Key Takeaways
- Social confidence is perhaps the most important skill to have if you want to get on in life. It enables you to connect with other people, form alliances and develop deeper relationships.
- It is actually quite difficult to develop social skills as these are patterns that are laid down when we are very young. Therefore, social skills training is often ineffective.
- Claire Schrader shares her story of how improvisation enabled her to develop social confidence in a magical way, which dramatically improved her career prospects.
- She developed the ‘I Don’t Know What to Say’ Course in 2005, a unique way to develop social confidence, enabling participants to re-wire their brains, reduce anxiety, access intuitive intelligence and open up verbal flow.
- If drama feels daunting, start with other confidence-building courses before moving onto this course.
Lacking confidence in social situations?
Have you decided as a result that you have social anxiety and that you really do have a problem?
You may be fine when you’re with good friends, family or people you trust. You look around you and see everyone else talking to each other, laughing and joking and “getting along” – and you are at times rather amazed about how much other people have to say about absolutely nothing!
And yet these same people seem to be the ones that are getting on in life, getting promotions and making waves in the world.
You are probably someone who tends to listen more and think deeply about what other people are saying – you only speak when you really have something to say.
Are you socially anxious, or are you socially awkward?
Until a few years ago, there was no stigma about being shy or socially awkward. But since the medical profession put social phobia on the map, many people began describing themselves as socially anxious. They began to believe that there was something wrong with them mentally or emotionally.
But there’s an enormous difference between being someone with social phobia and someone who is socially anxious or uncomfortable in social situations. Most introverts experience challenges in their social interactions because of the way their brains work. This is normal. See this article on how the introvert brain works.
I suggest you start to think of yourself as having a social difficulty – even if you have social anxiety diagnosis. It is a doctor’s job to diagnose. And this is one area where a diagnosis can seriously undermine your confidence.
My story
Social chit-chat, parties, and any kind of networking or teamwork used to be excruciatingly uncomfortable for me. I’d avoid it if I could. And I really believed there was something wrong with me. It seemed that everyone else was having a great time except me.
And I could see quite plainly that the socially confident people were achieving things that were a hopeless dream for me.
How to say goodbye to social anxiety and improve your social skills
If you’ve tried social skills training, this won’t help very much in overcoming your social anxiety. This is because it’s not changing how your brain responds when you are under pressure. If you’ve had a lot of difficulty in social situations in the past, you are going to be anxious, and this is going to inhibit you from feeling relaxed and socially confident.
What is different about the I Don’t Know What to Say Improvisation course for social confidence is that it will train your brain to operate differently in social situations so you can relax and respond naturally.
See below for how it works and why it’s had such a high success rate in enabling socially anxious people to become socially confident.
How I gained social confidence
My social anxiety changed overnight when I learned I had a creative brain that I wasn’t using.
This was why I couldn’t respond naturally to what others were saying and why my mind was going completely blank.
I also discovered that because I was an introvert, my default mode was to overthink everything. I had this internal critic that never let up and was constantly criticising everything I said or did.
I didn’t know how to access my creative brain that would stop me overthinking and enable me to access the far wiser intuitive intelligence that lived within me.
Balancing right and left brains
When I discovered how to use and balance both my creative and analytic brains, then I really began to “make moves”! (This is what eventually became the name of my company to help other people achieve the same.)
I was amazed at how magical my life could be when I learned how to use my creative brain.
Much to my surprise, I even found at times I could be the life and soul of the party. I stopped being over-serious and started to have fun. I discovered much to my surprise that I had an enormous capacity for having fun. It was an essential part of me.
At the same time, I started feeling happier and happier. The more I operated from my creative brain, the happier I got. Depression and anxiety melted away because I was expressing more of my true self. And other people seemed to like the outgoing Claire much more than they liked the Wallflower Claire.
I started to attract the kind of friends that I really wanted to have and live the life I’d dreamed of living.
And you can achieve this too.
See my book: From Wallflower to Sunflower for my full story.
The Fastest Way to Overcome Social Anxiety
It will take work, and you may feel uncomfortable at times. But it is moving through this discomfort in a safe environment that will enable you to overcome your social anxiety fast.
On top of this, you will have the most enormous fun.
The Sunflower Effect, the confidence system I have developed, uses an adapted form of drama, that will enable you to achieve this fairly easily and very fast.
This is the case if you define yourself as a social wallflower or if it’s just certain situations where you become socially awkward. This is usually when you are under pressure and feel afraid of making a mistake.
BECOMING SOCIALLY CONFIDENT: HOW DO YOU GET STARTED
I have designed a number of different courses for building social confidence, depending on what level of social anxiety or awkwardness you experience.
The most effective course for overcoming social anxiety and improving your social skills is the I Don’t Know What to Say Improvisation course for social confidence course.
It is fast and great fun. It draws heavily on Keith Johnstone’s original improvisation method (very different from comedy improv) which I have adapted for quieter people who feel socially awkward.
It will take a little while to unlearn your ingrained habits of operating from your logical left brain, but with practice and with the support of other people, you will be surprised at what starts coming out of your mouth.
When you learn how to get out of your head and start accessing your natural instincts and intuition, you will discover the deeper intelligence that lives inside you, which is far superior to your logical left brain.
And my participants tell me how much fun it is:
A brilliant way to get more confident socially.
Thelma, former teacher
This environment is unlike anything you will find in everyday life, and the freedom you are afforded is completely transferrable. Put, I give much less of a f*** now than I did 12 weeks ago, and this is infinitely more than I could have hoped for when tentatively enrolling. I would do it again without hesitation as it is easily the best decision I’ve made on my self-improvement journey.
Colin O, legal writer
It’s six months since I did the “I don’t know what to say” course, and I’m still seeing the benefits, thank you for the whole experience. I surprise myself sometimes as to where my confidence comes from in relating to people.
Peregrine C, healing practitioner
It will take a little while to unlearn your ingrained habits of operating from your logical left brain, but with practice and with the support of other people, you will be surprised at what starts coming out of your mouth.
However, the course is challenging.
And is not the best first step for everyone.
If you feel fairly confident in most other areas of your life, want to learn how to think on your feet or feel you need this level of challenge to overcome your inhibitions, I Don’t Know What to Say, could be a great place to start.
If shyness or self-consciousness are still on your radar
You would be better to start off with the Breakthrough Group, or the Express Yourself Workshop before moving onto the I Don’t Know What to Say Improvisation course,
This is particularly if the prospect of doing drama gives you the complete heebie-geeebies.
Starting off with Breakthrough Confidence Course or the Express Yourself Workshop will enable you to overcome the acute aspects of self-consciousness and the blocks that are causing your social anxiety.
It will also ease you gently into the drama, and build your confidence, so you can be ready to meet the challenges of the I Don’t Know What to Say Improvisation course
It also can be useful to sign up for Introductory Evening. That way we can see you in action and recommend the best course for you.
Set up a time to speak to me
If you’re not sure which course is right for you, you can set up a time to speak to me. It’s free. I can then get more of a sense of what is going to be the best course for you.
