Strong self-confidence to me is the faith I can handle what’s ahead. That faith comes from many sources like my faith in Christ, body language, speech patterns, and ways of thinking you’re about to discover. It is not having the elusive anxiety-free life nor is it knowing I can get what I want. Confidence is the opposite.

The more I see that I am a flawed human being, the more courage I have to know things can go to the crapper and that I’ll come out ahead. I can still be anxious and not get what I want, yet remain a confident person.

Below is a list of scientifically-backed tips to build unstoppable self-confidence. They are organized into helpful categories. Confidence is formed by how we interact with ourselves and others. Little adjustments in your thinking or behavior that seem silly at first glance, add up to make you a confident person. Take a handful (or the whole set) for a spin. Instill a surplus of confidence in your life.

Appearance, Body Language, and Speech

Don’t fake it till you make it. Fake it till you become.Amy Cuddy

1. Practice Power Poses

You’re probably familiar with how other people’s body language affects your perception of them. Harvard social psychologist Amy Cuddy’s research shows that your body language also affects how you perceive and think about yourself. By practicing certain “Power Poses” for 2-minute increments, you physically and psychologically change how you feel about your sense of control, assertiveness, comfort, and self-confidence. You boost your testosterone (the dominance hormone) and lower your cortisol (the stress hormone) to handle stressful communication. Power Posing isn’t about making others perceive you differently. When we think of confidence we wrongly limit it with the mind. Power poses put your mind and body in a state of confidence. In Cuddy’s words, “Our bodies can change our minds, and our minds change our behavior, and our behavior changes our outcomes.”

2. Power Pose 1: Pride

Expanding your arms or leaning back in your chair with your arms behind your head conveys an internal sense of power and control. Animals across nature do this to express their dominance and pride, and you are no exception. Practice expansive gestures with your arms and legs in the short-term to feel long-term courage and confidence.

3. Power Pose 2: Table-Lean

Another high-power pose involves a prop. Stand beside a table, place your hands shoulder-width apart on the table, and lean forward as if you’re facing an audience. This pose is another variation on the open Power Pose. It owns the space. You communicate to yourself, “What I say and think is important.” Use this pose before your next meeting or job interview to finalize your points and strengths in your mind.

4. Power Pose 3: Hands at the Hips

This Superman pose may bring to mind some cliché images—a mother who catches her children disobeying her, for instance. But think about what that pose says: “I am the authority figure. You need to pay attention to me right now.” Use this Power Pose in private to get you in the mind of assertiveness and remind yourself of your own confidence and authority.

5. Power Pose 4: Sitting at Desk, Hands Behind Head

This pose crops up in the business world all the time. The boss or manager leaning back in his or her chair, feet directly under them (or even on the desk), and their hands locked behind their heads. Like the other Power Poses, this one conveys not only your willingness to listen, but your level of poise and low-stress. Practice this one in your office behind closed doors right before a stressful meeting.

6. Power Pose 5: Arm Behind the Seat

Another open, expansive gesture. For this one, when you sit, instead of keeping your hands and arms close to your body, reach an arm behind the seat next to you. This gesture doesn’t have to be reserved for watching movies on the couch, either. Practice reaching behind the passenger side seat when you’re driving alone for 2 minute bursts. That’s enough time to feel a confidence boost.

7. Posture and Sitting

You can also change how the world sees you outside of Power Posing. Walking with your back straight, your shoulders back, and your head forward demonstrates purpose and intent. Use what I call a “capitalizing posture” where you visualize a string tied to your sternum that gets pulled directly upwards. How you sit also speaks volumes: crossed legs and arms tell others you are self-protective and unapproachable, so don’t bunch up! It takes practice to change something so simple that you take for granted. But how you stand, walk, and sit convinces yourself and others of your confidence.

8. Refine Your Speech

How you speak is an oft-neglected part of self-presentation, but an important one. For instance, speaking with few “ums” and “uhs” presents you as more competent than people who say them constantly. Studies have also shown that speaking quickly makes you more charismatic in the eyes of others, and even more persuasive at certain times. The speed and fluidity of your speech has tremendous potential to affect your confidence and how others remember you. Carol Fleming is my recommended person to learn speech improvement. See her guest article “5 Steps to Develop a Charming Voice that’s Sexy“.

9. Volume and Clarity

Do you mumble when you speak? Are you lazy about how you phrase things? If so, your confidence is a casualty of your carelessness. A strong voice with good diction and word choice shows others that you take care when expressing yourself. When you feel that you have said what you want in the way you want to, you’re confident that you can always communicate your needs and grievances with clarity, strength, and precision. Every time you speak, I want you to speak 20% louder than you feel comfortable and move your mouth more than usual to boost articulation.

10. Dress Well

Your self-image, whether you accept it or not, alters significantly depending on how you dress. Wear clothes that are clean and free of wrinkles. Tuck your shirt in for situations when it is appropriate. Even if you work at home, how you dress affects how you approach your confidence and daily tasks. Present your best external self to feel the internal gains of confidence.

11. Groom

When we think of confidence we wrongly limit it with the mind. Power poses put your mind and body in a state of confidence.

Just as important for your sense of self-confidence are your grooming habits. Do you shave regularly? Do you wash your hair? Do you shower enough and wear deodorant? A low sense of self-confidence can throw a wrench into these necessary steps. “Looking sharp” has two major benefits. It improves your self-image, and it advertises that you are approachable and attractive to other people. Let your internal confidence shine through on the outside.

12. Make Eye Contact

Meeting someone’s eyes during conversation tells them that you see yourself as equal to them, that you are both worthy of expressing yourselves. Lack of eye contact can send several wrong messages. You may be interpreted as weak, rude, easily dominated, or the big one, lacking confidence. Show your interest in others and respect yourself as a person worth talking to by making eye contact.

13. Hold Your Gaze

This practice is enlightening for several reasons. First, you’ll notice that most people are just as shy about making eye contact as you are. This will give you confidence that you’re not alone. Second, a longer gaze shows deep interest and a sense of control that confident people possess. Don’t intimidate people with your stares, but show them that you are interested, and give them the confidence to be confident around you.

14. Smile

The simple act of smiling is an enormous confidence builder. People notice you more when you smile. Laughter and smiling reduce your blood pressure and anxiety, which eases anxiety. Research also shows that smiling when you don’t feel like it activates brain areas related to happiness. The happier you are, the more room you give for your confidence to grow.

Thoughts and Beliefs

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.Paul Tillich

15. Be Resilient

Resilience is your ability to rebound from setbacks and negative life events. All of us have an innate sense of resilience to draw from, but research shows that having a complex, dynamic view of yourself and thinking in the “abstract” about general goals increases your resilience, no matter your disposition. You can also improve your resilience by making plans, connecting with others, practicing new skills, and accepting life change. Having confidence that you’ll recover from life’s curve-balls is a great skill to cultivate. It makes you adaptable and ready to tackle tough challenges.

16. Use Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are little phrases you tell yourself when your self-confidence is in the pits. The things you say to yourself before, during, and after setting or achieving goals have enormous influence over your perception of self-worth. And a strong sense of self-worth means a strong sense of confidence. Follow this link to make your own list of positive affirmations.

17. Know Your Values

Values define what is most meaningful in your life. You have to stand for something to grow conviction, and be willing to share and defend your point of view with others. When you know who you are and what you believe in, your self-confidence is more personal and is less likely to be corrupted by outside voices of doubt.

18. Know What You Can/Cannot Control

When you blame yourself for circumstances and outcomes beyond your control, you kill self-confidence. Learn that there will always be things outside your control, and no amount of personal preparation or confidence can change them. On the flip side, be sure to know what you are responsible for so that the judgement calls and decisions within your control feed your self-confidence.

19. Don’t Be Overconfident

Too much confidence is an unhealthy thing. You feel overconfident when you lack an accurate measure of your own abilities, limits, and skills to get things done. One sign you’ve succumbed to overconfidence is when you “pass the buck” to other people. Another is never admitting you are in the wrong. Eventually, your self-confidence will take a tremendous beating if you always put yourself in situations that are beyond your grasp. True confidence practices what it preaches. Cultivate friendships where each of you are honest with each other.

20. Know Your Negativity Bias

Human beings are prone to focus on negative aspects of situations above positive aspects. This was and remains integral to our survival. Unfortunately, focusing on the negative, no matter how inconsequential, adds up. Self-confidence needs positivism to grow, so put positive spins on situations whenever you can. All situations are neutral before you react to them—why not see the bright side, no matter how small? Tips to do this are revealed in the distortions section of the guide.

21. Avoid Fixed Mindsets

Self-confidence requires failure to grow.

People with fixed mindsets believe their intelligence and level of motivation are permanent things that can’t be altered. For instance, believing you were terrible at math, are terrible at math, and just don’t have the mind for it. This is untrue. Thinking like this causes you to avoid situations where failure is likely and to feel pressured to continually prove yourself. Self-confidence requires failure to grow. You can’t hide behind perceived personal barriers and doubt and expect to gain any confidence. Believe you have the power to change yourself!

22. Pursue Growth Mindsets

A growth mindset refers to how you believe your qualities to be malleable and capable of change. You don’t think of failures as personal reflections of your own permanent inadequacies. Instead, every failure is a launch pad for further development. Self-confidence doesn’t develop in a vacuum of self-blame and disappointment. Know that you can and do grow, that you can change core parts of yourself, and that your confidence is a skill like any other.

23. Know That Happiness and Purpose are Different

Research shows us that being happy and feeling you have a purpose are not always bedfellows. You can live with purpose but not be constantly happy, and you also don’t need to have a purpose to find happiness. For self-confidence builders, this means you are unbound to always be happy or have purpose to feel good about yourself. Be flexible when it comes to short-term and long-term contentment. Your self-confidence is as flexible as your outlook on these concepts.

24. Mental Rehearsal

Self-confidence is practiced. It takes dedication and practice to grow a sense of it within yourself. Practicing what you will say or how you will behave in a situation gives you a safe mental space to take risks and avoid the eyes and ears of the crowd. Remind yourself where self-confidence comes from (inside conviction, not outside opinion) and rehearse social encounters in private—your thoughts and opinions matter the most!

25. Be Intrinsically Motivated

Self-confidence is born from within. That’s why it’s important to motivate yourself to change in ways that help you personally, not ways that affect others. Intrinsic motivation means doing things to help yourself, not conforming to the expectations of the outside world. As you will soon learn, you can be intrinsically motivated and help other people to boost your self-worth.

26. Leverage Extrinsic Motivation

If you’re overly concerned with the opinions of others, you erase the great pleasure of doing things for yourself. Extrinsic motivation has its place in life (how many people would turn up to their current job without the extrinsic reward of money?) but it’s intrinsic motivation that sustains long-term change. Relying on your own personal goals, and not the fickle goals of others, helps you feel more self-secure and confident in your abilities and desires.

Intrinsic motivation—doing things for the sake of loving them—is the preferred choice for self-confidence. But there is also a place for extrinsic motivators. Once you set major intrinsic goals and processes into motion, there’s nothing wrong with rewarding yourself with an extrinsic gift. Take yourself to a movie or go out to that new restaurant. Make your self-confidence experience internally guided and (occasionally) externally validated.

27. Focus on Accomplishments/Write an Achievement Log

The concern I have in writing such a large guide on confidence is the idea you need them all to be confident. Perfection is not confidence. One of the best things you can do for yourself in building a strong self-confidence is to set a number of small, incremental goals on the way to a larger goal. Your sense of progression and competence will thank you for taking little steps, and you’ll be less likely to give up because you know a large goal can’t happen all at once. Make your goals personal and realistic, and leave a record of your daily strides.

28. Invest In Your Self-Image

This term (with self-esteem and self-worth that follow this tip) is confused with self-confidence, and is also integral to it. Your self-image is how you see yourself emotionally, physically, and mentally. How you think of yourself across these dimensions determines how you feel about your strengths and values, as well as your overall personality. The better your self-image, the better your sense of well-being, and the more confident you will think, feel, and behave.

29. Enhance Your Self-Esteem

If self-image is how you look at yourself on different levels, self-esteem is to what degree you believe those qualities to be good. For example, you may consider yourself an excellent tennis player (positive self-image), but feel that you really don’t have what it takes to be better than average (low self-esteem). Think of self-esteem as how far your opinions of yourself reflect reality. Know that your qualities are likely degrees better than how you negatively evaluate them to be. That alone is a confidence booster. See Nathanial Branden’s solid work The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem.

30. Improve Your Self-Worth

You have a strong sense of self-worth when you feel you are a worthwhile human being. Think of your self-worth as the overall grade you’d give yourself as a complete package, self-confidence included. Increase your feelings of worth by learning to forgive yourself, trusting your opinions and instincts, improving your self-talk (and acting on your affirmations), and budgeting your time between personal activities and activities with others. We are created equal in God’s eyes.

31. Think Long-Term/Globally

This one may seem like a contradiction to setting small goals. Really, it’s just a personal reminder that the daily trenches of your self-confidence program will be worth something bigger in the future than the sum of their parts today. Holding a tangible, realistic end game in mind lets you know that every small step you’ve taken, and will continue to take, is in service to a much bigger design. I encourage you to think big. Think of a future you want to be involved in that makes you uncomfortable to think how much work it’ll take to get there.

32. Expect Success/Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Only you can define what success and failure mean; other people must fend for themselves. It’s a good idea to expect that you will succeed at what you set out to do. The more you believe and repeat to yourself a thing can come true, the more you prime yourself to act in ways that make that goal likely to come about. Confident people can’t control the future, but they do set themselves up for success, starting with believing success is an option within reach.

33. Silence Negative Self-Talk

You would be appalled to speak to others the way you speak to yourself. Whenever you call yourself stupid, incompetent, lazy, ugly, or unworthy, you’re doing more than just putting yourself down. Negative self-talk defines how you think about yourself and your place in the world. Every negative evaluation cements neural pathways in your brain that activate negative thoughts faster in the future. At any time, you can reverse these automatic trains of thought, compliment yourself, and give your self-confidence a clear runway for takeoff.

34. Think of Possible Solutions

People who lack self-confidence ruminate about things they’ve done wrong. They may feel that nothing they do will alter their situation and only imagine how things can get worse. Self-confidence demands options to operate. It takes just as much time and effort to think of solutions to a problem as it does roads to failure. Be upbeat, optimistic, and find solutions.

35. Accept All Parts of Yourself

Everybody has good qualities and bad qualities, a Swan Side and an Ugly Duckling side. The sooner you make peace with your strengths and faults, the sooner your self-confidence will have a baseline from which to improve. Accept your imperfections as a consequence of being alive, not as some reflection of your worth or confidence. You are capable enough as you are, flaws and all, and are certainly worthy of change. This is revealed in-depth in Big Talk.

36. Admit Your Mistakes

An unhealthy habit is to never admit your mistakes. For starters, this tactic reinforces the idea that you are perfect or incapable of taking the blame for situations that really are your fault. It also projects you as pompous or arrogant to your peers. Admit when you are at fault, and have the perseverance and confidence to get better in the future.

