How To Be More Confident In Social Situations

How to be more confident in social situations!

It’s what everyone wants to be; that savvy talker in all sorts of social situations. Not only do you see this type of person glorified in movies and TV shows, you’ve probably seen how they are in real life as well!

So how do you become like them?

Well I can’t guarantee you’ll be looking like Drake or Taylor Swift by the time you finish reading this article. But I can certainly help out do things that can make you more confident. That’s what we will be talking about today!

In this post, I’ll go over 5 ways on how to be more confident in social situations. These techniques will help you feel great and be more social whenever you’re hanging out with people. They certainly have helped me.

Without further ado let’s get started!

1. Have things to say in advance.

The first thing you can do to be more confident in social situations is by having things to say in advance. This is something you can do for dating but it also works when trying to be more talkative with friends.

Alright, here are some stories you can think of in advance:

• Where you work or go to school (because everyone will ask you this)
• Your childhood/where you grew up
• Favorite foods, TV shows, movies
• Your hobbies
• Craziest and funniest experiences you’ve ever had

Now I want you to be careful with this, as I don’t want you to over rely on this method. Because always being too prepared for a conversation can seem robotic and ingenuine. I certainly felt that way when I would tell the same stories over and over again, and I’m sure the other person did as well.

So use your prepared stories and lines when you need them, but don’t depend on them for your entire conversations.

2. Know your audience.

The next thing you should know when it comes to being more confident in social situations; knowing your audience. Yes, there is a thing called social calibration where you cater your conversations to the type of people you’re talking to.

Because how you talk to your coworkers at a party will be completely different from say, talking to your friends at a party. You probably won’t be talking your love life or dates you went on to your coworkers or to people you just met. Likewise, you wouldn’t want to be talking about trivial stuff to your friends such as how many siblings you have or where you work (typical questions for someone you just met).

So if you’re planning to go to an event with a lot of professionals, you can prepare yourself by knowing what to talk about in advance and the type of body language you want to convey. With professionals, you’ll want to be more formal and mature with them. Whereas if you’re going to an event with a bunch of alternative artists, you’ll probably want to scale back and be more casual in conversation.

3. Outcome independence is important.

When it comes to being more confident in social situations, it’s important to have the mindset of outcome independence. What does that mean? It means to not caring so much about what happens and being content with the outcome, whatever it may be.

If you’re going to a social event, don’t be so fixated on making new friends or having great conversations; that will make you anxious and make it more difficult to feel relaxed and confident. If things go bad, then you should have that mindset that you’ll be okay with that and you’re just trying to have fun or get a learning experience.

So I think there is a balance you should strike. If someone yells at you or has a bad reaction to you, of course you’re probably going to feel bad about it. Pretending not to be affected by it isn’t realistic. What I’m trying to say is, don’t focus too much on trying to be cool at an event. Put yourself first, have fun and whatever happens (good or bad), it doesn’t matter. You can always go to a different social event next time. 🙂

4. Enforce your boundaries.

This is very important! Just because you want to fit in and seem confident with a group of people, that does not mean you should let people walk all over you. In our attempts to have a great conversation with someone or some people, we may end up compromising our own integrity and dignity just for the sake of approval.

I can tell you this is not the way to go! In the short term, you may win someone’s appeal. But in the long run, you will lose their respect. Someone who doesn’t enforce their boundaries is someone that won’t be assertive and be respected. So no matter what type of social situation you end up in, never compromise your values or beliefs. If someone disrespects you during a conversation, that is something you probably should not let slide. Either let them know it’s not appreciated or move onto a different group or setting.

The thing is, when you enforce your boundaries, you end up feeling more confident about yourself! So it pays to be assertive and not comprising your integrity and dignity.

5. Practice makes perfect.

Much like many things in life, practice makes perfect! And this definitely applies to being more confident in social situations. It’s pretty simple really; the more you go out and socialize, the easier it will be each time. You will be less anxious the more you socialize and you’ll get a feel of what to say and do in a social setting the more you do it.

I remember being so nervous meeting new people and had my own insecurities of what people would think of me and if I was saying the right things. Honestly, now I don’t really care that much anymore and I just go out to socialize and try to be conversational in social settings. It comes with practice and slowly coming out of your comfort zone!

So while this may not be the magic pill technique to give you instant confidence in social settings, practicing is a really important factor. So go out, have fun and socialize with others!

Summary

To summarize, here are the 5 ways on how to be more confident in social settings:

1. Have things to say in advance.
2. Know your audience.
3. Outcome independence is important.
4. Enforce your boundaries.
5. Practice makes perfect.

And there you have it; 5 ways on how to be more confident in social settings! I hope you found this post useful.

If you have any questions or want to share other ways to be more confident in social settings, leave them in the comments below.