Overall Attitudes That Will Help You Improve Your People Skills
You could also call these 'meta-attitudes'. They don't directly have to do with being better with other people, but having them will help the learning process go more smoothly. Like all attitudes, having them is easier-said-than-done, and not just a logical matter of deciding they're good beliefs to have. You more have to slowly cultivate them.
You're dispassionate and objective about improving yourself
This means, as much as you can, putting your ego and pride and self-image aside and focusing on results. If something can help you, then do it. If it seems a certain trait or behavior will help you socially, then try to have it. If it seems a certain trait or behavior will hurt your cause, then work to shed it.
It's hard to be this unemotional and open-minded about ourselves though. It's not easy to take criticism and not feel anything. Our ego and our sense of identity gets in the way. We want to protect ourselves from feeling inadequate, and have a wide array of excuses, justifications, and defense mechanisms to do it. Unfortunately this sometimes means we reject advice that may make us better off, all for the sake of not temporarily feeling bad about ourselves.
You try to see yourself accurately
It's hard to improve yourself if you have a blind spot to half of your problems. Self-awareness takes a long time to develop. I'm still discovering things about myself I was totally oblivious too. Putting your ego aside is important here as well. If you're too invested in seeing yourself as perfect and flawless, your mind will keep you from seeing a lot of your weaknesses. We've all known someone with a ton of flaws, who thought they were awesome, and that all the problems in their life were the fault of other people or outside forces. Of course they were in no position to get better.
A long-term, 'bigger picture' perspective
This means recognizing that you're on a journey to some far off destination, and that getting to the end is much more important than all the little hiccups that happen along the way. The first reason having this perspective is important is that improving your social skills is likely a long-term project. I go more into this point here:
How Long Does It Take To Improve Your Social Skills?
Secondly, if your perspective is focused on the bigger picture, you'll be able to handle the day-to-day frustrations of improving yourself more easily. Whatever your long-term goals are - to make more friends, to feel more at ease making small talk, whatever - you're going to be repeatedly practicing various skills as you work towards them. You're going to make a lot of mistakes. It's a part of learning anything.
If your perspective is rooted in the short-term then you'll get freaked out by every little thing that doesn't go your way. You'll let a bad week, or a stilted conversation discourage you. To a broader perspective, none of these little ups and downs matter. All that's important is that you're making steady upward progress over a longer period of time. If you're trying to get over your shyness, and the last month hasn't been too productive, what's it matter if a year from now you'll still be way more outgoing?
You're not too hard on yourself
The process of improving will be a lot less painful if you don't beat yourself up too often, or have unrealistic expectations about how you should be doing. Some of this is covered in the previous point about not getting too caught up in short-term details. Another point is:
You don't need to be flawless to have social success
For a long time I was really hard on myself because I felt I had to be socially perfect at all times. I saw every little mistake I made as proof I was an incompetent loser. Of course, that's not realistic.
No one has a defect free personality or does the right thing all the time. We all have flaws that sometimes annoy other people. We don't always come off the way we'd like. Sometimes our conversations are forced and awkward. Sometimes we make corny jokes that don't go over well. You're not perfect, but neither is anyone else, but by-and-large most people still get by.
Another thing, one that you've probably heard before, is that everyone has their insecurities. Good looking, seemingly together, confident people get nervous about things too. They worry about how they come across to their friends. They sometimes can't think of things to say. They may also get insecure about little things that you're fine with too. I knew one charismatic guy who got nervous when he first walked into a crowded room and everyone looked at him. That doesn't bother me, but it did scare him, though you'd never think it at from looking at him.
Finally, you can't win with everyone. Some people just aren't going to be drawn to what you have to offer. Hey, I've even heard criticisms of Ghandi and Mother Theresa. As long as you can get enough people to like you to get by you'll be fine.
Cognitive Distortions lie at the heart of a lot of overly self-critical thinking. Here's my summary of them from another article
You have confidence in your ability to figure things out for yourself
I don't know if this was the biggest factor in my change from messed up, socially inept loser to relatively normal guy, but it stands out in my mind. I consulted tons of other sources for advice, but overall I felt that I was the one charting the course of my own development. I took and used piles of outside information when I needed it, but it all came back to me calling the shots.
If I didn't agree with some advice, and felt I had a good reason to disregard it, then I did, even if it had a good reputation. If I couldn't find a solution to a certain issue in outside sources, I figured one out on my own. Another big reason you need the ability to figure things out on your own is that no advice is going to cover every situation you'll personally encounter. So you have to be able to use your own intelligence to fill in the gaps.
So what goes into this? The ability to critically evaluate what you read for one. Common sense is another. I didn't mindlessly accept whatever I read and then tried to apply it without taking my unique circumstances into account. A non-passive attitude is also important. Don't just wait for someone to tell you what to do, unconsciously assuming that any of your own ideas aren't worth considering.
Another important thing is not being too prone to hero worship. Or put another way, you don't put some person/author/speaker up on a pedestal, while simultaneously discounting your own views, or not bothering to form your own views at all. Yeah, you might respect a writer's work, and they may be more knowledgeable and experienced than you about an area you're interested in, but at the same time, you're closer to them than you think. They're people too. Their ideas aren't flawless. You know more than you give yourself credit for. You may even know more than some of the people you're taking advice from. They could just be hack marketers who anointed themselves as experts to sell you something.
All this isn't to say that you should become self-deceptive, hyper-critical, and arrogant and write off everything you don't agree with. A lot of the time you do need to turn to someone else's advice. I'm more saying to have confidence in your own ability to pull yourself out of your hole and to not feel it's only going to be other people's teachings that can do it for you.