15 Common Cognitive Distortions to Reframe

It’s not my responsibility to be beautiful. I’m not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me.Warsan Shire

Cognitive distortions are inaccurate modes of thinking that put you on a biased, negative track. We all fall victim to them, so as a confidence builder, it’s your job to spot your own cognitive distortions and challenge them with the truth of things. Here are 15 common distortions to look out for during your pursuit of greater self-confidence:

37. Filtering

You cognitive filter when you strip away any positive qualities of an experience and dwell on the negative. This is related to your negativity bias, except here you obsess and pick apart even the smallest negative details. No self-confidence ever came from putting a microscope to minute negative things. These experiences give you lessons for later use in life. Embrace the whole.

38. Overgeneralization

This cognitive distortion turns molehills into mountains. You overgeneralize when you take a specific example from a specific situation (saying something rude at a party) and use it to draw blanket statements about your self-worth and abilities (I’m always a rude person). Differentiating the general from the specific will save you lots of heartache, undue blame, and preserve your self-respect.

39. Catastrophizing

This is a favorite cognitive distortion of people with anxiety and low self-esteem. You snowball negative things in your mind to epic proportions. For example, if you’re running late for work, you may think you’ll get on your boss’ bad side, that she has always had it in for you, and that you’ll be fired within the week. Know that just because you can think it, doesn’t make it realistic.

40. Control Fallacies

These kinds of cognitive distortions are cousins to your internal or external locus of control. If you feel you must have complete control over situations and outcomes, your self-esteem will never live up to this “perfect world.” And thinking that everything is beyond your control gives you no chance to gain experience or mastery. You can’t boost your self-confidence without practice, and you practice because failure is part of life. Constantly look to differentiate what you can and cannot control. Repeat to yourself, “I’m not always in control, and that’s okay.”

41. Blaming

Blame weasels its way into everyone’s life at some point. It deprives you of self-awareness and introspection, which are strong ingredients for a self-confident existence. A person with true self-confidence, however, doesn’t have the need to blame others. They know that no one “makes” them feel or think a certain way. How you react to situations and interpret them is all up to you.

42. Emotional Reasoning

Our feelings are the product of our thinking, reasoning, and sensory experience, all of which are imperfect systems. You can make yourself feel great though emotions are unreliable for confidence. Just because you feel lazy or stupid does not make it true. Emotions are useful and give color to our lives, but they are also very poor mirrors to hold up against reality. Don’t put all your self-confidence chips on how you feel; seek other evidence. Feeling good is not a condition of living good.

43. Global Labeling

Global labeling is the extreme version of generalizing. When you refuse to interpret your actions or the actions of others in context, and instead apply a label to them, you’ve surrendered your critical thinking skills over to emotional thinking and self-defeating understanding. Don’t label yourself a “bad person” just because you once forgot to call a friend back, and practice giving other people the benefit of the doubt.

44. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy

The universe nor Christ does not keep a score card for your life. Make your own rewards in life through confidence-building techniques. If you’re the kind of person who sacrifices happiness or self-confidence for other things, you’re delaying a reward that will never come. Don’t expect your negative or positive behaviors to be “adding up” for some big future treasure. Christ gave you his grace and you have nothing to earn it but to accept it.

45. Discounting the Positive

When you do something well—for instance, catch yourself in a common cognitive distortion—and still tell yourself that this somehow “doesn’t count,” you only hurt yourself. Self-confidence demands a proper acknowledgement of your small victories. Your master plan for greater confidence embodies your small victories.

46. Fallacy of Change

Do you feel that if you can just “get through” to someone, just bully or drill your beliefs into their heads, that they’ll change for you? This is a sign that you rest too much of your confidence and happiness on the opinions and actions of other people. Self-confidence comes from within, not from forcing the world to conform to your point of view. Let others think what they will and focus on changing yourself.

47. Using “Shoulds”

You’re not the root cause of how other people behave or how life events unfold.

Whenever you tell yourself you “should” do something or “ought” to finish something else, you prime yourself to feel dissatisfaction and guilt. It may feel like these kinds of statements motivate you to take beneficial action, but really you’re superimposing arbitrary rules and deadlines on yourself. Don’t treat your self-confidence development as some strict code of ethics that you can’t break. It is a process of experimentation and change.

48. Fallacy of Fairness

Everyone has a different idea of what “fair” means. Yours will never perfectly match someone else’s, and vice-versa. Furthermore, fairness and self-confidence are not the same thing; something can feel unfair to you, but still present an opportunity for growth and self-worth. Start putting your self-esteem to work.

49. Personalization

People who use this cognitive distortion feel that everything around them—from how people react to external events—is somehow related to how they think and behave. Instead of forging all control, they take on too much responsibility. You’re not the root cause of how other people behave or how life events unfold. Refocus and narrow your responsibility.

50. Jumping to Conclusions

No matter how confident you are that you or someone else will do this or say that, your confidence needs evidence to back it up. When you jump to conclusions, you write the future in stone before it happens, blame yourself for mistakes you haven’t made, and are so convinced something negative is in store you don’t bother to ask yourself if it’s even possible. You aren’t a time traveler; you don’t know what will happen. That’s where self-confidence comes in.

51. Polarized (Black and White) Thinking

We like to think in opposites—good and evil, right and wrong—but this thinking when narrowed to a specific moment makes it hard to see the progression of your bigger picture. When you put yourself on line between two options without any gray area between, you’re prone to label yourself as a total success or colossal failure. Self-confidence depends on sifting through the gray areas to work on particular parts of your thinking and behavior. Save the binaries for English class.

Feelings

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.Eleanor Roosevelt

52. De-Stress

Strained minds are pessimistic things that rob you of any agency to change yourself for the better. When your mind is calm and relaxed, it’s less prone to fall for the debilitating negative thoughts, distortions, and biases that throw its positive aspects off track. Take time every day to de-stress yourself, emotionally and physically. Give your self-confidence the platform of positivity it needs to fully mature.

53. Enforce Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is psychologist Alfred Bandura’s theory that the things you say to and about yourself affect your ability to plan and follow through with action. His idea has been proven many times over. If you change how you believe you can approach challenges and goals, you fundamentally alter how you will approach thinking and behaving toward that goal. Positive begets positive, negative begets negative. There are four parts to improving self-efficacy, and they all affect self-confidence. Let’s take a closer look:

54. Self-Efficacy Part 1: Mastery Experiences

Bandura emphasized that mastery experiences are the primary way to improve self-efficacy. Essentially, you have to complete a task again and again, no matter how small. Once you master a task (changing your self-image, for instance), you alter how you approach that problem and other problems of different scale and difficulty.

55. Self-Efficacy Part 2: Vicarious Learning/Social Modelling

Our common humanity is a great blessing for the confidence builder. Watching other people of your skill level and desire to improve complete their own tasks instills a confidence inside of you. Their success motivates you to pursue your own. You vicariously feel that their achievement is and can be yours with just a little more effort.

56. Self-Efficacy Part 3: Verbal Persuasion

To truly believe that you have the power to direct yourself toward goals in life, you need positive feedback. Coaches, parents, and peers all help our self-confidence and self-efficacy by encouraging us. You need to know that others believe that you are competent enough to reach your goals. Self-talk, or telling yourself in the third-person that you have what it takes, is a way anyone can boost self-efficacy, especially if they don’t get positive encouragement elsewhere.

57. Self-Efficacy Part 4: Emotional Arousal

Self-efficacy isn’t a perpetual motion machine. It feeds off your active engagement and energy—your arousal and activities—in order to fully develop. Keep your mind aimed at self-efficacy improvement by making your program as personal and uniquely yours as possible. Keep physically engaged by visiting different settings to try out your growing set of confidence skills. The more time you spend thinking about your self-efficacy and putting those thoughts into meaningful action, the more stimulated you become to invite real change into your life. Revisiting this article can provoke the arousal you need to step closer to confidence. Bookmark this page in your browser.

58. Get Excited, Not Stressed

Stress is a natural and positive reaction. It motivates us to take action and be creative in short bursts. Long-term stress, however, makes concentration and planning difficult. Research shows that thinking about stress as “necessary” or “unnecessary” instead of “good” or “bad” reduces many of its physiological symptoms. Psychologists have another name for the positive, exciting kind of stress—eustress—which you experience doing things you really enjoy. This one-two punch of redefining stress and seeking as many eustress situations for yourself as possible helps you avoid chronic debilitating stress; less stress, more confidence.

59. The Illusion of Transparency

Ever get the feeling that the people around you can read your thoughts? Then you’ve experienced the Illusion of Transparency bias. The good news? It isn’t true, and most people have a hard time guessing what other people think. It can be hard to remember this “in the moment,” so try to focus all of your attention and energy on what the other person has to say. This will get you out of your own head, show that you’re an active listener, and redirect your energy in a positive, outward direction. I have a habit of under-communicating in conversations so reminding myself of this cognitive distortion also improves my communication.

60. Be Self-Compassionate

Compassionate people know that other people are flawed, deserve dignity and respect, and need gentle encouragement during life’s hard times. Self-compassion means taking these ideas and applying them to your own life. You are often your own judge, jury, and executioner. Take a large step back and be confident that you deserve the same degree of kindness and understanding that you provide for other people.

61. Intentional Optimism

Being optimistic doesn’t mean that you’re naïve, deluded, or see the world through rose-colored glasses. It’s about rationally knowing when you have the necessary skills to come out on top. For example, if you’ve never skied before, it would be irrationally optimistic to think that you will succeed on your first slope run. If you start practicing and buy some decent equipment, however, you’ll have a better set of tools to use, and more reason to be optimistic in your abilities. “Taking stock” of what experience you still need to be successful helps you reach a realistic perch of self-confidence and avoid the burnout of overextending your abilities. Read Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism.

Behaviors

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.Hebrews 4:16

62. Risk The Risk

When you take risks, you prove to yourself that you have enough confidence to try something new, even at the cost of failure. Taking small, everyday risks (going out to a new restaurant) can be enough to shake you out of complacency or the fearful inertia of messing up. Risk and danger are separate things. Healthy risks don’t endanger your long-term health and happiness. If the only major negative outcome of taking a risk is temporary embarrassment or everyday failure, you know you’re choosing the right risks to improve your self-confidence.

63. Slow Down

Trying to do too much at once or expecting immediate improvement from new routines is a surefire way to stress yourself out. Successful people realize that decisions demand deep thought and nuanced consideration. Apply the same principal to your self-confidence program. Is a certain new behavior not working for you? Press pause and consider why that is. Is something else working well? Figure out the underlying strength before you stretch it beyond its limits.

64. Exercise

Self-image shares a strong link with self-confidence. If you’re on the hunt for greater confidence, working on your body image is a great place to start. Exercise increases discipline and production of the happiness chemical dopamine, and a happy mind is a confident mind. Even modest amounts of exercise boosts your self-confidence more than in people who exercise like Rocky Balboa. Give frequent, low-intensity workouts a try for a better, more confident body image. I highly recommend gymnastic body-weight training.

65. Prepare

Risk and danger are separate things.

A plan reduces overwhelming thoughts. When laden with a messy mind, I write down anything that comes to mind. For tasks you need accomplished, this is a great way to cut stress and boost your confidence that you can handle what needs doing by seeing everything on paper. If you’re the kind of person used to “winging it,” know that following through with plans gives your confidence a serious leg up. Taking the effort to prepare cuts down on the time you spend worrying or fearing the outcome of unprepared activities. Plans let you focus on what matters: devoting more time to your confidence-building program.

66. Set and Achieve Small Goals

Give your self-confidence the support it needs to flourish by setting small goals. Don’t let the outside pressures to be confident at all times scare you away from taking gentle steps to see your confidence grow. A great exercise is to make a short and long-term goal list and keep a record of your progress. This kind of catalog will give you confidence in what you’ve already accomplished and will remind you not to take on unrealistic goals.

67. Practice Mindfulness Exercises

Mindfulness is both a practice and a mental state of noticing your inner-feelings and reactions, as well as the immediate state of things around you. To be mindful is to pretend the past and future don’t exist—only this moment matters. Psychologists have found significant benefits to mood, memory, and stress levels in people who stick with mindfulness meditation programs. A mindful state redirects your focus where it belongs—on your present strengths and goals.

68. Deep Breathing

Deep breathing techniques activate your body’s parasympathetic responses—your muscles relax and your heart rate quiets down. Armed forces are trained to breathe tactically during combat scenarios, and you can follow their lead. Take in a breath through your nose and expand your belly for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 4 seconds, exhale completely in 4 seconds, and sit with an “empty breath” for 4 more seconds. Repeat between 3 to 5 times to re-center yourself. Schedule brief periods throughout the day for deep breathe work.

69. Visualization

The next time you feel like a sinking ship in a sea of self-blame and doubt, refresh your mental palate and visualize a calm scene. Mental imagery is a great supplement to the other more methodical ideas on this list. Even better, visualizing who you’d like to be or how confident you’d like to behave in the future gives you a target to shoot for when nothing else is working.

70. Do What You Enjoy

Doing what you love connects you to like-minded people who help keep you motivated and goal-directed. And when you find your niche, you give yourself plenty of positive self-confidence fuel in ways “day in, day out” activities can’t hold a candle to. Pick up an old hobby or develop a new passion today. One hobby I started that has been really fun is mountain bike riding. I find myself with a little boost of confidence knowing that I will enjoy a ride on the weekend no matter how bad work goes over the week.

71. Don’t Hide Your Interests

In a similar vein, hiding who you are and what you enjoy siphons passion out of your life. Don’t give in to the social pressures around you or try to conform and repress the things you love for fear of being singled out. Passion gives you direction, and expressing your passions provides endless chances to practice self-confidence techniques. Live that passion and share it in conversation with others.

72. Get Creative

Even though creativity feels spontaneous, it actually activates the same self-confidence muscles setting and achieving other personal goals does. Any creative act—playing music, painting a picture, baking a cake, learning to surf—teaches discipline and exposes you to manageable failures. Self-confidence needs practice and structure to exist. Think of a skill you’ve always wanted to learn, and pursue it using all of the self-confidence tips you’ve learned so far.

73. Assert Yourself

Assertive people communicate their needs and grievances in straightforward ways that respect themselves and their audience. If you feel someone treats you unfairly, set aside time to speak with them one-on-one. Tell them how you feel using “I” statements, not “You” statements. Assertive communication isn’t about passing blame or lording over someone else. It’s about telling the other person that your feelings and needs are just as important as their own, and “I” statements put confidence in your hands.

74. Aim to Reframe

When you reframe negative situations, you put a positive and self-bolstering spin on them. The more ways you can reverse negative patterns of thought, the better chance your confidence has to breathe. Monitoring your thoughts through free-writing, deliberately changing your self-talk to the affirmative, and interrupting less-than-positive ideas with silver lining thinking repackages stressful events as challenges you can take on. Positive thinking leads to positive emotions and far more confident behavior. Mind-Lines is a remarkable (and complex) book that teaches you the methods to frame your thinking in an empowering manner.

