I’ve learned through years of building up my social confidence that the following statement holds immense value: Social confidence starts with a mindset, is achieved through practice, and continued forever as a journey.
Social confidence starts as a mindset:
You may have to take big action to get outside of your comfort zone, and your mindset is crucial because you need to be consistent, disciplined, and ready to learn despite mistakes and failures. You don’t have to have an unshakeable mindset – you are allowed to feel afraid, nervous, confused, stressed out, uncertain..that is all fine and totally normal. It’s also OK to say the wrong thing, do something awkward, or totally space on something to say. But you need to be unshakeable in your willingness to show up DESPITE all of this.
Why social confidence is achieved through practice:
You’ve got to be ready to make mistakes and learn from your failures. If you can reframe “failures” as just “learning experiences”, then you can never go wrong. And if we are approaching social situations as a learning experience, then every moment we spend interacting with people is practice to get better at it. Even when we are alone we can work on skills that will help us meet cool people, when we go do things with those people, and when our bond becomes deeper and we really become good friends.
Why social confidence is continued forever as a journey:
It’s never going to end. We are always going to be learning how to be a good friend, good partner, good family member, etc. If your goal is to have 5 good friends and get invited to something every weekend, then you are going to want to maintain good relationships with people and continue to meet more people. Even if you achieve your goal and you are content, you will need to continue working on your friendships because that’s what it takes to be a good friend (and thus have good friends).
So here’s some quick advice from someone who has struggled with their social life immensly and learned to overcome challenge after challenge:
**Show up. Just simply show up.**
Saying yes to putting yourself out there is the first step. Saying yes to your self and going somewhere new. Saying yes to the invite you got from someone you hardly know. Saying yes to INVITING someone else to something. Showing up is half the battle. Just do it!