How To Start A Conversation With Whoever You Want, In 6 Steps
Relating to others is something basic and fundamental to having a satisfactory life; but it is not always easy. And, although it may seem like a lie, know how to start a conversation appropriately It can become a problem, in certain situations, even for the most extroverted people.
Now, although for many people this means leaving the comfort zone, the art of starting to talk to whoever we want is a skill that can be learned.
Something as simple as knowing how to start a conversation spontaneously with someone we are interested in. It could be what makes the difference between having a full social life or not having one And there are people who are so afraid of these types of situations that they end up isolating themselves and having few friends, which in turn is a way of having a rather small social support network.
Below we will see some basic aspects about how to start a conversation.
1. Learn to tolerate failure
The first thing you have to be clear about is that no matter how much you read, it will only help you know what strategies to follow to face this facet of your social life; It is impossible to learn this type of thing without having put it into practice. And that means that, necessarily, we will have to go through somewhat uncomfortable situations to achieve a medium and long-term goal that is much more beneficial than the slight discomfort caused by leaving the comfort zone at the beginning.
There is no magic recipe that will solve the issue overnight without having put effort into it. The key is knowing how to make that effort productive.
2. Don’t be a perfectionist with the moment
Almost any place is good to start a conversation, as long as the other person is not in a hurry. Sometimes, stopping to analyze whether the context is conducive to approaching someone and starting a dialogue is nothing more than an excuse (masked under rationality) to miss those opportunities.
3. At first, opt for questions
When you start practicing how to start conversations, the fact that you will probably feel nervous and a certain anxiety will limit your range of action. Therefore, it is good to recognize this small obstacle and act accordingly. And one way to do this is to make the moment of starting a dialogue brief for yourself, and longer for the other person. That is to say: what we will do is pass the responsibility of the dialogue to the other, through a question that that interlocutor must answer.
Now, for this to work, that question must give way to an answer that is not short and that is relatively complex. In this way, we will avoid what we get back being a simple phrase of a few words, and an uncomfortable silence appearing. The objective is that the other person’s response allows us to give our opinion on what has been said, and make the dialogue drift towards something else Once this has been done, it is easier to feel comfortable with the situation.
This is one of the classic recommendations of psychology, and it really works. If we approach very ambitious goals at the beginning, we will most likely get frustrated and end up throwing in the towel. You have to educate yourself to see that starting a conversation does not trigger unwanted consequences and for that it is good to start with people to whom we do not feel vulnerable, despite being relatively unknown people.
Little by little, we must increase the level of difficulty, leaving the comfort zone more and more.
5. Learn to listen
Paradoxically, what causes discomfort when starting a conversation with someone who commands respect from us is not the fact of starting to speak, but what can happen right after, when it is our turn to act again after having seen the person’s reaction. other. Therefore, it is very important to learn to listen.
If we listen to what the other person says, distancing ourselves from the situation and focusing our attention on the content of your message it is very easy for reflections, questions or appreciations to arise spontaneously that can be interesting to share.
Taking into account that when we are training basic social skills our role cannot be very salient, it is good to adopt the role of someone who knows how to listen: everyone likes to feel that there is someone who pays attention to what is being said.
Therefore, it is important to learn to adopt active listening skills that facilitate this: maintain eye contact (directing your gaze in the direction of the other person’s face is enough, if we do it and do not pay more attention to that aspect, we will achieve it spontaneously without realizing it and without becoming obsessed with the subject), nod, do short comments, erc.
At this point, we should limit ourselves to responding to what the other person has said, even if we can introduce other related ideas, or even personal experiences. Since the conversation has already been started, it can go in practically any direction, as long as everything starts from the intervention of the other person.