75. Pull the Plug on Procrastination

Despite what you’ve heard, procrastination is not a sign of laziness, but a complex defense mechanism you use to avoid experiencing failure. Procrastination convinces you that crises are averted, but in doing so, robs you of the self-confidence needed to believe that you are strong enough to take on what life doles out. Whenever you catch yourself procrastinating, abstain from incompetent or underprepared self-labels. Have self-compassion and realize you are only trying to protect yourself. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

76. Redefine Perfectionism

If you’re a positive perfectionist, you use conscientiousness to motivate yourself to achieve more. If you’re a negative perfectionist, your self-confidence suffers because you set unrealistic expectations for yourself. Take the brave step: see the many faces of your perfectionism. If your steps toward perfection cause you more stress than inspiration, choose a different path.

77. Ignore Imposter Syndrome

If you feel like a fraud in life, you’re a candidate for Imposter Syndrome. This frame of mind convinces you that nothing you do or receive is the result of your efforts or inner strengths. And if you can’t internalize your accomplishments, self-confidence will melt like a snowflake. Counteract these thoughts by laying out the facts: both internal and external events shape your opportunities and success. Mindfulness shared earlier is also helpful. You deserve many of the good things that come your way!

78. Take The Hit, Don’t Self-Handicap

A self-handicap is any behavior that lets you dodge negative feedback and criticism. Self-handicaps put the blame on your “condition” that you self-impose on yourself (bad deadlines, drinking before a test) instead of having you rectify your behavior. Do your confidence a favor and don’t make excuses; take the criticism and bolster your sense of endurance.

79. Be Grateful

When you show gratitude, you increase your emotional resilience to negative life events. This brand of resilience has many benefits that indirectly affect your self-confidence for the better. You’ll find yourself able to relax more and feel it’s easier to set and achieve meaningful goals. An easy way to practice gratitude is to remind yourself of truly bad times in your life. This will give you a renewed sense of context and reinforces how far your self-confidence has come.

80. Keep a Gratitude Journal

I like to start each day by writing down three unique things I’m grateful for. It challenges me to identify simple things and accomplishments easy to overlook.

Every day, set aside time to write down things you’re grateful for. I like to start each day by writing down three unique things I’m grateful for. It challenges me to identify simple things and accomplishments easy to overlook. Anything from the weather to marriage proposals are fair game. One I wrote this morning is the flavorful sausages like plum and chilli sausages that I get to cook from a butcher.

Gratitude training gets you appreciating the many good things in life. Keep a record of things, day in and day out because there will be times in the future when your self-confidence is in shambles. With a gratefulness journal filled to the margins, you won’t have to look far to re-motivate yourself.

81. Ask 3 Questions

When feeling drained of confidence, ask yourself: “What have I received from_____? What have I given to ______? What troubles and difficulties have I caused_____?” The first two questions remind you that you are inherently a grateful being. They remind you not to take what others do for you, and what you do for others, for granted. The last one asks you to introspect and open yourself to receive the truth about your recent actions. It’s hard to admit that your own behavior can cause others inconvenience and pain, but self-confidence requires responsibility for things you can control.

82. Set “Approach Goals”

Psychologists recognize two basic kinds of goals. Approach goals are by far the best to make on a routine basis. An approach goal is any goal you can use in the form of “I will do X to get Y.” These goals give you clear direction, internal motivation, and checkpoints for success, three things self-confidence thrives on. Just about every goal can be framed as an approach goal. An example, going to the gym to “feel good” instead of “to avoid heart disease”.

83. Don’t Set “Avoidance Goals”

The other type of goal is the avoidance goal. These are goals you set in the form of “I will not do such-and-such.” These kinds of goals are the “easy out” options to make. Saying that you won’t screw up your final exam feels like motivation, but it really puts stress on your mind and sets you up to make value judgements on your abilities. Between the two options, work hard to spin avoidance goals on their heads: only approach goals have a laundry list of self-confidence benefits attached to them.

84. Use Albert Ellis’s ABC Model

The famous psychologist’s theory states that how you think about situations dictates how you react to them. Because you want to think about situations in ways conducive to self-confidence, follow his ABC model of situational appraisal. Know what the Activating Event is, recognize what your Belief about the situation is (positive, negative, neutral), and face the Consequence of how you feel about your belief. For example, a job interview (Activating Event) may make you believe you will botch it up (Belief) based on the feeling that you are scared of failure (Consequence). You are free to change to your Beliefs in these situations, because the emotional Consequence you feel has yet to happen.

85. Practice Public Speaking

Public speaking does wonders for your self-confidence. Why? It provides you the perfect situation to try out many self-confidence building tips. All of the strongest confidence-building tips are represented in the single act of practicing and delivering a speech. It becomes a mastery experience, filled with chances to use your voice and body language, that you can approach with a growth mindset. Toastmasters provide a good start especially if you are afraid of speaking in public.

86. Talk to Strangers

You can also always practice self-confidence skills, body language, and creative expression with strangers anytime you want. Strike up conversations and small talk during your everyday chores and routines. Build up to more self-confident exercises likes asking someone on a date or delivering a speech, and practice your fundamentals with people who you have very little stake with. Use my list of 101 conversation starters to get ahead of brain freezes.

87. Practice Making Phone Calls

Do phone conversations sap you of confidence? I remember a time when I refused to eat pizza one night because I was too afraid to talk over the phone. Practice phone conversations with no stakes. Cold call businesses in your neighborhood to ask them very simple questions. “What time do you close? Do you have this book?”

88. Respond, Don’t React

Self-confidence is a strange mix of preparation and risk-taking. No matter which approach you find personally helps more, always take the time before and after a decision to respond to how you think and feel about yourself. Don’t take your initial reactions of failure for the truth. Your mind has many tricks up its sleeve to convince you of your incompetence. Evaluate yourself honestly and you’ll see your confidence reflected clearly.

89. Fake It Till You Become It

Studies in body language and communication show that speaking and posing in a confident manner makes you more likely to feel confident and continue behaving confidently. Even minimal, consistent “faking” behavior can have a cumulative effect. Self-talk that feels fake has limits when it is not coupled with behavioral change. Start believing yourself to be confident, speak and behave as if you are, and the reality will soon follow.

90. List Your Positive Traits

Whether you’re taking your first steps on the path toward self-confidence or you’re a seasoned pro, reminding yourself of your positive qualities is an instant stress and fear killer. If you’re shy about your own strengths, write out your traits as if you were listing the traits of a great friend or role-model. The act of writing brings unconscious thoughts into clear relief.

91. Don’t Over-Apologize

Many people with self-confidence issues apologize. They apologize for the things they do and the things they don’t do. Go to another extreme and don’t apologize for a single thing all week to experience the other spectrum and expand your repertoire of behavior. Self-doubt’s favorite food is someone who takes no stance for themselves, who is defenseless and feels awful. Apologize once when you are in the wrong, don’t give it a long leash, and move on.

92. Give Compliments

Do you remember the last time someone complimented your looks or behavior? Remember that feeling of being on top? Self-confidence relies on your self-image to function. If you’re feeling down about yourself, compliment someone else’s looks or behaviors. Making someone else feel confident will inspire your own confidence to compliment more, and they may also compliment you in return. Win-win.

93. Take Compliments Well

There are infinite ways to botch someone’s compliment. The best way is to belittle yourself or to correct the person who complimented you. You can also go on and on about the deep ways their compliment is inaccurate. But you are a confidence builder! You won’t fall into this cycle of self-defeat. Instead, you’ll genuinely thank them, compliment them back, and avoid drawing attention to details outside their immediate observation.

Social Context

It’s surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you’re not comfortable within yourself, you can’t be comfortable with others.Sidney J. Harris

94. Find Your Confidence Idol

We’ve already recommended modelling someone who’s at your same confidence level. It can also help to have an ideal person in mind. Think of a person in your life or a personal hero who embodies exactly the kind of confidence you’d like to have one day. Read about them or study their work. When your own confidence lags from time to time, they’re the paragons you can look to for advice.

95. Keep a Great Support Network

We’ve said over and over that self-confidence is an internal state. But that doesn’t mean you should neglect the family, friends, and mentors in your life who can give you positive feedback and unconditional regard. The self-confidence road can be lonely at times, so connect with others who are striving for a similar goal as yours. Ask your social network to help keep you accountable on your journey toward self-confidence.

96. Volunteer

Helping others is one of the greatest, yet obscure ways to build confidence. If you’re to build yourself up, aren’t you suppose to just focus on yourself? Volunteering does several things for your self-confidence. First, it connects you with other people in ways you normally wouldn’t connect in everyday life. This means you can focus on new mastery goals and self-confidence tips. And having a sense of purpose and community helps put your personal efforts into a greater context. You get to see the fruits of your labor positively affect the lives of other people.

97. Limit Negative Social Comparisons

You compare yourself to other people, both physically and cognitively because you’re human. Sonja Lyubomirsky’s research shows that unhappy individuals are sensitive to social comparison. If you already lack self-confidence, social comparisons increase feelings of guilt, stress, envy, and defensiveness. It’s best to focus on your own personal progress and achievements as you start your self-confidence adventure. I call this a “self-to-self comparison”.

98. Break Up With People Who Bring You Down

Nobody likes a killjoy. If someone in your life, family or friend, treats your efforts to better yourself as anything but a good thing, you don’t need to stomach their criticism and negativity. Confronting negative feedback is part of self-confidence. You must also draw the line with people who have no support for you in the slightest. Keeping contact with them will poison your progress. Be confident enough to erase their influence from your life by breaking up the relationship.

99. Follow God’s Word

Complete courage was void in my life despite following a lot of the tips above. That is until 2016, when I accepted Christ then followed his Word. He is the “meta” source of courage that surpasses fear, anxiety, worry, life, and death. When I choose to follow his Word, I know He is beside me.

⁶ Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” ⁷Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. ⁸The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.Deuteronomy 31:6-8

I ended a long-term relationship when I accepted Christ because He was not first in my life by being in the relationship. Praying for courage while in pain, I flipped open the Bible and was taken straight to the story of King Asa where the Lord re-affirms his supply of courage when His word is followed. You have nothing to fear when your footsteps travel along the path Christ has before you. With this as the foundation, I use as much as I can in this guide to build confidence. These gifts and abilities have been given to us.

100. Encourage Other People

Once you get into a self-confidence groove, help others who are in the position you found yourself recently. Pass on your knowledge and expertise to someone else who wants to improve their self-confidence, befriend them, and at the same time keep the fundamentals fresh in your own mind. I learned a lot writing this guide for you. Teaching anything is a sure sign that you’ve learned it, so share your self-confidence wealth with other confidence-building travelers.

For everything you need to develop people skills for a great life, especially if you’re shy, I suggest you get my Big Talk course.

Human ability to understand the meaning of body language has been vital to survival. The earliest cavemen needed to know if others were friends or a threat, and reading their non-verbal cues quickly helped them decide. One Princeton study found it takes 100 milliseconds to form a first impression.

Body language extends beyond threat detection. It is human nature to protect ourselves. This often means masking our true feelings and intentions. Decoding these intentions helps you to recognize when a potential date is interested in you, a work relationship is going badly, or someone tries to take advantage of you. It won’t hurt as a party trick, either.

Everybody has the ability to read body language. If you’ve ever “known” someone wasn’t really interested in you, you picked up on their body language. By learning more about the 30,000+ unconscious cues we give off, you can seem to read minds.

Body language goes both ways. You can learn to interpret another person’s gestures while others read your feelings and intentions, too. Be aware of this so you can match your body language to your intentions like to emphasize honesty and reduce cues of deception.

Charles Darwin claimed there are six genetically inherited facial expressions: happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, and anger. Later research has confirmed these expressions are used and recognized all over the world. Spot each facial expression in yours truly:

Can’t figure out the last one? That’s a blend of disgust, fear, and surprise about my inability to pull a good sad face. You know what sadness looks like anyway so you get the point!

How do you make sense of more complex emotions or states of thinking? Or maybe you want to polish up on how to read body language. Memorizing body positions and gestures is not enough to know what someone feels; sometimes, a movement is not a true signal, but a random gesture. To really hone your body language skills, you’ll need to apply the following 4 C’s to what you learn.

1. Context

Our eyes move in different directions depending on the part of our brain we are accessing. We look right for constructed images (up and right for visual, right for auditory and down and right for kinesthetic) and left for remembered images (and again, up/left for visual, left for auditory, down/left for kinesthetic).

To test this, ask a friend a question like “What is the second line of your favorite song?” (they should look to the left) or “What would I look like if I were a woman/man?” (up and right). If they remember something, they’ll usually look left, while their eyes flit to the right for imagination.

We don’t live in a vacuum, and we are constantly affected by our environment. Think about what’s happening around the non-verbal signal before jumping to conclusions.

Does that mean someone’s lying whenever they look right? It depends on many things; one of them is context. In a courtroom, glancing left could be a sign of lying. But what if the jury’s on the left, and the accused is nervously gauging their reaction? Are they always looking left, or was it only in answer to a specific question? You can already see how an environment can be manufactured to make someone look more guilty than their natural self would create.

Say you talk to someone and they avoid eye contact, glance at their phone and fold their arms. You assume they are bored, but it isn’t enough to know “Signal A=B”. We don’t live in a vacuum, and we are constantly affected by our environment. Think about what’s happening around the non-verbal signal before jumping to a conclusion.

Firstly, what is the conversation about? Did the other person suddenly shift their body language when a certain topic came up? It might be the subject making them uncomfortable. Try changing the topic then watch what happens.

Secondly, look at your environment. Crossed arms are a sign of defensiveness that creates a barrier, but it might be freezing cold, and they’re trying to keep warm. Look at all explanations. Maybe their ex just walked in or they have bad memories of this place.

Finally, think what you know about this person. Maybe they’re checking their phone because they’re expecting some important news, they received a message that’s set them on edge, or they had a stressful day and haven’t disconnected from it yet.

Understanding context will save you from embarrassment. Imagine you’re talking to an attractive man or woman. From the way they orient their body toward you, you assume they’re flirting. Often, when a woman crosses her legs toward you, she is interested in you. Leaning in and shifting their body to face you are all signs of interest.

Look at the context to get meaning from body language. On a date, parts of the person’s body towards you are good indicators of attraction, but there are other situations where people will open up their posture to you; therapists, interviewers, and sales people know how to do this.

Never underestimate the importance of context. The way that somebody behaves at work, with their friends and on a date is very different. The environment and a person’s mood have a huge effect on how they behave. The same rules don’t apply for every situation.

2. Clusters

You always give off dozens of body language signals. After studying a body language book, it is tempting to hone in on one thing, e.g. the way they touch their nose (which can indicate lying) or your upper arm (which can indicate attraction). By doing this, you ignore the other signals that people give off.

Nothing exists in isolation. The word “bat” takes on a different meaning when talking about animals, or about baseball. If a friend rubs her eyes, you might decide she is bored. Look at the whole picture and you might also notice she yawns and presses her temples; she is just very tired.

Say she rubs her eyes, avoids eye contact, crosses her arms defensively, and pouts, you can put the pieces together and realize she is upset. Reading your friend’s feelings will improve your relationship. You can ask her if she is OK, or if she would like a coffee.

