I’m trying to go outside of my comfort zone and practice socialising and I make a lot of mistakes. But the only way I know how to remember them is to think about it a lot and cringe and hurt my own feelings otherwise I forget and make the same mistake again. TIA for any advice!
Edit: Thank you for taking the time to comment everyone, I read each comment and thought about it a lot, and you all are very kind.
I do try to be kind to myself but felt I was being -too kind- and would forget any lessons I learned in the moment and repeat the same mistakes. However I realised this isn’t helpful, especially when there are better strategies:
- It’s okay to repeat mistakes, social skills are very hard; it’s not like a job where you have had training.
- Instead of replaying the moment in my head to remember the embarrassment I will replay the moment in the way I would rather it have gone. This is great because I can keep thinking about it and not forget without being hard on myself!
- I will apologise in the moment if I get a chance to. “Sorry I had a bad day I don’t know why I said that” is one I will use.
- Even though it’s very hard because I get excited when chatting, I’m going to go by the rule ‘if I’m not sure don’t say it’ to act as a filter.
- Even if you are very socially inept like me, some people just don’t want to engage and it isn’t actually your fault, they may be having a bad day you never know.
Thank you again, I hope that other redditors will get some good info from these comments and I wish you all the best!