1. Break Out Of Your Shell
Are you a wallflower?
If you don’t have the type of personality that starts conversations, or you’re uncomfortable approaching people, then you’re on a hiding to nothing. Interaction is all about give and take: if you only take, then sooner or later people will stop giving. If you don’t contact friends by phone or email, sooner or later they’ll stop contacting you. If you never make it to the ball game or the cinema, sooner or later you’ll stop getting invited.
Your task should be to give yourself as many opportunities as possible to mingle, interact, mix with other people. If you’re shy, remember this fact: shy people get nowhere. You’ll never see or hear about anybody who’s outgoing trying to turn themselves into a “shy”
person. To them that’s going backwards.
Shy people aren’t looked up to or revered like outgoing people are. That’s just the way it is.
Get used to it, because it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
2. Send Out The Right Signals
Make an effort to stay in touch with people. If you run into someone in the coffee shop
Your actions don’t go unnoticed. If you constantly avoid making an effort to
communicate with people, they’ll soon get the message that you’re not interested. Then you’ll have to start all over again.
Everything you do and say sends out a signal, even if you do nothing. In fact, doing nothing sends out the loudest, clearest signal of all: you’re not interested. If you don’t make any effort to interact, then you deserve everything you get – or don’t.
3. Put Your Fears Into Perspective
Know why most people don’t put themselves out there? They’re afraid.
Yep, it’s our old friend fear again. It’s our instinctive urge for self-preservation. If we don’t put ourselves on the line as far as relationships go, then we won’t end up getting rejected.
But that’s just another thing that stops us from making the most of what should be an exciting and fulfilling life.
Say you try to cultivate a relationship and it fails.
Big deal?
Move on to the next person. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. The sky won’t fall, you won’t disappear; you won’t lose your job or go to jail. In other words, there really is nothing to fear. Get that into your head as soon as you can. It’s not the end of the world.
Baseball players know what I’m talking about. It takes three strikes before you’re out, and that’s just one time at bat. You might get another three chances during the game, and then there’s always the next game. And even if you strike out three times in a row, there’s always the chance that the fourth time you’ll hit a home run.
So be fearless: just do it. The successes you have will more than make up for any disappointments along the way.
4. The Bottom Line
Look at these words and see if you can spot the odd one out:
1. Successful 2. Popular 3. Important 4. Lowly 5. Respected 6. Powerful 7. Admired
Did you manage it? Of course you did: it’s item number 4, the word “lowly.” Of all these words it’s the one you’d probably like least to be used to describe yourself.
You and everybody else.
The point is, if you’re going to go out of your way to cultivate friendships or relationships, you might as well aim for the top. Go after people who have something to offer. Don’t settle for people on the lower rungs of the social ladder, because they can’t improve your situation.
Successful people know this fact only too well. It might seem a bit snobbish on the surface, but that’s because:
a) it IS snobbish, and b) it IS on the surface
This isn’t rocket science, you know. If you want to be in with the cool crowd, hang around with the cool crowd. If you want to be a loner and a person of no significance – at least in the eyes of the successful people – hang around with loners and nobodies. It really is as simple as that.
Why go after the popular set?
Because they have power and influence. People look up to them, admire them, are in awe of them. If they see you associating with that exclusive club, they’ll automatically assume you’re a member. And suddenly you’ll be the one who’s popular, respected, admired, and important. Bottom line? That will be enough for people to take an interest in you.
All of these tactics are simple enough to put into operation. They require only one thing of you: the willingness to put yourself out there and make the effort. As long as you think positive and don’t psyche yourself out, you’ll be successful.
And remember: no-one will know you’re consciously doing these things. They’ll assume you’re just the type of person who’s naturally outgoing, likeable, fun to be around, exciting, entertaining, cool, popular, important, and most of all, worth spending time with.
Do it right and people will notice you. They’ll approach you and start chatting away. But what do you do then? What do you say to them? How can you pull off the fact that you’re only pretending to be one of the important people?
No problem. Read on to find out why none of these things matter’s a tinker’s damn.