Look for three to five pieces of behavior that go together before making an assumption. A common sign of female flirting is eye contact, smiling, casually touching your arm, playing with her hair and even exposing her wrists (showing vulnerability). Seeing just one of these signals isn’t enough to deduce she is flirting with you.

Note how much a cluster of behavior deviates from that person’s normal behavior. Your coworker may stumble over their words, rapidly move their eyes around, hunch their shoulders, and speak quietly. They might be lying or afraid, but if they always behave this way, chances are they are just a nervous person.

When you notice one piece of body language, ask yourself for every possible explanation. Perhaps that girl smiled at you because she is a smiley person, and she crossed her legs to point away from you because she feels more physically comfortable that way. Wait for several arrows to point to the same thing before making your deductions.

3. Congruence

Imagine a man stops you on the street and tells you about the wonders of the product he is selling. His words are designed to win you over, but a glance at his body language tells you that he is not to be trusted. Are his words in line with his actions?

When words and actions tell the same story, they are congruent. People usually avoid eye contact when lying, blink more than usual, and get nervous. When people tell the truth, they often gesture with palms up. The motion is a sign they have nothing to hide. A story might sound convincing while body language reveals the truth. Robert Phipps has a good quick video on how to spot a liar:

You get a true signal when someone’s words, tone of voice, and body language are in harmony. When your girlfriend says “I’m fine, honestly!” while crossing her arms and turning her body away from you, you pick up an incongruent signal.

Know how your body betrays your true intentions to work on matching it with your words. If you try to convince a potential employer that you are confident in your work, make sure your body language matches what you say. I’ve found creating video is a good form of self-analysis to increase awareness of your body language.

Which of these men would you believe when he said “I’m confident that I can take on new challenges”?

An open posture, leaning back a little and taking up a lot of space indicates confidence, while hunching your shoulders, creating a physical barrier (with arms, legs or items) and taking us as little space as possible indicate the opposite.

4. Culture

You meet a man who touches you while speaking to you. It isn’t completely inappropriate touching; he just casually brushes your arm, grabs onto you when he laughs, and sits very closely to you.

Physical contact is usually a sign of attraction. The meaning of each touch varies across cultures. People from New York or London need a lot of personal space, while Middle Eastern or South American cultures naturally touch as a sign of friendship. To them, your reluctance to make physical contact might seem cold and unfriendly.

When someone’s words, tone of voice and body language are in harmony, you get a true signal.

It is more and more important to understand the way gestures vary from culture to culture. While nodding your head up and down normally means “yes”, for Eskimos and Belgians it actually means “no” (while shaking your head from side to side means “yes”.)

Learn the body language patterns of the cultures you encounter. In Western society, eye contact shows interest, respect, and confidence. Don’t assume that a lack of eye contact always shows shyness or rudeness. In several Asian, African or Latin American cultures, extended eye contact is seen as threatening and uncomfortable.

Understand how the meaning of a message can vary in cultures. In America, the A-OK sign (a circle with your thumb and index finger) is used to signal that everything is OK. In the Middle East, Latin America or Germany, this is a rude gesture. The reverse “peace” sign (holding up two fingers with the back of the hand facing away from you) is as bad as giving someone “the finger” in the U.K.

Reading body language is more complicated than memorizing a series of signals. Everything from a person’s upbringing and personality, to their current mood and the environment you are in, will influence what their body tells you. By looking at the bigger picture and using the 4 C’s to body language, you will soon learn to tell what is really on someone’s mind.

How do you feel? Probably crushed. Anger and confusion pulse through you. You wonder what the person who got the job has that you don’t – perhaps they interviewed better than you, they had more experience, or perhaps you did something horribly wrong. You might respond with venom. “I never really wanted that job, anyway.” Or you mind find yourself feeling depressed and de-motivated…if you can’t even get a job you pour your heart into, what hope is there for your future?

Change the scenario to dating or sales and the same pain plays out. Rejection is painful in its many forms. A romantic partner has probably left you, or you didn’t get a job. Less obvious situations can trigger feelings of rejection; a friend cancelling on your dinner date at the last minute, a store clerk who doesn’t return your smile, the party you weren’t invited to. Rejection can sting.

Rejection is About Shame

John Bradshaw in his book Healing the Shame That Binds You, argues that we all carry around the idea that we are inherently flawed and inferior. He calls it a sense of shame. The shame can perpetuate by retaining a burden of sin in religion and the media giving us ideals that are almost impossible to live up to. Rejection stabs at our core, because we are social beings, and by our nature we obsess with what people think about us.

You learned about the world around you by asking other people when you were a child. If your teacher pointed to a new object and told you it was rhinoceros, then that’s what it was. Our knowledge about ourselves mostly comes from other people. We “learn” we are great or inferior based on how others treat us. Rejection tells us what we fear on the inside: we are flawed, defective, and unlovable.

Emotions are a form of energy in motion. They signal us of a loss, a threat or a satiation. Sadness is about losing something we cherish. Anger and fear are signal of actual or impending threats to our well-being. Joy signals that we are fulfilled and satisfied. Whenever a child is shamed through some form of abandonment, feelings of anger, hurt and sadness arise. Since shame-based parents are shame bound in all their emotions, they cannot tolerate their children’s emotions. Therefore, they shame their children’s emotions. When their emotions are shamed, children numb out, so they don’t feel their emotions.John Bradshaw

Rejection is inevitable. It is impossible to always get exactly what you want, for everybody to behave exactly as you want them to. What can you do to stop yourself from spiraling into a pit of despair every time a potential lover turns you down or a new job prospect chooses another client over you?

Did you know that J. K. Rowling had her Harry Potter books rejected by twelve publishers before they hit the big-time? 302 companies allegedly turned down Walt Disney for funding before getting it for Disney World. Over a thousand restaurant owners rejected Colonel Sanders’ fried chicken recipe.

How different would things be if these people stopped at the first hurdle, and let rejection stop them from trying again? Their experiences show that it is not about what happens to you, but about how you respond to rejection.

There are practical steps you can take for improvement to decrease your chances of being rejected such as taking care of your appearance, learning interview or flirting skills, and building a good résumé. The most powerful tool for handling rejection is your mind. By changing the way you look at rejection, you free yourself from the pain it usually brings.

Here are the powerful ways to handle rejection:

See the Experience as a Learning Opportunity

You poured your heart and soul into that relationship, and broke up. The easy solution is to feel sorry for yourself, to wonder why you just can’t keep a great relationship, or to feel angry that the ex couldn’t see what a great asset you’d be.

See it as an opportunity to learn something instead of viewing the rejection as a negative event. You’re on the right track when you replay moments of conflict and wonder what you did wrong. Keep it realistic. Think about what you could have done better instead of thinking of what “messed things up”.

For a job interview, ask the interviewer what advice they can give you for the future. Some companies are busy and don’t have the time to answer such queries. You might receive useful feedback about what would have helped your interview.

Imagine a world that never rejected you. What would you learn about yourself?

Imagine a world that never rejected you. What would you learn about yourself? Not much! Go into a situation ready to do your best with an openness to learn instead of letting your ego take a massive blow every time you hear a “no”.

This reframe is effective. Think of it as trial and error toward your formula for success rather than “I’m putting myself out there”. If you don’t get the job, look at what you can do better next time. If you do get the job, note down what helped you. I encourage you to learn more about NLP presuppositions and get Mind-Lines for a healthy perspective on anything.

Differentiate between rejections you had control over, and rejection that was inevitable. If you propose to a married woman on your first date or ask for a job at a firm that isn’t hiring, then the rejection is a result of circumstance, not your approach. For those things you can control, think about what you can learn from this rejection, and don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.

Get Over Perfectionism

When perfectionism is driving…Shame is always riding shotgun.Brene’ Brown, author of Rising Strong

If you’re the kind of person who spends hours getting things “just right”, it can be really hard to accept negative feedback. Imagine you’ve spend hours getting ready to go out, only to be rejected by every woman at the bar.

What’s going on? Surely you look amazing…the problem must be theirs. You tell yourself these women must all be blind, or frigid, if they can’t see how amazing you are. This kind of thinking can lead you to ignore rejection and focus on bitter, angry thoughts toward the people who rejected you.

Be careful of thoughts like “They should recognize how great a catch I am” or “It’s their fault they can’t see what I great lover I’d make”. This takes away your power to do something, and leaves the judgement in the hands of others. Nobody is perfect, and you are no exception.

Once you let go of the idea of perfection, you can start to accept criticism and rejection a little more. Rather than every woman in the bar being blind to your awesomeness, consider that you might need to re-evaluate the way you approach them.

Good writers know the danger of perfectionism. An effective way to write a book loved by Timothy Ferriss, author of three bestsellers on business and self-optimization, is to deliver sections of a book to various people early on in the process. That way feedback is given early to determine what should be edited. Any big project can be broken into small runs with some aspect of feedback to direct future actions, rather than one big delivery at the end that can setup the project for rejection because no one likes it.

Look Out for Faulty Attributions

We don’t always think clearly when we reel from the pain of rejection. Rejection can lead to illogical thoughts that drag us deeper down into depression and self-pity.

Imagine you have been on two dates with a new girl. You thought things were going well, but she cancels your third date without warning and you don’t hear from her again. Do you immediately think, “Well, she’s probably very busy. Besides, I might have put her off with all that talk about psychology.”

Psychologists found that people who make global, stable, and internal attributions are more likely to be depressed…

Not everybody is this logical. How often have you ended up thinking “I’m so unlovable! Nobody will ever want to be with me because I’m so boring/stupid/ugly. Why do chicks always reject me? I’m so useless. No wonder my friends never want to see me!”

As humans, we naturally seek order from chaos. We try to find patterns in everything, so we look at our rejection to date and imagine the same will happen in the future.

Attribution theory looks at how the way we do this affects our levels of happiness. When you imagine one rejection means nobody will ever want you, ever, you are making an unrealistic attribution. You assume one time = always; this is known as stable attribution.

What’s worse, you decide you must possess a rainbow of negative qualities that caused the rejection, and it is your own fault (internal attribution). You might start thinking of all the other aspects of your life in which you’ve been rejected (global attribution).

Psychologists found that people who make global, stable, and internal attributions are more likely to be depressed than those who use the opposite attributions. Those who realize the rejection only applies to the current situation (e.g. this one chick), there are factors beyond their own control, and this particular example is only relevant to the dating scene, are much likelier to be happy.

In moments of self-pity, you will only remember experiences that back up your theory of rejection and ignore any experiences of acceptance. This is known as confirmation bias: we selectively recall information that suits us at the time.

When you find yourself thinking like this, ask yourself what evidence you have that the same thing will happen in the future. Look at all the possible reasons you were turned down. Ask yourself whether it is logical to extend rejection in one sphere (dating) to another (friendship or jobs). Recognizing your brain’s thought patterns will help you to change them.

See the Doors Rejection Can Open

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior).John Bradshaw

The first experience of major rejection can hurt if we fail to feel a reliable source of love. Perhaps your mother refused to hug you, a classmate didn’t let you join in their games, or a teacher gave you a bad grade. You learn that being turned down is bad. From then you likely tout rejection as a negative experience. Rejection is seen as something to avoid and suffer through.

Imagine you are strongly attracted to one of your friends. One day, you tell them how you feel. Your friend is surprised, and kindly says their feelings for you are platonic. You may feel awful. You put your heart on the line then were shot down.

Your friend gets with someone and, and two years later they get married. However, things don’t go as you expected. After only a few months, it seems there’s trouble in paradise – it turns out your friend is very jealous and possessive when in a relationship (a trait you can’t stand).

Soon after, you meet somebody else. They’re everything you ever wanted in a partner. You wonder why you ever felt so torn up after being rejected by your friend, and you realize your life would be very different if they hadn’t rejected you.

Rejection can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. In this scenario, without it you wouldn’t have met your wonderful new partner and you might be trying to handle your friend’s romantic jealousy. While the sting of rejection can feel bad in the short-term, realize in the long-term, it might be much better for you.

Think about the new possibilities that lie ahead of you following rejection. Move on from what has happened with a focus on what you can do now. One door may have closed, but a hundred doors are waiting for you. You are free to approach anybody else when split from a potential lover, as being turned down for a job means a wealth of new doors are waiting for you to knock.

Seek Rejection

When you hear the word “NO”, you may shut down. It can feel like a door slamming in our face. Imagine you are trying to win a new client for your business. After wining and dining them and giving your best sales pitch, they still say no. Exhausted, you feel like giving up.

Motivational speakers Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz argue that we think about the word “no” in the wrong way. Instead of setting goals for how many “yes” answers we receive, they say we should aim for a specific number of “no” responses. Not surprisingly, their website is GoForNo.com.

If you tell yourself you will get three “yes” responses in one week, you will probably stop once you have them. If, instead, you tell yourself you won’t stop until you have received two hundred “no” responses, then two things happen:

1. You increase the chances of hearing a yes.
2. You come to think of “no” as something you want to hear.

Instead of panicking before a potential rejection, you anticipate it, and even feel the same as you would from a “yes”.

Don’t Take it Personally

You’re at a party and don’t know many people. You take a deep breath then approach a group of strangers. They smile and say hello, but you can tell that they don’t want to talk to you. After a few minutes, they make excuses and go their separate ways.

A thousand scenarios play through your head. They’re going to regroup, away from you. They didn’t like you. Perhaps you weren’t charming enough, you left a bad first impression, or your energy in entering the conversation was too below theirs. It might be that your appearance put them off. You talk about it with friends later on and they give you bad advice of “just be yourself“.

Rejection can feel personal. It attacks every part of you. To you, these people were not just walking away from a stranger at a party, but from everything that makes you.

Think about it from the other people’s perspective. Perhaps they didn’t know what to do. They might have been in the middle of a personal discussion, which they didn’t want anyone else to hear. To them, you were a random person they knew nothing about.

When you put your soul into something (like summoning the courage to say hello) and lack the lessons in this article, you can feel your very core is rejected. Again, look at things from the other people’s perspective. A man who turns you down for a date might still be in love with his ex. A company who fails to get back to you might be swamped from identical mail.

It might help to think about the times you have rejected others. Have you accepted every offer of a date or had a long conversation with everyone that approached you? Have you bought something from each salesperson that stopped you on the street?

We reject people all the time, whether it’s ignoring the homeless person begging for change or forgetting to reply to a text message. It can hurt being on that side too! Let it be a lesson of compassion.

Giving and receiving rejection is a natural part of life. The most empowering thing you can do is see you have a choice in how you respond to rejection.

I get it – once having a social anxiety disorder own me years ago. It’s a weird experience. To help I made a videographic of surprising facts about anxiety disorders. You might get stunned by the celebrities who suffer from anxiety, symptoms of anxiety, and ways to deal with the disorder.

