Social Anxiety Help:

How To Master Small Talk

If you're a person who has strong generalized symptoms of social anxiety and you've tried to explain your difficulty with small talk at parties, family
gatherings, or other social events, you may not have gotten much support from your listener. They likely responded with something like, "Just say
something. Why would it make you anxious?"

I'm here to help. I am a doctor of psychology specializing in the treatment of people who suffer from social anxiety, and I am a recovered social anxiety
sufferer myself. I can easily provide you with the tools that will allow you to overcome your feelings of fear when you find that life has thrust you into a
situation requiring you to mingle and "enjoy yourself," while making small talk.

The kind of social anxiety help I'm offering here is for people who have a genuine desire to get comfortable with small talk. The methods I will share
with you here will only work if you practice them with an attitude of hopeful expectation that you will succeed and become comfortable with small talk. I
can offer you the inside tips, but you have to do the practice to make these changes your reality. It's worth it, and you're worth it, so do it. Small talk is
not going away, so the sooner you start working at getting comfortable with it, the fewer social anxiety symptoms you'll have to endure.

The first thing you need is the confidence of knowing that you know as much about small talk as anyone else. That will be 95% true when you're done
reading this social anxiety help article, but it will be 99.9% true if you follow my advice and pick up a copy of Dale Carnegie's book, "How To Win
Friends and Influence People," available through the link here * or you can find it at your local bookstore. It's a classic read for people who are
interested in getting ahead in life, which has a lot to do with making friends and influencing people. Following are some basic points that you should
know when engaging in the art of small talk:
 

• You are only responsible for 50% of the conversation, so dead silences do not mean that you are doing something wrong
   

• Dead silence is okay. Being fake and forced in conversation style is the only time dead silence doesn't happen.
   

• Start conversations by getting the other person to start talking about themselves. Ask them about their interests and you have sparked a
  fire that will burn on its own with a little stoking here and there (meaning, "Oh, tell me more about that," "Where did you learn that?" or,
  "how did you get started with....?"
   

• Smile and take the initiative to introduce yourself instead of waiting for the other person to do so.
   

• There's nothing wrong with introducing yourself to someone even after several minutes of conversation or akward silence.
   

• The conversation topics you bring up don't need to be witty or well thought out, as everyone will be glad that someone else is being brave
  enough to make small talk
   

• The easiest way to make small talk is to be prepared by going into each day (or a special event day) with several conversation topics in
  mind. You can do this simply by pulling up a news website and picking out two or three topics that most people would find interesting. It my go
  something like this, "I saw in the news today that NASA has unveiled a new kind of rocket. It makes me wonder how our government decides to
  allocate funds...not that space isn't worth exploring...it's just that the economy is low and our national debt is so high."
   

• Regardless of what responses you get from others during small talk, show interest in what they are saying to encourage them to keep
  talking.
   

• Try to start from the position of developing a genuine desire to get to know the other people that you are making small talk with. Depending on how well you already know them, this could mean surface level questions about what they do for fun or what they do for work, or it could mean asking what the top stress has been for them this week if it's someone you know well. The point is to start from where you are now and move toward getting to know them a little more. People like to feel like they matter, so your unspoken intention to get to know them a little better will
  make them naturally like you more.
   

• Because being the centerof attention makes you uncomfortable as a person with social anxiety symptoms, you may unconsiously assume
  this to be true for others as well. It's not. 95% of people will respond favorably to your attention and focus on them. When standing in a group of three to seven people, say something like this: "Hey Tom, tell us about that kayaking adventure you said you'll be going on when you're off work next week."
   

• If you're trying to make small talk with someone you know already, but you can't think of something to ask them about, don't panic. Take your attention off of how uncomfortable you feel. Remind yourself that small talk is everyone's responsibility, not just yours. Then, focus your thoughts
  on a game of free-association. Free association is that thing where you start with one word and then you say the first thing that pops into your head when that word is spoken (banana, yellow, school bus, school, lunch hour, carton milk, etc.). Use free association by thinking of one thing you know about the other person as the root idea and then pay attention to what pops into your mind next. Let your mind roam in this manner until you stumble across something that is useful to your small talk efforts.
  
  Okay. Now you know more than 95% of people when it comes to managing small talk. That doesn't mean you'll be as good as 95% of people though
  because, as a person seeking social anxiety help, you still haven't been practicing small talk nearly as much as other people your age because of years of avoidance and self-conscious inner focus when others were perfecting the skill. Get working on it and you can be as smooth or smoother than anyone you know.
  
  Live with Courage and Discipline!
  
  Dr. Snyder
  
  
  
  
  
  *Please note that if you follow the link and purchase your copy of the book via Amazon.com, we will get a 4% kickback for refering you to amazon to
  make your purchase (just thought you had a right to know that). You can get your copy here.
  
   

Be Courageous!

Dr. Todd Snyder