Social anxiety skills you won't learn in school

I'm going to teach you my four best social anxiety skills to be more confident in any type of social situation this is the stuff I wish I learned in grade school as opposed to grad school because gosh it would have made my life so much easier to know this stuff back then hi I'm psychologist Dr alimatu helping you to become more compassionate courageous and connected in your life the first thing I teach anyone who struggles with social situations is how to give an effective compliment and there's two reasons for that the first is people who struggle with these situations have a really hard time initiating they have a hard time approaching someone they have a hard time starting a conversation and because of that barrier they often just avoid they're on the sidelines they're a Wallflower they're kind of sitting back and letting social situations happen and an effective compliment is a great way to break through that barrier and start a conversation with someone the other reason is because most people are really bad at giving compliments we often do things that we have seen in movies cliches like wow you have beautiful eyes or I really like your smile stuff that is never never a good idea you'd never want to compliment someone based upon something they didn't choose which is their physical appearance usually what you do want to do is compliment someone based on something they have chosen what someone is wearing their shoes a sticker that they have on their laptop music that they're listening to these kind of things things that we wear our dress our accessories the things that we're interested in the interests that we're communicating to the world we have decided and chosen to communicate these things so what you want to do is you want to be honest about this you don't just go searching for something and say I really like this band that you are endorsing there on your laptop that really sounds it's awkward don't say that but they might say like oh cool so you're really into green day too and then you'd be like oh no I'm not and then it's really awkward what you want to do is pick something that really does speak to you like maybe you think their shoes are really cool or maybe you really like the sticker and you might not know the reference but you think it looks really cool say that and then that will start a conversation someone actually just did this to me today I was waiting to meet up with my friends psychologist Dr Helen Sue and I have a Jurassic Park shirt on underneath this they saw that shirt and they complimented it and then that led to a conversation about how amazing that original movie was and how much every sequel has been so not as good as the original it was just a nice great connection between two people who didn't know each other now that you've broken the ice you've made first contact with the other person you have to find something to talk about and when you're so socially anxious you don't really think expansively your thinking is really narrow in focused and it's hard to come up with ideas of things to say so what you want to do is ask an open-ended question this is a question that doesn't have a yes or no answer it has to have some type of elaboration so an example is what do you like to do for fun that's an open-ended question it can go in a million different directions and usually through a question like that you're gonna find something to talk about this is different than asking a closed-ended question like do you have a favorite video game that is a really bad question to ask because maybe that person doesn't like playing video games at all and they might say no I don't have a favorite video game and then they feel uncomfortable and then you feel uncomfortable for asking that your social anxiety is even higher now and the whole situation is just awkward Town what you want to do instead ask open-ended question about something what do you like to do for fun what do you do what brings you here stuff like that if this is something you're really worried about just plan ahead and think of about three to five different open-ended questions you can probably ask people in the situation you're going into that brings me to my third favorite skill which is knowing what you and the other person always have in common and what that is is you're both in the same place at the same time no matter who this other person is you share this in common even if you're not in the real world even if you're on a zoom call and you're awkwardly waiting for someone else to join the call and you don't know this other person you're stuck with you're both in this Zoom meeting at the same time for probably the same purpose you can always use that so you can ask something like if you're at a party how do you know Ali if you're at the bus stop you're both going going somewhere so where are you headed to always use that situation you're in that you both share and have in common if you're not sure where to generate the discussion what type of open-ended questions to ask this is something you and the other person always have in common the last thing you need to know is how to reflect back when we're having conversations with people and we're anxious we also get afraid of running out of what to say we're thinking about generating the next question the next question the next thing to say the next detail the next thing to elaborate on and we forget to actually listen to the other person got a whole video that does a deep dive into it but what you need to remember is instead of trying to get stuck in your head about what to say next focus on what the other person is saying and reflect that back whenever I teach this skill the first thing people say is that sounds really clinical and awkward oh so you do you did this and then this happened and then you felt this way you don't have to make it so obvious and specific and so detailed you can do this in a really simple casual way as well you can say something like I had no idea you were going through so much stuff over the last few months or say something like that's so cool that you've learned how to make so many different dishes in your cooking class or you can make it kind of specific like I had no idea that Heist Arc in Andor is based on a real Revolution funding Heist by Joseph Stalin in 1907 it doesn't have to sound clinical and therapeutic just reflect back the main things you're hearing the person say there's three reasons why these skills work so effectively and the first is they get you out of your head the problem with anxiety when you're around other people is it turns your attention Inward and if you want to be effective at talking to other people you need to attend to those other people so these skills force you to focus outside and focus Less on all these anxious thoughts swimming on in your head the second reason why they work so well is they help you to find Common Ground they help you to find a common interest they help you to find stuff to talk about and the last thing they do is they help the other person feel like you're really listening to them when we're anxious around other people we're so worried about finding the right thing to say when all people are looking for is an opportunity to be heard to feel like people care about them to feel like people are paying attention to them that's what we have to do when we're trying to cultivate real connection with other people listen understand that's it just be there with the person and these skills will help you to do that now if you want a deeper dive into social anxiety how it works and what to do about it check out this video right over here

Channel: Doctor Ali Mattu

Views: 16,153

Keywords: ali mattu, psychologist, psychology, the psych show, clinical psychology, mental health, mental illness, cognitive behavioral therapy, cbt, therapist, therapy

Id: PNF09Fw8cG4

Length: 8min 6sec (486 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2022