Watch the Video:

See the Infographic:

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1. Quotes to tweet

1. Anxiety disorders are in the top 10 reasons for disability in nearly all World regions: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
2. 36% of people with social anxiety disorder experience symptoms for 10 years before seeking help: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
3. Anxiety doesn’t limit you – only your choice can: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
4. Feeling good is not a condition of living good: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
5. Develop skills to perform well in situations you are anxious over. Competence leads to confidence: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  
6. You can feel anxious because you care. Anxiety is normal so be with it: https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder via @towerofpower  

2. Embed the anxiety disorder image on your site (copy code below):

[raw]<a href=”https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder”><div style=”margin:auto”><img src=”https://www.towerofpower.com.au/images/infographic/anxiety-disorder.jpg” title=”Anxiety disorder infographic” alt=”Anxiety disorder infographic” style=”border:0″ / ></a></div><p>The infographic was created by the <a href=”https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder”>Tower of Power</a>.</p>[/raw]

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[raw]<iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/eoKtz8IoROE” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe><p>The infographic was created by the <a href=”https://www.towerofpower.com.au/anxiety-disorder”>Tower of Power</a>.</p>[/raw]

Each of these unique individuals have impacted my life in some way through what they teach. I’m excited for them to reveal their best tips right here.

Notice similar answers because what is shared clearly matters. Notice different answers because you learn from various perspectives. Then change your behavior otherwise what you learned is not learned.

Leil Lowndes

About: Leil is an internationally recognized expert on dating and conversation skills. She’s written many books on these topics including How to Talk to Anyone, How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You, and How to Instantly Connect with Anyone. Larry King with Leil’s advice said, “You’ll not only break the ice, you’ll melt it away with your new skills.” I love what she teaches because it’s simple, practical, and effective – it’s what I used to become more sociable.

Follow @Leil_Lowndes

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

You’ve asked an important and multifaceted question, Joshua. I am afraid that, thanks to Facebook and other social media sites, the word “friend” has taken on a new connotation. Unfortunately, other than words which suggest a romantic connection, no word seems to be replacing what people, of my generation at least, think of as a “friend” — someone you know well and who knows you, someone you’ve spent a good amount of time with, someone you would help in time of need and someone that you could depend on. Younger people have much less time to establish these relationships because they primarily know that person in two dimensions – literally (on the computer screen.)

Having grown up with these two dimensional relationships, they are inexperienced at forming deep friendships and don’t quite know how to go about it. Lack of real face-to-face human contact seems to be, in my experience, one of the causes of social anxiety.

I agree, there are forums, groups, and guides to help. But reading something on a website is not the same as experiencing it. And “friendship groups” and seminars which are intended specifically for that purpose are also not “real life.”

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

ABSOLUTELY! It is often difficult but it is a crucial skill and, seriously, so easy once you get the hang of it. At gatherings, I make it a habit to look for someone standing alone, approach them, and say simply “Hi, my name is Leil. And yours?” Then follow up with an open-ended question, something like “what brings you here?” Or “how do you know the host?”

So simple, but it works almost every time.

Q3. What’s a common misconception about making friends?

I would love to hear you your answer on this one Joshua. What misconceptions do you feel exist?

Josh: That you have to be this iconic, interesting, and impressive person to befriend others. Such expectations put what you think your imagined self needs to be to make friends, on an elusive pedestal, which makes you anxious. Yes, you should learn how to be interesting and impress others because there’s a skill set to make friends. Friendship has existed since the beginning of time with people who had no knowledge of complex social skills (useful for fine-tuning relationships).

There’s an “effective minimal dose” of abilities you need to make friends. The best one coming from a question: “How can I be friend right now to this person?”

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

…every time you avoid a social situation successfully, you get a short lived ‘high’ that can be addictive. So avoid avoiding.

For those of us who have suffered clinical depression (I have,) “depression” is a horrific mental condition which needs counseling and medication. Feeling in the dumps and lonely is also excruciating and I think that’s what you’re talking about.

My two answers to this are “force yourself to get out there and mingle.” And “fake it till you make it.” As I said in my book “Goodbye to Shy, “every time you avoid a social situation successfully, you get a short lived “high” that can be addictive. So avoid avoiding!

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

When talking with someone, keep things out of your hands so that you can have “open body language” with nothing between you. I liken it to the Chinese feng shui which means arranging a room so people come into it comfortably. With open body language, people can approach it more comfortably.

You can also stand a tad closer to someone because we stand closer to people like and farther from those we don’t. However, if he/she steps back, don’t move in. That means you have arrived at their comfortable body space.

And we both deeply know how crucial good eye contact is. (In Asian societies, as you know, it differs.)

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

Wow, I guess the short answer is, again, “fake it till you make it.”

The reason I am so passionate about helping you become a more confident and charismatic communicator is because I know the anguish of not being one. I first became obsessed with communicating when I entered first grade. I was so shy that I clammed up whenever I talked with teachers or other children. My severe shyness, or “social anxiety disorder,” lasted through college and beyond. (Attending an all girl’s high school and university didn’t help much especially when it came to talking to guys!)

About the time I graduated, my mother had a stroke so I came home to care for her and became an elementary school English teacher. I loved the kids but didn’t do much communicating with people over the age of 14! Sadly, my love-life was non-existent.

When Mama died six years later, I decided that at the end of the school year, I was going to leave teaching and, to cure myself of shyness, only work in jobs which put me in constant touch with a wide variety of individuals.

My first job after teaching was extreme immersion in interacting with people! I became a flight attendant for the now defunct Pan American World Airways. Traveling around the world meeting people from every country was a great help, and fabulous fun. I credit airplanes full of people for giving me a lot of the “people skills” I had so desperately craved. But it wasn’t a job I wanted to do forever.

Still craving to be a better communicator, I decided to try something very scary—performing in front of people. Much to my total amazement, I landed a starring role in a Broadway show! But it totally bombed due to my lame performance.

After that, I’d had enough of acting and, craving more travel and connection with people, I became a Cruise Director. Making the same stupid jokes for hundreds of new passengers every week on a cruise ship was the final cure! I could officially say my shyness was a thing of the past.

I then became substitute host on New York’s #1 late night talk show and wrote my first book on communication skills. That led to my second current profession and passion, sharing my techniques with the public as a professional speaker.

Now, every time my audience applauds, a poignant image of that shy little girl floods me.

Every day we can thank whatever God we worship for living in a country and in the times when anything is possible for anyone with a passion.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

Well, you’ve heard the first one twice now. And the second, I alluded to earlier:

Avoid avoiding at all costs.Leil Lowndes

Nick Savoy

About: Nick is President and Program Leader of Love Systems. He’s been on Dr Phil and The Tyra Banks show. I first discovered Nick after he rebuilt the primary company mentioned in New York Bestseller The Game. A lot of what he teaches took me away from being unable to talk to women.

Follow @nicksavoy

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

Clearly there’s a problem. If it were very easy for everyone to have the social life and dating life that they wanted, then there would be no need for Love Systems. But clearly there is, and every day we turn guys who are unhappy or frustrated or settling into men who have the dating and social life that they deserve.

As for the WHY our world is so screwed up – that’s probably a much longer conversation. Every generation complains about the one after them. I think there’s something more fundamental going on here – that our instincts, biology, and deep-rooted culture are not designed for the modern world.

Human biology has not changed much in the last 5000 years, but human society has changed a lot. Our instincts about how to connect with people and how to date are designed for a world where we live in tribes and no one we deal with on a day-to-day basis is a stranger. I wrote about this mismatch in my book Magic Bullets, and why men need to ignore their instincts sometimes if they want to date quality women.

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

Of course. Many Love Systems clients have gotten married to women they approached in public during or after one of our programs. The easiest way to do it is have a default go-to “opener”, understand the secrets of body language (as it affects attraction), and to know where to go next. Usually within the first hour of a Love Systems bootcamp, we have men approaching women successfully.

(Nick opted to not answer the third question.)

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

Taking action, no matter how small, builds momentum… do something.

Remember Lao Tzu “Every journey begins with a single step”. Taking action, no matter how small, builds momentum. The worst thing you can do is let negative thoughts bounce around in your head without addressing them. Get a gym membership, sign up for a Love Systems program, or call some old friends – do something. Action is valuable in itself.

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

That depends on what your body language is like now. There’s no one-size-fits all model – when we got two of the world’s biggest experts in body language and social dynamics together, the end result filled 5 DVDs (update: no longer available).

The Beyond Words DVD course has a ton of insights. One that comes immediately to mind is when Derek Cajun said to “move like you’re moving underwater”. It’s amazing what slowing things down does to your presence.

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

To stop making excuses and to start taking action. I wasted five years messing around before I got on the right track.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

I gave you some Lao Tzu earlier, and his stuff is full of great insight. But I’ll go in the other direction for this one, to the Rocky Horror Picture Show:

Don’t dream it; be it.

Henrik Edberg

About: Henrik lives on the West-coast of Sweden and for the past 7 years he has written about improving social skills and happiness on The Positivity Blog. He teaches how to improve your people skills in the Smart Social Skills Course. Check out his post on 10 conversation mistakes for a sample of his solid advice.

Follow @positivityblog

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

I haven’t done any research into how social skills development has changed over the past decade or two. But one big thing that has happened since I was a teenager (I’m 33 now) is:

It has become easier today than ever before to not confront your own comfort zone…

How much more people interact from a distance. Like online and via cell phones. This does on one hand give people the opportunity to get to know people far away in the world or more easily find others with the same perhaps narrow passion that they have. And the internet does of course make it very easy to find really helpful information quickly that someone in the 1980s might have had a very hard time to get a hold of.

But on the other hand I think that communicating in this distant way and how easy it has become to do so can have a negative impact on people’s social improvement. It has become easier today than ever before to not confront your own comfort zone when it comes to shyness and social skills for example. And that can have a negative impact.

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

Sure, I think so. One way to do that is to simply comment on something in the environment.

Like what kind of cake he or she recommends if you are trying to pick something out in a café.

Q3. What’s a common misconception about making friends?

That you should try to impress them and be as interesting or cool as possible.

Being genuinely interested in them instead tends to work better in my experience and if there is a good connection then they will reciprocate and get interested in you too.

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

To take one small step after another and to not take failure or a stumble too harshly and as a sign that the world is ending. But to get up on your feet again and keep going, step by small step.

By taking action in this way on improving your conversational skills, listening skills and self-esteem you can over time make a huge positive change in your own relationships and life.

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

To smile more. A simple smile will relax you and help you to reconnect with positive feelings.

And by doing so the person you are talking to will be more relaxed too and positive towards you from the first minute you meet.

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

I used to be quite self-conscious about what to say and well, about just anything in a conversation. I spent too much time in my own head over-analyzing what I should say, what someone said, how I looked, what might happen next and so on.

A great tip and habit I learned that helped me with this was to be more mindful. To be in the present moment fully instead of off somewhere in my head while in a conversation.

A good way to apply mindfulness practically in social situations is to slow down and to focus on your breathing before you step into a meeting or a date.

So a few minutes before you go into this situation slow down. Walk slower to the meeting place. Move slower. Even stop for a minute if you like and stand still.

Then breathe. Take a little deeper breaths than usual and make sure you breathe with your belly. Not with your chest (a common problem when people get anxious).

Focus on just your slow in-and-out breaths for a minute or two. This will calm you down, make it easier to think normally and that singular focus can draw you back into this moment again and what is happening outside of your own head.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

I love this one by Mark Twain and think it can be applied to anything you may dream of, including better social skills:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.Mark Twain

Barrie Davenport

About: Barrie is creator of the Simple Self-Confidence course and blogger at Live Bold and Bloom. Her passion is in helping others find their passion after she felt unfulfilled in a PR career of 20 years. I particularly like the angle of her words on topics like how to be beautiful and curing a victim mentality that contribute to self-confidence and a great social life.

Follow @CoachBarrie

Q1. I see a pandemic developing in the past 20 years where children struggle to develop social skills through activities and role models. Young people lack solid friendships because connections are formed based on what is liked and commented on. Intimacy is easily avoided as conversation is substituted for connection. Quantity of relationships is favored over quality. This carries through to teenage years, employment, intimate relationships, and into young adult lives. It’s not all doom as forums, groups, and amazing guides exist at the finger tips of anyone who wants to learn how to build good relationships. What do you think about modern social skills development?

I have mixed feelings about it as you outlined in the question. In my work as an online entrepreneur, the ability to connect with people all of the world through my blogs (Live Bold and Bloom and BarrieDavenport.com) and with social media has been amazing. Not only has it helped my business, but also I’ve made some real friends whom I’ve met in person and remained connected with. It is so much easier to share information, find clients, and create partnerships than it ever was prior to the explosion of the internet.

That said, many of the social skills I learned as a young person seem to be lost or irrelevant to the generations behind me. I had to pick up a phone, get in my car, or write a letter if I wanted to interact with someone. Socializing was a face-to-face activity. And conversation was a skill you had to develop in order to build friendships and survive in the business world. I guess every generation feels wistful about the loss of the “old ways” of doing things.

I think the horse is out of the gate in terms of modern social skills. The internet and smartphones are defining a new way of socializing, whether we like it or not. So the question is, how can we maximize this technology in a way that fosters real relationships? And how can we redefine social etiquette and manners using technology? I think this will evolve in the same way people in the early 20th century had to acclimate to the telephone. Change is inevitable, and we must adapt.

Q2. Is it acceptable to approach people in public for conversation? If so, what’s the easiest way to do it?

Yes it is absolutely acceptable in the right circumstances. You don’t want to interrupt someone who is in conversation or clearly focused on something else. And if you’re good at reading body language, you can generally tell when someone doesn’t want to be approached. But the ability to strike up a conversation with strangers is a sign of self-confidence and sociability.

I think the easiest way to begin always is to start with a smile. It’s the universal icebreaker. And then you can open a conversation with a comment about the event, the weather, a question, or an observation. Or you can simply say, “Hi, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Barrie. It’s very nice to meet you.” Most people are responsive and open to someone who reaches out and makes conversation. I recently wrote a post on this very topic called 30 Conversation Topics to Kickstart Your Speaking Confidence.

Q3. What’s a common misconception about making friends?

I’d say the most common misconception is that all friendships happen spontaneously. Sometimes this is the case, especially when you’re in a situation where you’re around the same people day in and day out (like school or work). But quite often you have to seek out friends and work on building relationships. For a lot of people, this can be intimidating.

Friendships are like gardens. You have to plant the seeds, water them regularly, and pull the weeds before you really enjoy the fruits of a lasting friendship.

Friends don’t fall out of the sky. So if you don’t want to be isolated and lonely, you need to put yourself in situations where you meet new people. You need to strike up conversations, ask questions about the person, and find common interests. You need to reach out to new friends to build rapport and trust. And you need to be an initiator, rather than waiting for the other person to always take the lead in getting together or planning events. Friendships are like gardens. You have to plant the seeds, water them regularly, and pull the weeds before you really enjoy the fruits of a lasting friendship.

Q4. What’s the single biggest thing someone can do to get out of depression and loneliness to high self-esteem and a happy social life?

