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Many people wade through their lives without goals. In many self-improvement books, goal setting is essential if you wish to succeed in any aspect of your life. I set out to improve my social life two years ago, and never looked back. But I was kind of shooting in the dark without any goals, until I decided to sit down proper and write them out.
For anyone who’s looking to improve their social lives, ask yourself this. What do you want out of it? To get to know more people? Networking? To be better at conversation? Each goal has different paths to getting there; otherwise you won’t know how to get there.
So this is what you have to do:
- Spend some time thinking about what you want out of it, and what you have to do to get there.
- Write them down.
- Example: I want to develop my conversational skills and be interesting. To do so, I will have to start talking to people more, read up books on how to build rapport, and take up activities like martial arts and dance.
- Give yourself a specific date by which you would achieve your goals.
- Example: I want to achieve all these by 30th April 2008.
- Put them together into a mission statement.
- Example: I will develop my conversational skills and achieve social flexibility by 30th April 2008. In order to do so, I will put in my best effort to talk to more people, read up books on building rapport and how to be more sociable, and take up martial arts and dance as part of revamping my social lifestyle.
- Read it everyday as a form of reminder.
- Get out there and do it.
What then?
To put it simply, we proceed to act on them. I remember after I was done writing my goals, I was lost with how to start. Ask yourself this. Where are you currently at?
At that point in time, I had only one friend, was a loner in University, and had no interests besides my sporadic attempts at writing. But since I was in University, I knew there was something to tap into. So I started small by talking to my classmates. I made an effort to join them for lunch, and if they did not invite me, I would ask and tag along.
I also started reading up books on social psychology, conversation and body language. I reminded myself to work on my body language everyday. Project my voice more, chest out, stomach in, not to pull the shoulders up, etc. It takes 21 days to make or break a habit, so I devised a plan to focus on my body language for that amount of time.
As I read, I applied what I learnt by focusing on one technique until I got it right. There is no point in being a Jack of all trades, and master of none. I made sure that I became natural with the technique before moving on to the next one. It usually takes a few days of hardcore practising, which isn’t much.
As time passed by, I began to look at other forms of activities I might enjoy. I found that I liked hanging out at bars with live bands, and it helped since there were tons of people socialising there. Dance classes are a good place to meet people. Martial arts are great for building confidence. A friend of mine started taking up gymnastics, while another took Capoeira classes.
The whole idea is to take things one step at a time. This may sound simple, but in our haste, we can forget that and go on overload. You are only one person, and there’s only 24 hours in one day; there is only so much you can accomplish. Obviously, if you have fears that are holding you back from talking to colleagues or classmates, then deal with that first. If you have problems with just stepping out of your house, then don’t look at what activity clubs you should be joining. Most importantly, do not expect quick fixes. I have a friend who looked at fixing his emotional problems, and it has taken him one year of experimenting to find something that works for him. But don’t give up. This journey may be lonely, but I’ll be with you. So let’s get going now.
- CY
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