3 Tips to Get Back into Social Shape

Hello everyone. I read a great article in the Wall Street Journal today about being out of social shape, which I’d love to share with you being out of social shape. I never would have thought but yeah, here we are talking about it.

Really what it is is about with more in person dates occurring, happy hours and return the office. This can be very taxing to even the most outgoing extroverts who haven’t had this much FaceTime or in person interaction in the last year to two years. And I want to share with you three tips provided by our Chief Behavioral Science Officer, Gabe De La Rosa.

1) Mentally prepare yourself. We have been away from friends, family, and colleagues for some time now. Get your mind prepared for interacting with people in real life again. Visualize yourself driving over to your friend’s apartment, walking up the stairs, knocking on the door, entering an apartment full of friends. In your mind, see yourself interacting and enjoying it. Focus on your breath. Mind your pulse. Visualizing all of this is a great way of preparing yourself for a challenging situation.

2) Start off small. Start with a casual meeting with one or two people. Perhaps meet up for coffee. Set up a time window for the meeting so that you know that you only have to make it through 30 minutes or an hour of social interaction at first. As you become reacquainted with what it feels like to be social IRL again, you can shift to meeting with larger groups of people and meeting for longer periods of time.

3) Be kind to yourself. This is the most important advice. Know that you are in good company and most of us are feeling the same way. So when you feel that you may have made a social blunder, or if you just feel a bit uneasy, do not be judgmental or critical of yourself. Just know that this is a tough time and that we are all in this together.

You will be nervous, you may make blunders and probably feel awkward at first, you’re human, we’re all human. This will happen and we’ll all get back into the swing of things and wishing you all the best out there and remember, the conversation is the culture