If someone is clinically depressed, the most important thing they can do first is seek proper treatment with a doctor or therapist. Depression isn’t something to take lightly, and you certainly can’t build self-esteem when you’re depressed. However, if you are simply feeling blue and lonely and somewhat down on yourself, the very best thing to do is take action. Don’t sit around ruminating on how lonely you are or what a bad social life you have. Do something about it. Join a club. Invite people over for a party. Get involved in a volunteer activity. Initiate social interactions and reach out to people. Not only will this improve your social life, but also you will feel more in control of your circumstances which improves self-esteem.

Q5. What’s the simplest body language adjustment someone can make to become better with people?

Look them in the eye. Be truly engaged with them so they feel you are actively listening and interacting. Also, notice when you have weak or defensive body language like crossing your arms, looking away or at your feet, or slumping your shoulders. Body language is the first clue to others about how you are feeling on the inside.

Q6. What’s a piece of wisdom you discovered to help with a struggle in your social life that you wish someone told you earlier? (If you’re willing, share your struggle.)

Don’t use sarcasm when you first meet people. I have a sarcastic sense of humor that some people appreciate and others find off-putting. I’ve learned through experience that using sarcasm with the wrong people can end the relationship before it gets off the ground. Always begin a relationship being straightforward, open, and kind. Save sarcasm for later with those you know enjoy this kind of banter and don’t take offense.

Q7. Have a favorite quote about social skills and personality development? What is it?

You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.Dale Carnegie

Josh: Share in the comments below your answer to one of the questions. We’d all love to hear what you have to say.

I was “undiagnosed” for 7 years. This stopped me getting help and helping myself. I lived believing I was broken, but it turns out you can turn your life around once you know the problem. I hope the test and resources provide guidance to help you.

Here are three notes about the test. Your results are 100% confidential and never stored. The quiz is not intended to replace a one-on-one professional diagnosis. Respond to each question by picking the answer you think is most accurate. Get started with 16 simple questions below!

[quiz=2]

What to do Next

Once you’ve done the social anxiety disorder test above, continue with these three pointers:

1. If the test suggested you have social anxiety or a social anxiety disorder, watch this free video and read this article about the only cure to social anxiety.
2. Get people you care for to take the test. You never know who you will help. Tweet the quiz. Share it by clicking the social media buttons below or emailing the link:

   https://www.towerofpower.com.au/social-anxiety-disorder-test

3. Learn everything you need to confidently talk, make friends, and build a great social life even when you have severe anxiety and am unable to talk to strangers. Check out Big Talk, a special course to get you comfortably making friends with who you want.

Discontent with all of that, he is also a founding father of the U.S.A. – often hailed as “The First American” for his campaigns towards colonial unity. He served as the governor of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Ambassador to France. A pretty full life don’t you say?

On top of it all, Franklin was well-liked for his wit, charming to men and women, high in his diplomatic ability, and constantly working on a kind personality. A man who greatly impacted politics knew how to get people on his side. Franklin was friends with Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Samuel Adams, James Madison, William Keith (the governor of Pennsylvania) and some important European thinkers like Hume and Priestley. He was known to make friends wherever he went, and to keep those friends.

So what can we learn from Benjamin Franklin about making friends? From the age of 20, Franklin set himself 13 virtues to follow, covering many aspects of life. Some of these virtues give good suggestions on how to improve your social life, but his pearls of wisdom don’t stop there. Through his life, Franklin dropped many tips to make friends.

Tip 1: Speak good of people

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

If you think the U.S.A. was founded purely on intelligent, friendly debate, think again. Setting the foundations for a great nation was no easy task. The founding fathers allegedly argued like nobody’s business! John Adams in particular was no big fan of Franklin, commenting, “That I have no friendship for Franklin I avow. That I am incapable of having any with a man of his moral sentiments I avow.”

Franklin, on the other hand, vowed to see the good in people and avoided talking badly about them. He said of John Adams, “He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one…”

When you disagree with someone, it’s tempting to complain about him behind his back. When you hate someone, it’s even more tempting. People filled with venom and spite rarely attract nice friends. The next time you want to drop a negative comment about someone, stop yourself then find something positive to say about them. You’ll be surprised at how people warm to you when they know others would respond with bitterness.

Tip 2: Be nice to enemies

Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.

As a young man, Franklin was quite tactless. With effort, he became so good at handling people that he became a founding father, and even an Ambassador to France. He didn’t do it without ruffling a few feathers – when he started campaigning for American independence, many of his English friends and even his own son turned their backs on him.

Despite this, Franklin remained in contact with “enemies” across the ocean and continued to be sociable whenever possible. His biographer, Isaacson, said, “His most notable trait was a personal magnetism; he attracted people who wanted to help him. Never shy, and always eager to win friends and patrons, he gregariously exploited this charm.” Although he pulled himself up from poverty, he didn’t leave his old friends behind when he made his wealth.

You are bound to meet people you don’t get on with or you dislike. Franklin’s tip to make friends is to be pleasant and polite to everybody. By being a generally nice person, you draw more people to you than if you go around making enemies. Treat everybody with respect, even those who you don’t agree with; you never know what might turn into a friendship.

Tip 3: Honor honesty

Honesty is the best policy.

Franklin printed this quote in his Almanack. When his printing career evolved from apprenticeship to producing the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Poor Richard’s Almanack, Franklin could have done whatever possible to sell papers. Although the temptation loomed, Franklin held a strict policy of not printing any libel or insulting views of foreign governments.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools.

Honesty was an important virtue to him because of his Puritan upbringing and the social benefits it could deliver. He is also quoted as saying, “Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions” and “Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.”

When your thoughts line with your actions and words, you are honest. You don’t have to tell everybody exactly what you think of them, but many people appreciate honesty if you present it in a diplomatic way. Men, I’ve found women appreciate it when you call them out on their dodgy behavior rather than being dishonest through silence.

People can spot fakers. If potential friends find out you’ve lied about something, they distrust you over even frivolous things like repaying a movie ticket that affect your relationship.

Tip 4: Add value to a conversation then employ silence to empower what you say

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Franklin knew how to negotiate. What mattered was the benefits to the parties involved. You could ramble on about a lot of things yet it’d be distilled back to how it affects you and others making the decision.

A second part of this quote suggests minimizing noise. Silence is one of the thirteen virtues Franklin wrote at the age of 20, and swore to live by. Imagine what life was like in his time – the evenings would be quiet without electronic entertainment to fill the silence. With few distractions, important topics could be discussed such as Franklin’s favorite subjects of politics, philosophy, and science.

Maybe some of his acquaintances were fonder of filling the silence with worthless conversation. Franklin was not referring to being completely silent or to avoid all small talk, but to useless, uneducated nonsense rather than adding value to a conversation. In this day and age, the art of quality conversation seems to be fading; we would rather absorb ourselves in our cell phones and laptops than really talk to each other.

Employ the virtue of silence in terms of being fully present in every conversation. Don’t play on your phone or answer text messages when someone else is talking to you – it’s poor social etiquette. Treat every conversation as important, and devote your mind to it. If you want to make friends, develop your conversation topics.

Tip 5: Do not gossip and instead think well of others

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

Another of Franklin’s 13 virtues is sincerity. You already know Franklin was a big fan of honesty, and sincerity is a big part of that. When Franklin was unhappy with somebody, he did not go behind their backs but told them directly. On reading a manuscript for Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, Franklin was upfront about his feelings: “…You strike at the foundations of all religion… I would advise you… not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person.”

When you disapprove of someone’s behavior or opinion, it is tempting to smile and pretend to agree, then later whisper about them behind their back. Being sincere means being honest, meaning what you say, and not gossiping about people behind their backs. Franklin even suggests we think innocently – if you don’t have bitter or judgmental thoughts about someone, you’re less likely to gossip. If you find yourself judging someone’s behavior, see the possibilities from their point of view to build compassion.

Tip 6: Respond positively to criticism

Critics are our friends, they show us our faults.

When John Adams quipped, “His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency”, Franklin could have responded with anger and defensiveness. Instead, he pointed out the good qualities in Adams (see #1) and quipped that critics should be loved because they show our faults.

When somebody criticizes you, the natural reaction is to get defensive, become angry, and retaliate. You easily find yourself in an argument. Instead, listen to what they’re saying and imagine it’s about a third-party.

It’s hard to remove the sting, but sometimes the other person tells you something to help you. Look for the lesson in their message; if someone tells you you’re too quiet, instead of getting angry, think about ways to deal with that knowledge (such as speaking louder, contributing to conversation more, or finding people who appreciate it).

Tip 7: Keep your tranquility over trivial incidents

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Whether dealing with an angry Englishman, finding a beer spilled over him in a bustling tavern, or being held up by a delay; Franklin had plenty of reasons to lose his cool. Whether he did or not is not clear, but another of his 13 virtues was tranquility. He saw plenty of others losing their temper over trivial incidents and decided he would not waste his energy.

When someone cuts past you in line, you stub your toe, or your phone messes up, you might find yourself boiling with anger. But what do people around you think if you swear and curse? Flashes of anger are scary, and potential friends will find it hard to trust someone who gets mad so easily.

Pay no attention to the incident when someone accidentally spits on you when talking, says a rude comment about you, or profusely sneezes. When you feel anger bubble, breathe deeply and count to ten. Ask yourself whether it is worth getting angry at things that happen to everyone or at things beyond your control.

Tip 8: People remember how you make them feel

A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.

In his youth, Franklin was quite tactless. He admitted a fondness for starting arguments for arguments’ sake. During heated political discussions with former English friends, and while arguing with other founding fathers, he learned the hard way that you can’t take back something you say in the heat of the moment.

Leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Franklin also said, “Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” With his razor-sharp wit, he learned to hold back his clever quips. In the heat of an argument, you might think of the perfect put-down. Stop and think about it. While saying what’s on your mind might make you feel better for a moment, people will remember it so think before you speak.

Tip 9: Asking for a favor can build friendship (the Ben Franklin Effect)

He that has once done you a Kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

Franklin in his autobiography explains how he won a rival legislator onto his side in an unusual way – he asked him for a favor. After Franklin thanked the legislator for his compliance by lending Franklin a rare book, he found the guy was suddenly friendly and willing to do more favors for him. They became great friends. This line of thinking was so unique it is dubbed the “Ben Franklin effect”.

We usually think doing favors for others will win them over to us, but Franklin’s advice is to do the opposite. Convince someone to do you a small favor like borrowing their phone to make a call or borrowing a good book they have. Express your gratitude, and from then they’ll be open to doing other favors for you. If you treat this right (i.e. don’t treat them like a servant) you could gain a great friendship.

Tip 10: Let your best friendships develop over time

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

Franklin was known for being friendly, or at least civil, to everybody (#2). We know even after achieving fame and wealth, Franklin didn’t turn his back on his old friends – he still considered himself a printer at heart. You can find tons of letters online that go to show how much effort he put into keeping friendships, but how many people did he consider true, close friends?

When you’re lonely, it’s easy to grab onto the first nice person and try turning them into your best friend. It doesn’t always work that way. You’ll find some people are nice on the surface but no good at being close friends; your best friends will take time to find. It’s also tempting to act like somebody you’re not to get close to someone. Eventually they work out you’re different from the persona you put on.

Tip 11: You must earn a kind word

If you would reap praise you must sow the seeds, gentle words and useful deeds.

Another quote from the Poor Richard’s Almanack; Franklin didn’t expect to be spoken of highly for no reason. As well as his numerous scientific and political achievements, he was a kind and honest friend to many, and it was the combination of personality and achievements that brought him much praise in his time, and continues to do so today.

You can’t expect people to speak highly of you if there’s nothing to compliment. Be nice to people, do “useful” things – not only favors for others, but in your personal life. If people can see you are kind, ambitious, interesting, or fun, they will want to get to know you more. Don’t sit around waiting for people to automatically like you. Work on becoming a great person in your own right, be nice to others, and people will gravitate toward you.

For more tips to make friends, read this free simple guide to make friends and build a social life.

There is a step-by-step method revealed in this guide to easily make friends. People “naturally” great at making friends unknowingly follow it. The difference between you and them is their parents, their teachers, their way of living early in life created these habits. You just have to learn these ways to make friends.

It can be frustrating now, but it no longer has to be hard to make friends. Shy and lonely people have learned how using the below guide. Follow these 5 simple steps and I guarantee within 2 weeks you’ll make new friends.

Step 1. The Effortless Place to Make Friends (How to Easily Make Friends)

A man practices the art of adventure when he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new viewpoints.Wilfred Peterson, author of the 1949 The Art of Getting Along

Draw from two groups of people to make friends:

1. people you already know
2. people you are yet to meet

The first place out of habit we look at when making friends are people we don’t know. That’s a mistake because you’ll discover how to easily make friends with people you see, don’t talk to, or avoid.

List everyone you currently know who could be a friend that you want to befriend. It’s not about getting people to like you, but getting to know people you like.

These people could be classmates, work colleagues, neighbors, acquaintances, friends of people you know, or friends with whom you lost contact. Cousins or friends of siblings are candidates. This is your first list of potential friends. It’s important you write down their names or where you see them (if you don’t know their names) so you can use the advice in this guide.

Next we look at people you’re yet to meet. If you move to a new place and don’t know anyone, your challenge is having no people you know. You need to meet new people.

If you’re lonely, your daily routine stops you meeting new people. You eat breakfast by yourself, go to work to see nobody new, then come home to hangout with yourself. To meet new friends, you have to change your routine. Do you understand? Friends won’t fall from the sky – you have to get out there then make the effort to meet them.

It’s not about getting people to like you, but getting to know people you like.

Meeting new people can be scary yet there are ways to do it. As bonus motivation for you, I’ve found from coaching shy guys, when they use this guide, they often get new exciting work, do activities they’ve wanted for years, and enjoy life more.

What do you mostly do during the day? Do you go to school, have a job, or play a sport? Look at these groups for potential friends.

My favorite method to find potential friends is through hobbies and interests. When I review my life, three quarters of my friends came through this way. Activities like cricket or interest groups like bronies (men who love ponies) are instant sources of friends because of the chat and enjoyment you get from a fun gathering.

What are your hobbies or interests? Also what regular activity would you like to try? Add these interests as reservoirs for friends.

Look for groups in your city. Check out websites like meetup.com, couchsurfing.com or local Facebook groups.

You can also use these free sites to discover what is happening in your area. Events that snag your interest are great places to meet people. Events in your major city cater to new people who want to make friends, meet for a coffee, and chat – that’s easier if you lack the confidence than putting your foot in an existing social circle.

Some people default to bars at night to make new friends. The confidence and friendliness that comes from alcohol often disappears the next day, and you realize your new friend is not who you hoped. Unless you make friends with someone at a bar while each of you are not drunk, the relationship is unlikely to grow. Another problem when making friends at some bars is the loud music that stops good conversation. I don’t recommend bars for new sources of friends.

Step 2. How to Start a Conversation with Common Ground and Already Feel Like Friends

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’C.S. Lewis, Novelist

When you’re shy meeting someone new, it’s hard to think of what to say. Once you discover an interest or experience you have in common, conversation flows a lot easier instead of awkward small-talk. Friends have commonalities whether it be the same school, a fun hobby, or the love of a sport.

Imagine you’ve been invited to a mutual friend’s party, and you don’t know how to start talking to other people. Ask how they know the host or “What brought you to the party?” can work as conversation starters.

