| ^ The whole fake it til you make it definitely has place. I would suggest to implement that in your daily life, at least trying to act confident.
There are a few things I would also suggest. I think regarding gaining confidence and social skills, social learning theory works well. Few things I would recommend doing:
-Start reading books. Books on being more social and having confidence are important, but books in general are also important. As Cicero would say, being a great rhetorician you need to be a well rounded individual.
The reason for self-improvement books lies in your subconscious processing. You will be told that gaining theoretical knowledge isn't as important as actually going out and doing. In my opinion, both are equally important. There is a threshold of theoretical knowledge on being confident that you need. Reading these books would put you into the state of mind of thinking about being more social. Nonetheless, some content will also glue to your brain and as you later go out and actually apply your techniques, at least some information will come to mind. Having this theoretical knowledge is also important for after your interactions, as you can analyze what you did right and what you did wrong. One of the books I would suggest to start off is Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" It's a must read book for everyone, and is highly recommended for people in all types of fields.
The reason for other books is based around being a more interesting person. Although it was said before him, Aristotle is famous for making the claim that you have to have some type of competence to apply any type of rhetoric. Any books would do. You're just expanding your overall view of the world. The Isocrates's Trivium is also based around this idea.
-Watch television, but a right amount. The model that I am talking about revolves around basing your behavior off of other people. Watch movies and shows thinking about what the characters are doing. Film and television writers create characters with specific personality traits. If they want to create a confident character, they give them specific behaviors that entail confidence. You need to look at these characters and analyze them to the best of your ability. Understand what they are doing and how they are behaving. Important also is how they are reacting. Try to think of what is positive and what is negative in what they are doing. I would suggest starting at a show like Californication, watching how Hank Moody behaves. He is confident and witty, and I am guessing that that is what you are striving for. If not, pick a character that you would want to be similar to. You just want to model after them.
-Start hanging out with people who are confident and witty. This is directly based off of social learning and what I have talked about above. You will subconsciously begin behaving similarly to them. Compared to what I talked about in the paragraph with television, don't over analyze anything while you're with them. Just have a good time and enjoy yourself. You have probably noticed before how if you are hanging out with somebody on a consistent basis, you begin implementing their slang into your slang. It's similar with personality. Your linguistics and your personality traits go hand in hand.
(a post I wrote to someone else, but it applies)
-You should get rid of the mind set of trying to meet women for now, and implement the desire to improve yourself. At least for while you're planning this out. Making yourself better is one of the more essential concepts of life. Nonetheless, organize categories which you would like to improve.
So if I were you, I would great an 8.5 by 11 piece of white paper and write:
1. Culture/art
2. Sport/fitness
3. Style/appearance
4. Intellect/general knowledge
5. Social Recreation
6. Misc.
Then under each category write down what you like to do, what you'd like to try, or what you know almost nothing about.
1. Culture/art
-Going to museums
-Going to art galleries
-Going to theater
-Going to concerts
-Painting
-Drawing
-Sculpting
-Photography
-Woodworking
2. Sport/fitness
-Going to the gym
-Swimming
-Joining a recreational sports team
-Jogging
-Yoga
-Hiking
-Backpacking
3. Style/appearance
-Getting nice, professional haircuts
-Gaining knowledge of male fashion
-Getting a good tailor
-Going and buying nice, well fitting clothing
-Getting your teeth whitened
-Going to the gym to work on how your body will look (assuming the fitness part mainly focuses on health)
-Working on your posture
-Working on your eye contact/body language
4. Intellect/general knowledge
-Reading specific books
-Reading the news
-Playing intellectual games (chess, doing crosswords)
-Going to poetry readings
-Going to conferences/presentations
5. *Social Recreation
-Going to clubs/parties/bars
-Going out to eat
-Networking
-Joining local interest clubs
-Getting to know your neighbors
-Getting in touch with old friends
-Go out to meet women
-*Pretty much anywhere you can go or do where the main purpose is to interact with other people
6. Misc.
-Taking dance classes
-Playing an instrument
-Traveling
-Cooking/taking cooking classes
-Taking any classes on anything you'd like to learn
-Going to stand up comedy
-Going to athletic events
-Collecting something
-Meditation
Things I typed out are just one example. Out of those you can pick whatever you want, or of course create your own list. Things will intervene in all categories, which is not a problem. Next time when you're organizing your day, fill your empty spaces with things from your list. This will help you in many ways. The list itself is made as a tangible device to actually force you to go out and do these things.
The beauty of all of these things, especially if you're in a new town:
1. You will improve yourself and almost surely find new interests
2. You will meet people, men and women
3. People you meet will automatically share your interests, since it's a strictly interest based list
4. You will become a much more interesting individual and will be able to appeal to a wider array of people
5. People from different categories can be invited to other categories. This gives you a chance to make people's lives more interesting, which is mainly important with women.
6. You get a chance to do things you don't know much about and might discover hidden passions
7. Your days will go by much faster, as almost all of your time will be filled up with different activities
This list will help you a lot, as it's one of the very first and most simple things I tell people who hire me. It's very simple and doesn't require much thought, but one of the biggest problems people have and always will have is organizing themselves. I can go on and on about why it's good and how you can benefit from just simply organizing your cognitive processing and breaking everything down into a visual format rather than a mental one. If you need any help or want me to break it down further, always feel free to PM me. _________________ A morning of awkwardness is far better than a night of loneliness.
18 Body Language Mistakes I Bet You're Making
|
CHAT
