Socially Confident People Know It's Not Always about Them

Sometimes a lack of confidence comes from internalizing your thoughts. You're thinking about what you are doing wrong, what you could do better, and why you aren't good enough to make friends or socialize in some other way. Those thought patterns can wreck your social confidence so much that you withdraw and simply avoid interacting with other people.

The socially confident person knows that the focus should be on others. That's what socializing is all about, isn't it? It's about interacting with others, not yourself. This is why social confidence leads to a person reaching out rather than inward.

You can start believing in your ability to interact with others by thinking about them and not so much about yourself. Ask them how they feel. Compliment them on their clothing. Get them talking about their thoughts and emotions rather than you focusing on your own.

This is just one way socially confident men and women approach human interaction. They also understand that if their effort at socializing doesn't work, it's not always about them.

You Can't Control Other People

Imagine the following scenario. You don't always feel comfortable in social settings. You're at a work event you had to attend. There are a bunch of people you don't know there. In fact, you only know a couple of people out of several dozen.

You decide to stake take a step out of your comfort zone.

You approach someone, put a smile on your face, and introduce yourself. They begrudgingly return your greeting, and don't look too happy that you approached them. You stick to your guns. You make a comment about some workplace incident that happened recently. The person responds with a disinterested look and simply walks away.

How do you perceive that interaction?

The socially confident person doesn't care. She feels good about herself. She took a step out of her comfort zone and greeted a total stranger. That was big for her. She is learning to be socially confident.

It's not her fault that the other person is having a bad day or for whatever reason didn't want to communicate with her. She shrugs off the event and moves on to someone else.

Understand that you can do everything right and someone might not respond to you favorably. That's just life. Don't beat yourself up. You can never understand what's going on in another person's mind or in their life. You do what you need to do to build your social skills. That's all you can do. It's all you have control over, your own actions.

Be happy that you tried something when you weren't really comfortable. Congratulate yourself for the effort, knowing that everyone won't respond in a negative way to your attempts at socializing.