Situations where the surroundings naturally break the ice are good for starting conversations when you know nothing about the person. For example, at an art exhibition assume people have opinions about the art, and that your views are something to share. Ask what they think of a certain painting.

Orientation sessions for a new job, training sessions, courses, or parties where others have come alone are all good places to find common ground. You already share being at the event.

Look for little signs of someone’s personality; a shirt with a band name, a wristband for a certain cause, a book in their bag. You might locate a commonality.

Groups and events related an interest or hobby of yours are good to find people who share things with you. You gather for a mutual love whether it be a hobby, writer, political stance, or type of music. You know what you have in common. Ask how long they’ve been a fan or what is their favorite Pokemon card (…Pokemon is cool, man!)

Sometimes you need to talk with the person for a few minutes before you discover what you have in common. A good introduction by a third party should connect you two with a commonality. If nobody is around, touch on various topics until you find something you share. Talk about what you suspect the person is interested in from your observations or intuition – you might have similar jobs, be from the same place, or share an opinion on an important topic.

If nothing strikes you as an obvious conversation starter in a situation where conversation normally flows, bring that to light. Laughing and admitting you can’t think of a thing to say and that you’re awful at small-talk makes for conversation. Your self-deprecating humor is confidence and endearing. Some people will be relieved then admit they feel the same. Your openness alone breaks ice to get another person talking.

Here’s a similar tactic. Not knowing anybody is itself something to talk about, “I don’t know anyone here so I thought I’d come chat.” There’s always something to start a conversation. Always.

For more conversation starters you could ever need, do this exercise I reveal in a video to come up with your own conversation starters and see my massive list of 101 conversation starters.

Step 3. How to Confidently Meet People You Don’t Know

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.Morris West, Australian author of The Clowns of God

Do you think you cannot make friends until you “overcome” anxiety, become confident, and develop an extroverted personality? You don’t need this belief.

Social anxiety is about yourself – you thinking how you come across to others instead of getting involved in the conversation. Try a new perception the next time you meet someone: focus on people you meet (something external). Devote to learning all about another person’s career or background. Not only will your social anxiety just “be” instead of you fighting it, people will warm to you when you show interest.

Let go that you need to be ‘cured’ of anxiety before you can make friends.

Therapists are realizing that labeling social anxiety as a problem then battling it intensifies anxiety. Your effort spent fighting anxiety puts more focus onto it, leading you further into despair.

Feel anxiety without judging it as good or bad. Let go that you need to be “cured” of anxiety before you can make friends. Read the “cure” for social anxiety disorder to learn more about this strategy.

One therapeutic method to help with fear and anxiety is exposure therapy. This process slowly introduces the thing you’re anxious about into your life. Inner confidence comes from competence, so proving to yourself you are capable of talking to people lets you live with anxiety.

Someone with a fear of snakes can start by thinking of a snake for a few seconds before building to looking at a picture of one. Over time, this might bump up to watching a video then looking at a live snake in a zoo. Small steps is reassuring progress.

If you’re anxious about meeting new people, set yourself small actions to follow. Your first step could be to sit in a place full of people, to say hello to your neighbor, or to make eye contact with someone in your class. Day two can be harder; ask a shop assistant how she’s doing, let a salesperson at the mall talk to you. Write a list of goals. Gently push yourself to higher limits.

One technique to help you accept anxiety is to re-name what you fear. Instead of thinking “Oh, no, that’s my social anxiety”, name it something else. Think of it not as a debilitating thing, but as your “fuel” or your “internal Anthony Robbins” that pushes you to do more.

Step 4. Simple Ways to Follow Up – Starting to Build a Social Life

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.Jim Rohn, motivational expert

Unless you contact your new friend, your friendship will die. Your weak friendship is capped by the frequency you run into each other. You need a plan to get contact details then see each other in the near future. Once you talk outside the usual situation, you grow friendship.

If your request to follow up goes like, “We should hang out again sometime. What’s your number?” you’ll get the number then struggle to meet again. After testing particularly with women, I discovered you need a valuable reason to see the person and make a plan then. Everyone loves a fun justification to meetup like a game, festival, or sporting event to hang out. The shared plan gives you reason to get contact details then follow up.

Another “excuse” to see each other again is providing value. Friends give value to one another. Value is distributed in a variety of ways with knowledge, connections, and good times. Read, observe, talk, and teach to build knowledge. Follow this guide and Big Talk to quickly and effortlessly expand your social circle so you can connect friends or play matchmaker. Know how to make others feel happy and yourself feel great.

Look for opportunities, hints, or desires in conversation to meet again. Whiff at the reason to meetup soon, “I’d love to go see that movie.” By the end of the conversation, you can ask, “I want to see the movie. When would you like to see it?”… “Give me your phone number and we can sort out a time.”

Once you talk outside the usual situation, you grow your friendship.

Imagine you’re at a social group for new people in your city. This is a perfect opportunity to keep in contact. Other people are as lonely as you. Ask if they’ve found an interesting restaurant, park, or bar. If so, ask if they’d show you sometime. Be ready to mention an interesting place you’ve heard of and ask them to check it out with you sometime.

You learned how to know of events and groups in your area. Whenever you meet somebody who might be interested, ask if they’ve heard of it. People appreciate being told about what’s going on, and “Have you heard about the zombie walk happening next week? Oh, give me your number, I’ll send you the details when I know!” is an easy way to get in contact.

A phone number exchange is the best way to follow up. It can be scary asking for a person’s phone number, but the worst that could happen is they say no.

Aside from exchanging numbers in conversation, a generic full-back is if you talk about any good books or websites, promise to send them a link to it. Another way to keep in touch today is adding colleagues and classmates on Facebook. Browse their profile for possible conversation topics, send them a private message to spark their interest, and show you’re a person worth meeting before inviting them to an event. Friendships frozen to Facebook die without attention.

Even when you exchange details, you plan a get-together, and the person flakes, try again. Who knows the true reason they flaked. People commit to things without thinking through whether they can make it. Other times a flake can be from the person not feeling comfortable enough with you in conversation before you made the plan. Try steps 1-4 on someone else.

Step 5. How to Grow Your Social Circle

Marge: Are you really going to ignore Grampa for the rest of your life?
Homer: Of course not, Marge. Just for the rest of his life.

The final step of how to easily make friends is to strengthen the relationship. To make a friendship grow, you need to see the person or talk to them every month. Falling out of contact for long periods of time only works in well-established friendships.

Small talk does not cut it for friendship. The conversation needs to move to something deeper, something more meaningful to either of you if you want to connect. Talk about your feelings, opinions, past experiences, and even problems. Ask about theirs too.

Your social circle can grow with a couple of regular friends. Get your friends to invite friends you haven’t met to events. Chances are their friends are similar in personality and interests so you’re more likely to make friends with them compared to others you don’t know.

Some friendships take a year to grow, while others develop in a week. It depends on compatibility. The more people you meet and talk to, the more likely you are to find people you get on with well.

I hope you found this guide to make friends and build a social life helpful. Please share the guide by clicking your favorite social media button below.

I’d love to hear your tips in the comments below.

A well-oiled list of conversation topics ready to roll out is only one part of what matters to have a good conversation – it isn’t your complete solution to make friends and influence people. You can have fun talking about paper to a friend because good conversation is more than topics. Work on listening, positive body language, and your personality seen below (as well as other skills not listed):

Use the conversation subjects you’re about to discover with other conversation skills for the best results! If you’re over the standard enquirying about someone’s weekend, commenting on the weather, and asking “How are you?”, here’s my top list of conversation topics to keep a good conversation going. Some are deep, some are light, and all are real topics you can use that help you come up with your own.

Business Conversation Topics

1. Current News Stories

Eye the latest news stories relating to your industry. Signup to an RSS reader, visit your industry’s best blogs, then add their RSS feed to your reader. You instantly get updated with new articles and can scan topics useful for conversation.

In your RSS reader, you can even setup separate categories to easily monitor sites covering fun topics, international issues (amazing tip for when you’re about to travel overseas!), and client industry news. When it comes to talking about these topics, you impress people as an expert if you reference where the news came from.

2. The Economy

The economy affects business, for good or for bad. Professionals often discuss how the economy is affecting their company. Be careful not to turn the conversation to personal finance; discussing your own money is crude. Read up on stock markets, interest rates, and other factual information.

3. Ask for Advice

Anything from “Can you show me how to use the photocopier?” to “Can you give me some tips on managing the finance department?” gives a co-worker pride. Few resist the call for help. Show you genuinely appreciate their advice by listening, nodding, and thanking. Conversation will flow.

4. Industry Trends

Has your company changed something it does? Companies update their technology, modify a policy, or introduce new fun days at work (well, the lucky ones do). Discuss the pros and cons – comparing to other businesses, e.g. “I don’t like our new company policy on food at desks. What’s your opinion?” “What do you think of parallax web design?” “I developed an app for the new Mozilla platform the other day. It’s surprisingly simple.”

Few resist the call for help.

5. Professional Development

Those who want to develop themselves may read books and attend events to help get ahead. Asking “What are the most influential business/motivational books you’ve ever read?” could lead into a discussion of self-help, famous motivational speakers, and cool habits to develop.

6. Personal History and Goals

It’s the past and present of one’s life. If you want to know someone outside the business setting, ask “How did you get started in the industry?” You learn more about people this way, and get to discussing ambitions, goals, and the person’s past. Prepare to share your story. Giving is as important as taking to keep a good conversation going.

Dinner Conversation Topics

7. The Latest Movies or Books

Nearly everybody watches movies, is into a TV show, or reads books. Ask people for their favorite and what they’re currently into. If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book they mention, ask about it with interest!

8. Travel

Whether you talk to a world traveler or someone who doesn’t have a passport, everyone loves traveling. Ask about their most memorable holiday, compare where you’ve been, tell a funny experience with foreigners, or share where you’d like to go.

9. The Pros/Cons of Their Jobs

Most people can talk about their jobs for hours. Some may tell you how wonderful their current workplace. Even if someone hates their job, they’re usually happy to let off steam about their annoying boss. Start with “What do you like most about your job?” or “How did you get into it?”

When sharing stuff about your job, describe it in a way the person will understand by relating it to their experience. “When I get a call from XYZ supplier, I know it’s not going to be good. They’re like a grumpy customer you see that you want to avoid.”

10. “If the world was about to end…”

A question like “What would you do if the world was going to end in 24 hours?” can bring up some interesting answers. Try it with a large group of people. A less morbid example is: “If you could do anything you wanted for one day, with no consequences, what would you do?”

11. The Celebrity Guest List

A classic question: “If you could invite anyone, alive or dead, to your dinner party, who would it be and why?” This leads to discussions about various people in the public eye; great if you don’t have any mutual friends or interests…yet!

12. Food!

At a dinner party, food is on everyone’s mind. Ask what recipes people like to cook, which cuisines they’ve tried, and what restaurants they recommend. Just don’t unfavorably compare the host’s dinner to something else! It’s good social etiquette.

13. The Olden Days…

Share games you use to play as kids, which TV shows you liked, and the adventures you had. It’s great conversation fuel for people over 20 years old. If someone is hesitant to participate, they may have had a bad childhood so don’t force their input. You can also discuss how different things are now from when you were a child, e.g. “Imagine what it would have been like if we’d all had cell phones! When my mom wanted to find me, she’d…”

Funny Conversation Topics

14. Embarrassing Stories

If you’re with a group of friends, sharing embarrassing stories can cause a lot of laughs. You can compare moments of embarrassment in public, drunken blunders, or dating encounters that went wrong. You can also share stories you’ve heard from other people.

15. The People Around You

Look at the people walking by (great if you’re in public) and try guessing facts about them. You can even say that the person with the most interesting interpretation “wins”, e.g. “Look at that guy run! He’s just remembered his girlfriend left her hair clip on his bed, and his wife’s nearly home!” “I think he left the waffle iron on. Everyone loves waffles.”

16. Crazy Comments by Kids

If you’re with a group of friends who have kids (or you’re all teachers), exchange stories about the funny things your kids say and do. There’s probably always something weird, funny, or scarily smart to share.

17. Worst Dates

Ask your friends about the worst date they’ve ever been on. Make sure you have a couple of funny stories of your own to share (without naming anyone). For more ideas, think of awkward situations to be in, but are now funny. These are great to talk about.

18. “What kind of old person would you like to be?”

An interesting question, bound to bring a smile to people’s faces (it’s unexpected). Although many won’t have thought about it before, they’re sure to have an opinion.

19. Jokes

Yes, you can sit around exchanging the funniest jokes you’ve heard. If you’re into comedy, you can discuss the best comedies or stand-up comedians you’ve seen. Try to learn a couple of their jokes to share.

20. Weird Comparisons

For example – “If you were any animal, which animal would you be?” It sounds childish, but can work with anyone. Get people to explain their choice. In a big group of friends, your friends can tell you which animal you’d be, before switching to the next person.

21. Truth and Lies

More of an ice-breaking game. The idea is that everyone gives three statements about themselves – one is true, and two are lies. The other people have to work out which is true. The more interesting or funny the statements, the better.

Conversation Topics for Dates

22. Their Goals and Dreams

Many people enjoy talking about themselves. Try questions like “What job would you really love to do?” to let your date open up. If you get your date opening up about their dreams and ambitions, while being encouraging and supportive, they will feel relaxed around you and value you as a great listener.

23. The Movie You Just Saw

Works after a cinema date or DVD. Ask what they thought of the movie, compare to similar movies, and ask what kind of movies they normally like.

24. All-time Favorites

“What’s your all-time favorite movie/song/book/food?” This gets your date to open up and feel you are interested. It can also lead to suggestions of follow up dates, e.g. “What, you haven’t seen Grease? I’ll have to show it to you sometime!”

25. Funny Things

Laughter is a sign things are going well (unless it’s at you… even then). Try “What kinds of things really make you laugh?” to find out more and turn the topic to funny things. Goofy questions like “Which creature would you most like to be for the day?” can break the ice with some dates.

26. Passions

“What are you really passionate about?” When people discuss their passions, you see who they really are. This gives you a good idea about your date. They will also be impressed when you talk about your own passions, as this is something you talk about easily that lights you up in an attractive way.

27. Travel Bucket List

“Which five places do you most want to visit?” Great for travelers. Comparing places you’ve been and want to go can spark a lot of conversation, and travel stories can be very attractive – especially if you’ve done something fascinating and you’re a good storyteller.

28. What You’re Looking For

Be careful with this one. If you can charmingly ask your date to describe what they’re looking for in a man/woman, it can go one of two ways. You might realize they’re not right for you, or you might get an insight into what to do. This can also lead to funny stories about bad dates.

Dating tip: This is a time to get to know each other, but it’s best to avoid controversial topics where you might disagree. Keep topics light and fun, but throw some unusual questions in there, as many dates involve the same questions over and over. Take things they mention about their lives and expand on them, e.g. “Oh, you mentioned you went to school in Chicago – what did you study?” This could lead to a discussion about universities, the subject is particular, or the city. Relate their experiences back to yourself, but remember this isn’t all about you looking interesting – people like to feel valued. Be interested in your date’s passions, hobbies, and experiences.

