Re:Ask HN: How do you practice social soft skills in real life?
by toddmclaughlin on Saturday August 08, 2020 @09:53PM
(#24096660)
I've found the first step to any self-development project is observation.
Give yourself a free pass for a few weeks or a few months. Your only job: observe yourself.
Observe yourself getting nervous. Overwhelmed. Awkward. Behaving in a way that seems unnatural.
Journal what you find. Journal how you feel when you find yourself in these different situations.
You will feel like an idiot when you do this. That it's a waste of time. This process isn't intuitive, but it is life-changing if you're willing to be honest with yourself.
If you take this seriously, you'll find that most of your fears and awkwardness and inhibitions are the result of past experiences, more specifically, your perceptions of past experiences.
If you can develop the stomach to live in reality, you will be on the cusp of real life change.
Once you've taken an inventory of where you're at, you can begin to implement the things you're learning.
Give yourself a free pass for a few weeks or a few months. Your only job: observe yourself.
Observe yourself getting nervous. Overwhelmed. Awkward. Behaving in a way that seems unnatural.
Journal what you find. Journal how you feel when you find yourself in these different situations.
You will feel like an idiot when you do this. That it's a waste of time. This process isn't intuitive, but it is life-changing if you're willing to be honest with yourself.
If you take this seriously, you'll find that most of your fears and awkwardness and inhibitions are the result of past experiences, more specifically, your perceptions of past experiences.
If you can develop the stomach to live in reality, you will be on the cusp of real life change.
Once you've taken an inventory of where you're at, you can begin to implement the things you're learning.