What some lack is tact, they’re annoying when in certain situations, which falls under the emotional intelligence umbrella, someone who lacks social skills. You may be someone who’s a little awkward yourself, doomed to aloofness, or you talk too much.
Regardless of these situations, it’s found what most need are just a few tweaks, to strengthen their social currency.
What being socially adaptable generates are better relationships, more friends, and advanced success in the business world.
Knowing how to react appropriately during certain social situations, adds dynamically to your personal identity, likeability and character.
You’ll feel less anxiety when in the presence of meeting new people or old friends, where you can rely on your verbal and nonverbal abilities.
What a lack of poor people skills has shown, is it’s responsible for job loss, more than qualifications or aptitude. So to develop better social skills.
Groom And Dress Appropriately
Your physical appearance is what everyone sees first, and it takes just a split second for anyone to make a poor judgment on you.
People will base this impression on whether they’ll like you or ignore you. So appear refined and friendly at all times.
Poor choice of clothing for the situation, unkempt hair, unclean nails, dirty ragged shoes, are all nonverbal reveals.
What they suggest is you don’t care about yourself or your appearance. That you don’t quite have yourself together.
What you also need to comply and fit in with, is what the protocol of the social setting is.
Inappropriate brightly coloured or revealing clothing might be suitable for a night out, but not for work. Make sure you practice conservatism and dress appropriately.
Know Your Nonverbal Behaviour
Know the nonverbal cues such as making eye contact when appropriate, smiling, exchanging pleasantries such as shaking hands. All which perceives you got it together.
That you’re self-confident and mature, an approachable people person. If you come across as “cold,” you’ll appear angry or disinterested.
Coming across as warm, inviting, and connecting with others shows your likeable, placing them at ease.
You need to be friendly and approachable to get others to respect you, and once they do, they’ll want to be around you.
Be Mindful Of What You Say
It’s critical you are conscious of what you say. Swearing or sudden outbursts of verbal anger, is always taboo in most social settings.
The only exception, is when with close friends where you know it’s expected and accepted.
The issue becomes knowing when this type of behaviour is okay, and when it’s not.
It’s easy to just suddenly drop an obscenity into whatever you’re saying, so you need to mindfully know where to draw the line.
Don’t Overstep Your Boundaries
Watching your language while dressing appropriately are important when forming first impressions, and will get you in the door.
What’s perhaps more important, is failing to maintain the proper social boundaries, the appropriate distance between others and yourself.
We all know how embarrassing it is once someone talks too much, as they begin to invade everyone’s personal space, making it all about themselves.
They’ll constantly ramble on, revealing far too much information to others, constantly repeating themselves, not knowing when to shut up.
They don’t use discretion, as they’ll generally assume without asking or paying attention, which violates personal boundaries.
At times, they don’t even care once they do. What this shows is a lack of maturity and poor judgment.
Having Nonverbal Empathy
Having good social graces, means you’re able to properly detect and analyze the nonverbal communication of others.
The ability to read their body language, to see if they’re anxious or sad, happy or relaxed.
The ability to decipher these social signals as information, and then reacting appropriately, when in their presence.
What’s also required is becoming proficient at judging what their tone of voice is over the phone, and the tone of their emails.
The tact to know how to react once you detect their feelings, by non-verbally reading what they’re attempting to tell you.
Understanding body language to know their inner state, so you can communicate appropriately in a reciprocal manner.
Controlling Your Emotions
To become socially skilled, means you need to read and translate the nonverbal emotions of what others are feeling.
The best salesman, can detect this in an instant. You also need to control your own emotions.
You could be feeling mad, sad, anxious, snubbed, or have a desire to laugh when it’s not appropriate.
If you’re wanting to prove you’ve got your social graces together, you need to control your emotions.
What some have is a natural poker face where they’ll never reveal what they’re feeling, affect their expression. The majority however will expose their emotions by overreacting.
The better you become disclosing just the feelings you’re wanting others to know, the more you’ll be considered genuine and likeable.
Building Your Self-Esteem
It’s found it doesn’t matter how refined your social skills are, if you don’t believe in yourself and your actions, as everyone could sense your level of confidence.
Displaying your confidence when communicating, helps you in projecting your self-composure.
Once you look and feel comfortable as possible in your own skin at all times, then half the battle is won.
Once you come across as confident, even though at times you need to fake it till you make it, your social skills will strengthen, as will your self-esteem.
The Social Graces
We are all social creatures, so refining your overall social package becomes important.
If your skills are currently passable, what needs to be continuously improved upon, is placing more focus into your personality.
Your life and work depends on it, then you can hang out with the cool hip crowd, so begin building up your arsenal.