Conversation Topics with Women

29. Hobbies

Ask a woman what her hobbies are to get a better idea of good conversation topics. Let her tell you about a hobby she’s really into, and ask questions about it.

30. Advice

Many women love giving advice and solving problems, although spilling your problems is better on a potential friend rather than a date. Mention an interesting problem a friend has been having – nothing too serious. Annoying bosses, co-workers, or dating disasters are good topics.

31. Hopes and Aspirations

A lot of women have big ambitions these days, and sharing them with supportive friends can make them feel great. Ask your female friends where she sees herself in five years time, or what her ideal life would look like.

32. Cooking

It sounds sexist, a lot of women genuinely love cooking. If you find a woman who does, talk about recipes, chefs, and her favorite things to make at home. Then get her to cook for me!

33. Men

Revolutionary fact: women love to gossip about men – comparing good and bad experiences, lusting after attractive men, and generally talking about them. You can start with a celebrity example “Would you rather be stuck on a dessert island with Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt?” or, for extra giggles, people you both know.

34. Gossip

It’s no secret many women love to gossip – usually about people they know, either at work or socially. It isn’t very nice, but “Have you heard that Sandra from finance is pregnant?” (use actual gossip, don’t invent stories) can start a very excited conversation. Gossip can be fine as long as you don’t talk poorly of people.

35. Spirituality

Many women are in touch with their intuitive “spiritual side”, and like to discuss alternative therapies, meditation, dreams, and their soul. It’s hard to broach the topic if you don’t know the woman well. Try playfully asking “Ever had a dream that actually happened?” or “Have you tried yoga?” to enter the waters.

Conversation Topics with Men

36. Movies and Entertainment

For men who enjoy movies and TV, discuss which movies they’ve seen lately, their favorite movie of all time, the best action scene etc. These conversations can go on for a while.

37. Technology

Gadgets and the latest developments, e.g. “Have you seen those Google glasses?” Share opinions, compare crazy inventions you’ve heard of, and come up with ideas somebody should invent.

38. Recent Sports Matches

Most of us men love sports. “Did you see the game last night?” is a typical conversation opener. At least understand the sport to join in!

39. Dream Teams

Does your office have a fantasy football league? It’s fun to discuss your dream sports team, comparing which players you’d recruit. You could also do this with movies or concerts – who’d be the actors in your dream movie?

40. Women

We usually don’t gossip about women like women do about men. Some men compare women they find attractive. A conversation can go along the lines of “Would you?” for various celebrity or known women.

41. Health and Fitness

From the wealth of men’s magazines, it’s clear men prioritize health and fitness. Chat about workout techniques, which gyms are good, what food to eat or avoid. Some guys might not be comfortable discussing it, but if you openly ask their advice they might be happy to.

Deep and Meaningful Conversation Topics

42. The Meaning of Life

Most people have thought about it at some point. Start with “Why are we here (in this existence)?” or “Are we here for a reason, or did we just happen?” A gateway into debating God, destiny, and free will.

43. Subjective Experience

“Is there an objective reality?” Topics ranging from visual illusions to widely different opinions on the same thing can open the topic of how everybody’s reality is constructed from their brains, and therefore different. How do you know the colors you see are the same that everyone else sees?

44. Contribution to Society

Doing good deeds is increasingly popular, yet we’re aware of our society’s impact on the environment and poorer countries. Discuss what you do to make the world a better place, or how you could improve your contribution and minimize your impact.

45. Politics

Although arguments can arise, a healthy political debate is a good thinking exercise. Discuss various points and current political events, as well as the very concept of democracy – “Do the masses really know what’s good for them?”

46. Life on Other Planets

“Do aliens exist? Are they already here? What would they think of us as a race?” Think about what life might be like in the future if humanity were to spread to the stars. This can bring up a lot of interesting ideas.

47. Human Nature

What is human nature? Are we born with our personalities or do we develop them from our upbringing? Share examples of how you think your environment shaped your being, think about twins who are different, and debate whether human nature is intrinsically good or bad.

Other Rules and Tips to Come Up With Your Own Conversation Topics

48. Talk About the Person

On any topic you can ask someone’s opinion or experience.

49. Find That Hot Experience

We usually have something hot in our life at any moment that we’d love to share. Find out what is hot for the person by asking, “What’s big in your life at the moment?” (Thanks to Don Gabor for this question.)

50. List 10 Topics You Love

Then think about how you can talk about them. This prepares you to take a conversation down many routes. Make these topics as diverse as possible so you can connect with a variety of people. Saying you love “League of Legends”, “Skyrim”, and “Battlefield 4” won’t do. You’ll only keep a conversation going in this case if someone else (like me!) loves video games.

51. Avoid Edgy Topics

Skip topics like health ailments, family problems, and money. You can talk about these but it’s just risky for most people. By all means, if you’re confident experiment with these topics. Because they are edgy, they may get certain people yapping away.

52. Conversation Starters

Review my list of 101 conversation starters for great ideas to get talking with people you don’t know.

All conversation topics are like herbs in a recipe. If you only use herbs or concern yourself with what to say, the end result will be weird. When used with other ingredients, they’re an essential part of the whole.

As you get better with all your conversation skills, you only need one or two topics to get going as the conversation carries itself through a variety of topics you could not conceive earlier. The effortless discussion may come from a weird fact, a story, or someone’s opinion about the initial topic. These are the best conversation topics.

For everything you need to develop people skills for a great life, even if you’re shy, I suggest you get my Big Talk course.

30 years before that on November 18th, 1978, 909 people drank Flavor-Aid mixed with cyanide and valium. The group knew death was imminent. They were members of a cult reportedly persuaded by their leader to drink the poison. Known as the Jonestown incident, this is one example of multiple ritual suicides committed by cult members.

What kind of power can convince people – from frightened teenagers to large groups of adults – to do something as extreme as ending their own lives? History is rife with examples of people behaving in stupid ways due to an idea put into their mind. From joining the Nazi party and being convinced to kill innocents, to joining a cult and giving up all worldly possessions, it seems the human mind is more easily “brainwashed” than we like to think.

The examples are not always extreme. If you have bought something you didn’t want that much, found yourself agreeing to something unpleasant, or changed your opinion after talking to somebody, you experienced how your mind can be influenced by others. 2300 years ago, Aristotle described the mind as an “unscribed tablet” – something easily shaped and written upon by others. We have always wondered how to brainwash people.

Aristotle described the mind as an ‘unscribed tablet’ – something easily shaped and written upon by others.

The fascination with techniques to put an idea into someone’s mind permeates our popular culture too. In the movie Inception, the main character played by Leonardo DiCaprio possesses a rare skill – he can enter the dreams of others then learn their secrets. His team is hired to appear in the dreams of Robert Fischer Jr. to plant a simple idea – the thought of breaking up then selling his father’s business empire. The assumption is a person’s mind can be altered from within, bringing him to believe the idea was his own.

If you’re like, you can’t enter people’s dreams. The core idea behind Inception rings true. The examples described show the destructive power of the brainwashing techniques you’re about to discover. Use these techniques to brainwash people, responsibly and ethically. Positive brainwashing can do anything from impress people at parties to make your relationships better.

Imagine what you could do if you were able to plant ideas inside people’s minds. You might be offered a job, a large sum of money, or a date. Those awkward disagreements could easily come to an end if you were able to change another’s mind, while they believe they thought of the solution themselves. How do you put an idea into someone’s mind? Read on.

Priming to Brainwash People: Secrets to Suck Money Out of Wallets

Primarily used by hypnotists and publicized by TV “psychological magician” Derren Brown, priming involves suggesting an idea at a level the other person is not consciously aware of. If you give someone a list of the words “chicken”, “dog”, and “pet”, then ask them to think of a word that rhymes with “hat” they’re likely to answer “cat”. Their mind is primed to think of animals.

Derren Brown often fools participants into believing he telepathically guesses which item or card they think of, when he has in primed them to think of a specific item. Let him play with you. Watch the video below to try this brainwash experiment to see if he can put his idea into your mind:

Watched it? Only then read on.

To bring the 3 of diamonds to mind, he makes a diamond shape with his hands while telling participants to “visualise the card in your mind” and hits three points in the air when asking them to “clearly see the numbers on the card”. When he pulls out the 3 of diamonds and asks, “Is this the card you were thinking of?” the majority of participants seem shocked.

Priming is used in advertising. Studies show that exposure to food advertisements increase the amount people eat that day. When you think about all the messages and images you receive every day, you start to realize how marketing companies prime us to spend. This can work in other ways: exposure to messages about old age cause people to walk more slowly, and people asked to recite the Ten Commandments before a task become much less likely to cheat. Getting somebody to think along certain lines can influence the decisions they make later.

Here’s a great party trick: prime your participant’s mind to think of yellow items. Do this by talking about or pointing out something yellow, wearing a yellow shirt, or perhaps humming the tune to “Yellow Submarine”. You can be creative. Ensure your tactics are not too obvious. A few minutes later, tell a third friend in the conversation you can guess what fruit your primed friend will say. Tell your primed friend to name the first fruit that comes to mind. Because of the yellow priming, the chances are he or she will think then say “banana”.

…exposure to messages about old age cause people to walk more slowly.

Prime somebody into being more agreeable by beginning a conversation with questions that generate a lot of “yes” responses. “The weather’s nice today, isn’t it?” and other yes-inducing questions make somebody more likely to say yes to your suggestion.

If you want to plant an idea involving money (for example, you want a pay raise), it is better to prime the person for empathy and kindness, as thinking about money automatically makes people less inclined to share their wealth. Instead, get them thinking about their social connections and their pride in their own generosity by asking them about their family or hobbies.

Word Ambiguity and Embedded Commands to Put an Idea into Someone’s Mind

The sentence “You might have decided by now” seems innocent enough until you realize it contains the command “buy now”. A method used by therapists and salespeople alike is embedding commands in seemingly innocuous sentences.

Imagine you are trying to win over a person you want to date. “You, like me, have an interest in cars,” contains the embedded command ‘like me’, while placing emphasis on certain words can also have the effect of highlighting your hidden message – e.g. “I’m not sure what you want to do, but I’m going to go out for a cigarette, if you’d like to come with me.”

These techniques, in essence, rely on clever wordplay. If you’ve ever fallen for a joke or misheard a song lyric, you’ll know how easily certain phrases can be misinterpreted. Using ambiguity in your speech can subtly convey a message without directly saying it. There are several types of ambiguous sentences, such as “I had to greet guests” / “I had two Greek guests”, (phonological) or “Woman, without her man, is nothing” / “Woman: without her, man is nothing.” (structural).

NLP practitioners and hypnotists often pronounce sentences in ambiguous ways to change their patients’ way of thinking. Think of any combination of words that sound similar, and how you could slip a hidden message into a seemingly innocent sentence. Something as innocent as “Let’s have a cup of proper tea” could bring the idea of property into a person’s head; perfect if you want somebody to consider moving house.

Watch Derren Brown plant the idea of a BMX bike into Simon Pegg’s head (with an overlay explanation of what he is doing):

How to Brainwash People by Being Incomplete

If you offer an idea to someone on a plate, the chances are they will reject it. People like to believe they are clever. We cling to ideas we believe are ours and reject ideas pushed on us from the outside. The trick is to convince the person your idea is actually theirs. This is a common technique in sales and advertising; images of attractive women wearing perfume do not tell you that buying the perfume will make you more attractive, but the pieces are there for your brain to put together.

To plant an idea in someone’s mind and have them believe it was their own, lay clues without being too obvious. It’s like Dale Carnegie’s advice to praise features in someone you want to bring forth.

If you are impatient, you will give yourself away; this is something that needs to be done over time. If you are trying to choose holiday destinations and your partner is set on Europe while you dream of Hawaii, you could occasionally mention a crime that has happened in Europe or comment on how expensive you’ve heard it is there. To promote your own idea, there are a lot of things you can do without mentioning Hawaii.

One way is to play dumb. Suggest it would be great if you could go somewhere with great beaches and cocktails, but without the stress of having to exchange your dollars. If you do this effectively and not too obviously, your partner might come to the conclusion themselves.

Once they think themselves smart for working it out, it will become “their” idea. They will be more attached to the idea. For extra effect, leave a picture of a tropical beach lying around. They might not consciously notice it, but the picture will take root in their mind and start to grow.

It is possible to pretend a person previously mentioned something – frame your idea with something like “As you were saying before…” or “I’m sure it was you who told me …” Even if they have no memory of saying this, a positive or wise statement you attribute to them can be too tempting to pass up. Many people assume they must have said it at some point, and begin to claim ownership and feel pride over the idea.

This method can also be used to give advice. If you have a friend who never takes your advice, you may be telling him or her what to do. Rather than giving instructions, ask leading questions to lay out the pieces. It might be obvious to you they need to ask for a pay raise at work. You could ask, “Have you thought about what you might do to earn more money?”

The pay raise solution will come to them in something of a eureka moment, at which point you smile and congratulate them on their idea. Therapists often use this technique to give their clients a feeling of power and control over their lives. Nobody likes to feel they need other people to tell them what to do making the technique effective.

How to Use Reverse Psychology on Men and Women

If you see yourself as a rebel, you probably hate being told what to do. What if instead of “Tidy your room!” your mother had said “I bet you couldn’t make your room tidy even if you tried”? People think of reverse psychology in very simple terms – telling somebody to do the opposite of what you want them to do. These days, most people are wise to that idea and “Don’t buy me a birthday present, then!” is more passive-aggressive than planting an idea into their mind.

Advertisers often use reverse psychology; if you’ve ever desired a product because it was expensive or limited, then you might have fallen prey to the technique. People want what is hard to get, and don’t care so much about what is easy to obtain.

Try this with dating. Once you have attraction, tell a woman, “I’m going to stop this right now; it would never work out between us” or suddenly act as if you are disinterested. For women who are used to getting what they want, this can make you far more interesting and convince them they want to be with you.

People think of reverse psychology… [as] more passive-aggressive than planting an idea into their mind.

Reverse psychology works especially well on rebellious or argumentative people. A simple statement like “You probably wouldn’t like the roller coaster; it’s too scary” can get your friend lining up with their ride ticket. Your bold statement gets them thinking, “What do they know about me?” and convinces your friend that trying the thing you suggest to avoid was their idea.

Be careful using this technique unwittingly. Telling your mate not to date a girl may get him to believe you and remain single.

Although the idea of manipulating another person’s mind is ethically questionable, remember we are manipulated on a daily basis by advertisers and politicians, whether in the form of subtle priming (“That politician said something that made me feel good; his other statements must be good, too!”) to obvious reverse psychology (“It’s expensive, so it must be good!”).

Brainwashing can be used for evil. Like any power, it can also be used to improve your life without hurting anyone. It can be used to make the world a better place – imagine being able to persuade more people to be kind to each other, to look after the environment, or to eat more healthily! The techniques outlined here, when used properly (and ethically), opens up doors you might never have dreamed possible. Of course, you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to.