Grand Rising,

You’ve probably read loads of articles about how important social skills are. It can be difficult to improve social skills when you don’t really understand exactly what they are and how to work on them.

Something that makes social skills difficult for people to learn is that there can be an expectation that we just “know.” Lots of our readers feel like there was a class they missed in high school where everyone else learned social skills and they were the only ones who didn’t.

Obviously, there wasn’t a class like that, and you’re not the only one who struggles with understanding social skills. In this email, we’re going to look at what social skills are, why they’re important (and difficult), and how to improve them.

Social skills are ways of interacting with others that make it easier to succeed socially. They allow you to communicate effectively and understand what others are trying to communicate to you, both verbally and non-verbally.

This definition is a bit vague, but that’s because social skills cover lots of different aspects. You might be surprised to realize that even psychology researchers struggle to agree on a definition of social skills.

One approach breaks social skills down into 5 components; cooperation, assertion, self-control, responsibility, and empathy.

Cooperation is how well you work with other people to achieve a task, including negotiation and persuasion.
Assertion is how well you are able to initiate social interactions, for example introducing yourself to others.
Self-control skills allow you to deal with your emotions constructively, for example not losing your temper.
Responsibility is about recognizing the impact of your actions on others and making prosocial decisions.
Empathy is being able to understand what others might be feeling and being able to put yourself in their shoes. It’s a measure of social perceptiveness.

One difficulty with social skills is that there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules.

Unlike in math or physics, doing the same thing repeatedly won’t give you the same result. Social skills are often based on accurately understanding what someone else is thinking and feeling.

When you’re thinking about social skills, here are some important facts to bear in mind.

1. Social skills can be learned

We call them social skills because they are just like any other skill. You can learn new social skills, and you need to keep practicing them.

2. Social rules are flexible

When we talk about social rules, they’re mostly guidelines. The more socially skilled you are, the more you can break the rules.

This means that you can’t always use other people’s behavior as a guide. If they’re more socially skilled than you, they might be responding to social cues that you haven’t seen.

3. You can’t opt out of social skills

There are lots of skills that you can opt-out of learning. If you’re not musical, you might decide not to learn an instrument. Interpersonal skills are different. Even sending an email at work uses social skills. We all use social skills every day.

Social skills can impact every aspect of your life; finding a romantic partner, how much money you earn, and even how healthy you are. Here are some of the most important benefits of improving your social skills.

1. More and better relationships

Social skills are key to building good relationships. Our social skills let us understand how our friends, family, and co-workers are feeling and what they are looking for from us.

Improving your social skills will help you build close, trusting relationships with others.

2. Better communication

Social skills are all about communication. Socially skilled people can read someone else’s body language and understand more of what they are communicating. They are also able to create rapport, which makes it easier for others to be honest with them.

3. Advancing career prospects

People with better social skills also have better career prospects. Studies show that socially skilled people have more successful careers. They feel more satisfied with their lives and their careers and find it easier to stay motivated.

Social skills are especially important for entrepreneurs. Being socially skilled lets you convince others of your trustworthiness and judge how trustworthy other people are.

People with poor social skills can find themselves in social situations that they don’t fully understand and don’t feel equipped to handle.

This hurts their present and their future.

When you realize how often you use social skills, it can make improving them more intimidating. Some people worry that improving their social skills means that they can’t be themselves anymore.

Building social skills is actually about making it easier to be yourself. Here are our top tips for improving your social skills

1. Get feedback

There are loads of different social skills. You might be great at some, even if you struggle with others. Your first task is to find out where you struggle.

This isn’t usually something you can work out alone. You need to be interacting with someone else to use social skills. In order to learn, you need to have a good idea of how you came across to the other person.

Try to find a friend (or several) who can help you to understand how good your different social skills are at the moment. Often, asking for feedback comes across as asking for reassurance, so explain why you’re asking for their help.

Try saying, “I’m trying to improve my social skills, but I don’t always know when I’m doing well or badly. Could you give me some honest feedback about how I come across, please?”

2. Identify areas for practice

Social skills are such a huge topic that you can’t work on all of them at the same time. Instead, try to find a couple that you want to work on first.

Where you focus your efforts will usually depend on where your weaknesses are and what will make the most impact on your life.

For example, you might find it difficult to read other people’s facial expressions. If you work in an office, that might cause problems for you, so you could prioritize improving your ability to read other people’s emotions. If you mostly work from home, however, struggling to read facial expressions might not be a problem. In that case, you might prioritize something else.

If you’re not sure where to start, consider focusing on active listening and learning to read other people’s emotions from their facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, such as eye contact and gestures.

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