If doesn't work out, you go to the next sucker
And the cycle repeats itself. All that hard word and no connections.
When I engage with someone for the first time whether it's for work, networking or attending events, I have one goal in mind which is to acquire information and form a connection with new acquaintances.
This goal requires more than just greet and shake hands, introduce myself, have a normal chit chat and blah blah blah blah.
Honestly speaking, I don't appreciate the insincerity. Period.
I believe that's what all of us want. To connect with someone who are sincere to get to know us as a person and form a relationship (platonic or romantic) to improve the quality of our life, learn more and grow.
To have all of that, it needs to start with changing the way we perceive social engagement.
I'm going to share some useful techniques that will have a positive impact in the way you engage with other people.
I have to warn you. These techniques are so powerful that if you use it wrongly, it can cause catastrophe in your life immediately or later on.
If you want to learn these techniques so you can improve the quality of your life, please continue.
But if you want to learn this to take advantage of other people's weakness, then you'll get what's coming your way. Nothing good. I promise you.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Without further ado, let's begin.
Photo by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash
Asking questions
Asking questions is the smartest technique to use when approaching someone you've never met before. The reason being, asking questions forces a response. Whether it's acceptable or not, it’s a different story.
Unfortunately, many people are too chicken to ask questions. They feel others may not respond to their questions, fear of hearing undesirable answers and worst get laughed at or ignored.
Because of this fear, we tend to shy away from any social interactions.
And we go back to the general approach to socializing that give us no results like
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Greet and shake hands
-
Introduce yourself
-
Have a normal chit chat
-
Paying close attention to the conversation until it gets bored
-
Attempting to form connections
-
If doesn't work out, you go to the next sucker
After all of these, we're still the sucker.
How to ask effective questions?
Start with asking open-ended questions. This type of questions uses word like what? How? Why?
Example of open-ended questions?
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How did you decide this career path?
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What was that experience like?
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Why do you like that?
Though open-ended questions get people to open up, you don't want to use this type of questions when you're trying to initiate contact. It's a bit unnatural, don't you think?
To initiate first contact, I recommend you use close-ended questions. The purpose of close-ended questions is to get straight forward answer like 'yes' or 'no', 'maybe' or 'I don't know'.
As you can see, answers to close-ended questions doesn't help you move the conversation until you follow up with another questions to get the conversation going.
That's why, when having a conversation, it is advisable to mix both open and close ended question to create dynamic engagement.
You can find examples of open and close ended questions in the sources below:
Alexandrafranzen : 100 questions to spark conversation and connection
The art of manliness : ways to ask open and close question accordingly.
Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
Listening
Listening is an art of being engrossed and engaged in a conversation. It's how we process information that will lead to our understanding. Sadly, our attention span is getting shorter by the minute and paying close attention to what other people are saying requires more energy than we can afford.
So, we turn on an autopilot setting in our brain when we find the person that we're talking to is less interesting.
The problem with this is that we're not being sincere in our action. Most people can sense that.
In order to have an interesting and engaging social interaction, we need to stop thinking about ourselves and start thinking about how we make other people feel when they interact with us.
How do we do that you might ask? Through listening.
You not only hear what the person you're talking to are saying but you understand them as well. At the same time, you can ask follow up questions relates to the topic and progress the conversation into something meaningful.
What you can do to listen attentively is to focus on the content and the overall message. You can also predict the conversation content in case you need to come up with follow up questions to learn more about the topic or the person you're talking to.
At any time you find yourself struggle to stay focus in what the person is saying, think of listening as you’re trying to learn something you don't know. This way, you're forcing yourself to listen but you're actually looking for clues to understand what you don’t know.
And this is natural as we humans are curious creatures. We love finding answers on the things we don’t know. Unfortunately, our ego constraints us from doing so. Since we hate admitting we don’t know everything, wanting to know more because of that is disempowering.
Did I mention that we are also sensitive creatures? Our egos can be broken easily. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t let a broken ego get in the way of forming meaningful connections with other people.
