Life Factors That Can Boost Your Social Success Quite Quickly
Overall I think building up your social skills is a process that just takes time. There's not really any magic way to became extremely confident, popular, and well-adjusted overnight. Still, that doesn't mean there aren't periods where your prospects shoot up quite a bit in a short period. A lot of people who used to be socially unsuccessful can often remember one or more key factors that played a large role in turning their life around for them. Like they may say, "I was pretty dorky in high-school, but in Junior year I tried out for the football team on teacher s suggestion, got in, and things were better after that." These situations usually involve one or more of the following:
- Being able to easily meet a lot of people who are open to being friends with you and having you in their social group.
- Meeting solid, likable people who you can learn better social skills from, either from just observing or them more actively taking you under their wing.
- Having the opportunity to learn skills and knowledge that will make you more interesting and enjoyable to have around.
- Doing something that improves your self-confidence.
- Sometimes when you make changes to yourself, but they're not noticeable right away and sort of build up under the surface until the right circumstances cause them to appear all at once. These situations may provide those conditions.
Here are some life factors that can make your social progress leap forward. It's hard to predict what will work for each person though. One guy may do something and change his life, another may do the same thing and have it not work out, or even backfire on him. Seeking out these opportunities can do a lot to help you. Making good lifestyle choices plays just as important a role in getting your social act together as working on internal things like your belief systems.
going traveling and spending time with other backpackers
People often say that travel changes you, and one way it can do that is by giving someone a lot of social experience, especially if they spend a lot of time in hostels and meeting their fellow travelers. For one, it just gives you hours and hours of simple social practice with other people. The situation also tends to force you to learn how to make friends quickly (but fortunately most everyone you'll meet is pleasant and approachable). It can also generally boost your confidence and sense of self-efficacy. Indirectly, it just makes you a more interesting person, who's done unique things.
I go into more detail about the benefits of traveling in this article, but the points above pretty much gives you the gist of it:
How Traveling/Backpacking Can Boost Your Social Skills
Getting fun, sociable roommates
Roommates aren't perfect, but if you get the right ones, they can really spur on your development. The best part is that having them is liking having a built in social life. There are always people around to chat to, and your plans for each weekend are often set. If they're more socially savvy than you, they may also gentle nudge you out of your shell or teach you some useful skills. For example, they may slowly encourage you to try dancing when you all go out to clubs, and show you some basic moves when you're all goofing around at home. If you have a tendency to hole up in your room a little too much, they may get concerned and try to get you out more often.
Joining the right club or team
This is the example I used at the beginning of the article. Joining a club or team can sometimes give you an instant group of solid friends. There's also the comradery and common ground factors working in your favor. You may also get a boost to your overall reputation and status.
Picking up a good hobby
The right hobby can allow you to meet people more easily. It could even quickly get you into a new social group. Certain hobbies have a certain amount of social cachet as well, so taking part in them can make you look a little better in some people's eyes. The classic example is learning to play an instrument and then joining a band.
Getting the right job
Another pretty common scenario is people getting a certain job and being less awkward and more confident as a result. Jobs can carry benefits such as:
- Meeting individual coworkers who you hit it off with.
- Falling in with a whole group of coworkers, who you hang out with outside of work.
- Being around personable or interesting coworkers who you can pick up social pointers from.
- Having to learn new social skills and stretch your comfort zone as part of your job, e.g., having to be cheerful and talk to customers, having to make engaging chit chat with clients, having to perform in front of people, having to initiate contact with prospects and learn to cope with rejection.
- Placing you in a position with some status or authority, which makes it easier to meet other people, e.g., being a bartender at a popular pub, working at a local hobby store and getting to meet all the other people in the area who are into the same thing.
Going away to college
The cliche about college is that it's a place where you can easily meet people, and start fresh if high school didn't go that great for you. You're not guaranteed to become changed and popular the instant you step on campus. For many people college is a turning point though. Being in a position to meet a lot of new friends is definitely a factor. Also important is that everyone will see you with unbiased eyes, not through the layers of reputation and status you had back home. Some people also join fraternities or sororities, which you could think of as the equivalent of both joining a club and having fun roommates.
Moving away from a stagnant situation
I hinted at this in the previous point. Sometimes you'll have changed quite a bit and have many of the tools in place to do better socially, but you're stuck somewhere that won't allow that to happen. You may be in a school or town where everyone has already formed an opinion of you and aren't willing to give you a chance. You can change and act differently all you want, but you'll still be the same old weird, unpopular person to them. You could also be somewhere where there just aren't enough of your type of people around.
Some people are in a rut in one place, but when they move away they easily find a good group of friends and a better life overall. They could also use the new social skills and personality traits they'd developed back home without running into the barrier of, "Why is this guy trying to act differently all of the sudden? Everyone knows he's a dork. What's he trying to prove?"
Switching to a new group of friends
You'll hear of this happening pretty often in high-school, though it can occur at any age. Sometimes someone will be part of a group that isn't that great for them. When they make the decision to hang around other people, their fortunes change. Sometimes a person's group has changed and grown past them, and they're no longer a good fit, even if they're still allowed to tag along with the others. Sometimes they're the one who has changed, and their current buddies aren't appealing any longer.
Another fairly common situation is when a person's social group doesn't even like them that much and maybe even gives them a hard time. When the person stops taking their "friend's" crap and moves to a better social circle, their lives improve. They could move from a mean-spirited popular group to a group who, while technically lower in status, are much nicer. Or they may be stuck with a bunch of low-level jerk losers, and find that a more 'popular' group of people is much more friendly and accepting of them.
Getting into a relationship
Sometimes it's getting a girlfriend or boyfriend that causes your progress to shoot upward:
- Just being in a relationship can teach you a lot of social and life skills and change your personality for the better.
- You may meet a lot of fun, likable people through your partner.
- Being in a relationship will probably boost your confidence.
- Being with someone can make you more relaxed and easygoing overall. You don't have that tension and preoccupation that can come from being unhappily single, or from never having been in a relationship before. You may also be more comfortable with your life and not feel you need to compete with people or prove yourself to them.
- Having a girlfriend/boyfriend can elevate your status in other people's eyes and make you seem okay to hang out with. The logic is that someone must pass some minimum threshold in terms of their personality in order to find a partner.
- If you've never been in a relationship before, you may de-prioritize making friends since finding a partner seems so much more important. Once you've found someone, you can relax and appreciate other peoples' company.