THERE IS A FINISH LINE TO LEARNING SOCIAL SKILLS. IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE A NEVER-ENDING QUEST OF IMPROVEMENT

The big difference between my approach to teaching social skills, and the way other people teach social skills, is that the way I teach it, there is a finish line.

I believe your social skills only need to reach a certain level in order to make friends. You do not need to read or use every piece of information I write about.

I also believe that you will not have infinite or a thousand friends. But you will only have a limited number of friends.

I try to keep it practical. You are not going to have a lot of time to just keep going out and socialising, and making friends, and meeting people. It does not work that way in the real world.

Maybe in your favourite television show or your favourite storybook, that is how it works. But not in the real world.

I do not believe in never-ending improvement, or the eternal quest of mastery when it comes to social skills.

No, I do not believe that.

For other areas of your life, such as your career, your health, your passions in life; then there may be a desire to have never-ending improvement for it. It may even be healthy and beneficial to do so.

But when it comes to social skills, there is a limit. You only improve your social skills to a certain point, then you are done with it.

There may be some people who work as salespeople, or marketers, or in public relations, etc; who may need to keep improving their social skills as it is related to their work. But for most of us who want to make friends, we do not need to have ‘the best’ social skills on the planet.

You have to accept two truths:

1)Not everyone is going to like you, and that is okay.

2)You do not need to have the ‘greatest’ social skills or know everything about social skills to make friends.

Accept and remember these two truths, and reflect on them.

Allow these two truths to guide your approach to learning and improving your social skills.

Thinking any other way is not being realistic. People who do not accept these truths and believe otherwise are living in a ‘false reality’. They have been incorrectly influenced by a fictional work like a movie or a book, or they have been lied to, or their ego has convinced them otherwise. You are setting yourself up for inevitable failure by living in denial of these two truths.

Work with these two truths:

• Not everyone will like you, so you should focus on the people who do like you, and focus on building a friendship with them. You should not be sad or depressed if you meet ten people and only one person wants to be your friend. Focus on getting to know that one person and building a friendship with that one person. If that one person is not a negative or bad person, then try to build a friendship with that person and see if you two have a connection.

• You do not need to know everything about social skills, so focus on learning only what you need to learn. You do not need to read every piece of information on social skills. You only need to learn enough to bring your social skills to the level that you can make enough friends that you are happy with and is sustainable. It is not sustainable to have too many friends as you will not have the time to maintain too many friendships. So learn enough about social skills that you can have enough friends, then you are done learning about social skills. Stop trying to improve this area of your life and start trying to improve other areas of your life.

Learning social skills is not an unlimited quest. There is a finish line. And you decide when you reach that finish line when you have enough friends.