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"To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live."
The quote above by the Roman philosopher and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero is as accurate today as it was in the first century BCE.
It is especially true given how much information is coming at you every minute of every day on social media sites, TV, radio, advertisements, and websites. It's no wonder so many people feel bewildered and overwhelmed.
However, this feeling of being like a deer in headlights can be overcome with just one simple step — learning not to panic!
In this blog post, we will explain what you can do to get on top of your life again when feeling overwhelmed by all of life's opportunities.
This is an excerpt from one of the chapters in our book "How to Be a REAL Social Success: And Get the Friends, Life and Love you Want," which we've been writing over the past few months. While we have our usual suspects helping us write out this book (our research assistants, Patrick and Stacey), it also contains a lot of information we've gathered from clients who have been part of our Social Success Coaching.
We hope to have the book finished by mid-August so it can be published in sync with our upcoming social success coaching program.
So, what can you do without further ado to overcome the overwhelming monster?
Step 1: Take a Moment to Meditate on Your Goals
It is a crucial step. If you are someone who usually gets stressed by life, this is the first step, as it will allow you to see your life. We all want to live in a certain way, whether it is being able to work from home or just living a more fulfilled and relaxed life full of great relationships.
But how often do we stop and ask ourselves about our goals?
Remember that our brain has two jobs: it is responsible for remembering the past (and so the things that happened) and anticipating what will happen next (by looking into the future). So, there is a part of your brain called the hippocampus responsible for holding onto memories, and another feature called the prefrontal cortex that thinks about what will happen next.
When overwhelmed by too much information, our brain becomes overloaded and can't organize all of it into meaningful actions. It's the same feeling you get when you have a lot of work, but you don't know where to start — it's just too much!
You can overcome this feeling by taking a moment to meditate on your goal. Think about what would improve your life and what you want it to look like. For example, if your goal is to be a full-time student, think about what that would look like. Or what if you wanted to have a full-time job by the end of the year? These are just two examples, but they can help you see your life from a different perspective and identify new ways to go about things.
Step 2: Take a Walk Through What You Already Know About Yourself
Most people know at least something about themselves. They know enough to function even if they have yet to learn it all or are not happy with it. So there must be things you already know that could help you in your quest for social success.
What do you already know about yourself?
Do you like to work out in the morning or at night?
Do you prefer to work alone, with one person, or in a group?
Do you prefer structured learning (like lessons) or free-flowing learning (like self-study)?
These are just examples, but think about how this could help your social life. For example, suppose you were thinking about using social media for business purposes and knew that you liked structured learning more than loose-ended learning. That might help decide which social media platform is best for your next business venture. Why? Because LinkedIn and Yammer are much more structured in their nature than Facebook and Twitter.
Step 3: Analyze Your Friends' Social Skills and How You Can Improve Them
From a business perspective, one of the biggest challenges that most people face is being effective in networking. Our book's research on social networking highlighted that people struggle with this. Still, they work even more on how to get their friends (and family members) to be effective in their networks. The reason is that they need to learn how to network effectively.
As a result, they are generally stuck in the middle – knowing what to do but not how to do it.
To help you with this, let's look at a couple of the ways you can use your friends to build your social skills.
Use this list to identify how you can be more effective in networking with your friends.
Help them become more comfortable with networking: Give them some simple networking tips.
(is it important to go direct when meeting new people? What is the difference between being exciting and snobbish?) The best activity for helping others is simply asking them questions online and offline. Ask them what they do that works, what things they avoid doing, etc. Help them continue learning by helping them find some good social media tools or books on LinkedIn or Pinterest that they can share with their networks. Help them be more effective by being there for them.
Ask yourself if you are helping your friend by giving them advice or if this is just a use-them-and-then-dump-them type of relationship. Or, how can you help your friends to become more powerful so that they can help you? Be genuine when helping them: If you tell your friends they are great people, it will make them feel excellent – but only if they are.
They won't feel good about themselves unless they have the skills to back it up. Be honest with your friends: Tell them what they need to do to be more social. It can include asking for feedback or even helping them set goals such as increasing their Twitter followers. Being genuine is critical in assisting individuals to be more socially successful – but you have to be prepared to give away your secrets to help others.
Step 4: Use Social Media + Social Networking Tools That Help You Be More Social (and Take Action)
In our book, we talk a lot about how social media and social networking tools are essential for business success and
Personal life allows us to connect with others on a level we could not otherwise communicate with in person.
These tools can help you to be more social in several different ways:
Use social networking platforms for communication: If you want to be more social, one of the first steps is to use the right tools. For example, if you want to communicate with friends, then LinkedIn might be best. If you want to share with everyone, then Pinterest might work best. Understand that each social platform has a different purpose – and ensure that your understanding of that purpose matches your goal.
Use online/offline tools for connecting: One of the big problems with many people who want to be more social is that they need more time in their lives. As a result, people turn to online tools, making connecting easier without taking up as much time. However, it is still essential to use in-person meetings if you want to be personally bound. One way to do this is using social media scheduling tools like Chatter or Hootsuite. These tools make it easier for you to share your calendar with your team and ensure they know when you want to meet with them – whether that meeting is online or offline.
Use coupons on social media: If you are looking for ways that help you motivate your friends and network-mates into doing things that will help them succeed,
then consider giving them coupons based on their performance. If they can show you that they are consistently helpful or teachable, provide them with a coupon for an accessible introduction. Or, how about giving coupons to people willing to commit to improving their social skills?
Our research on social networking tools and techniques found that people use many different tools and techniques.
But there needs to be an industry-standard toolset that works for everyone.
However, one social media technique should be in the toolkit of every person who wants to be more socially influential: the use of diversity in your networks.
When you are learning, you need to be in a diverse community of individuals, not just people of your gender or race. The reasons for this are many:
But the most important reason is that when you learn from others in diverse groups, their insights can help you overcome some of your biases and assumptions. For example, if you are looking for a new consultant to help your company improve its social media strategy, have someone different from yourself.
Who have been through the process will allow you to learn different things about how social media works – and how it does not work.
Conclusion To succeed in all your relationships, you need to be both socially skilled and socially successful. While the two are not necessarily the same, they are related – and you can't have one without the other. If you want to be more sociable – but don't know where to start – then take a look at our social networking book:
We have built a science fiction world in which we can teach people how to develop their social skills. In this world, we can help people learn how to build trust with new people online,
allow them to use online tools that improve their ability to connect with others in person and generally increase their social skills.