Next time when you have to go networking, listen carefully to the person you're talking to, be more curious, ask follow up questions and stir the conversation to more a meaningful interaction.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Reading body language or nonverbal cues
Being able to ready body languages or nonverbal cues has great advantages. You'll notice whether the person you're talking to is bored, annoyed, uninterested, shy, reserved, abrasive and etc. When you notice their nonverbal cues, you can direct the situation in a more positive way that both of you can take pleasure in.
For example, if you notice the person you're talking to runs out of things to say, you can ask a follow up question using either open or close ended questions to keep the conversation going or end it.
Another example, if you notice the person you're talking to is getting annoyed by all your confirmation questions, you can ask a follow up question using open-ended questions. This way the person you're talking to feels less pressured to make a decision and more relax to share with you their concerns or worries.
I'm afraid when it comes to nonverbal cues or communications, they are not as clear as crystal. There are so many approach you can look at and human behavior changes all the time based on where they are in their life.
In any case, these six types of nonverbal cues help you to understand more about the person you’re talking to.
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Eye contact
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Face expression
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Touch
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Handshakes
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Body Movement
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Posture
By noticing these six type of nonverbal cues, you'll get a sense of what the person you're talking to is like. Despite what we know, we may not know enough and that can be quite dangerous if we misinterpret nonverbal cues for something else.
The objective of noticing nonverbal cues is to make the other person feel at ease so that we both can experience meaningful interaction comfortably.
You don't want to misinterpret that someone is interested in you romantically when he or she is just genuinely friendly.
Another example is when your friend is upset with you. He or she is being sarcastic and you assume he or she is only joking. So you don’t take what he or she say seriously when he or she is being completely serious.
How do you think he or she will react to your lack of understanding?
Misunderstandings can lead to hurt feelings and potentially broken relationship platonic or romantic.
With that being said, it's important to update your knowledge in the art of reading nonverbal cues. Luckily, many people have written comprehensively on body language and nonverbal communications.
Fermont College shares several secrets on reading body languages. Also, Live-From-Campus shares the body languages you need to know in business interaction.
How to practice these socializing techniques
There is no specific way to practice any complex skills including socializing techniques. As long as you have the will and determination to learn, you're on the right track.
You can always start with listing 10 questions that you can use to connect with potential acquaintances in your next networking session or new client meetings.
I suggest you mix in open and close ended questions in your list so you can have varieties. Some questions are for initiating contact and some for building connections.
List 10 possible questions.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Once you're comfortable with initiating contact, next focus on building connections. This is the most important part because it requires active listening.
Try to focus on:
a) the content
b) the message and
c) the story
While practicing your listening skill, try to validate your understanding by repeating the key content to the speaker and ask follow up question related to the content for confirmation.
If you find yourself thinking of a response as opposed to listening / understanding the message of the story, let go of what you're thinking and give your full attention to the speaker as if you're a scientist discovering a new planet for the very first time.
When it comes to listening, the most important thing is to be sincerely curious.
After getting used to asking questions and listening, try noticing the nonverbal cues of the person you're talking to gives out. Notice the cues without judgement and deduce their meaning later when you have full understanding of it.
The purpose of not deducing the body language instantly is to prevent any misunderstanding. Since you're new to reading nonverbal cues, making instant assumption incorrectly can influence how you feel about the situation and trigger unnecessary reactions.
Unknowingly, what you see is not what you think. Therefore, you need to be careful on what you believe based on what you see. Collect all information and refer to your body language resources later at the office or at home
In Summary
Wanting to form a new connection with people and finding it so difficult is normal because you have to accept the fact that vulnerability is involved in this process. Being vulnerable is scary. You're putting your guards down, letting go all judgment and prejudice. But I assure you, it's quite refreshing to be able to get to know someone without judgement.
In order to have control over your vulnerability, it is important to ask non-threatening questions, carefully listen to what the speaker are saying and noticing their nonverbal cues, so you can have better understanding of the whole social interaction.
Remember, everyone is new at something. So keep on expanding your knowledge and most importantly, practice every single day.
