To create meaningful relationships as an introvert, you need to figure out how to improve your people skills. 

And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today.

I’m about to share with you the exact same advice that I teach to other introverted engineers in our social skills coaching program.

Why Is It Important To Improve Your People Skills?

It’s important to improve your people skills as an introvert because you have to interact with those around you on a consistent basis.

It doesn’t matter if you want to know how to build a social circle, attract a partner, or advance in your career.

To accomplish any of those, you have to be able to get people to like you.

The better you are at building rapport with others, the more quality connections you’re going to make.

What Are Good People Skills?

If you’re wondering what good people skills are, it really comes down to the way you make others feel when they’re around you.

Remember, the meaning of any communication is the response that it gets.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how good your intentions are.

If you don’t know how to express yourself verbally to others, then you’ll have a difficult time influencing them and finding a win-win situation.  

How To Improve Your Social Skills 

1. Chunk Things Down 

From what I’ve noticed, those who struggle socially make the mistake of setting extremely lofty goals. 

To illustrate my point, I want to give an example. 

Let’s say you’re an introverted software engineer. 

You’ve always worked from home, and you don’t really leave your apartment all that much. 

Let’s also say that you’re already in your late 20’s and you’ve been shy and quiet your entire life. 

If that’s the case, you have to manage your expectations. 

Check out this video if you want to know how to be outgoing if you have social anxiety.

You can’t possibly believe that you’ll form deep connections with others and end up in a romantic relationship immediately, right? 

Not only is that delusional, but you’re also setting yourself up to be disappointed. 

That’s why you need to accept where you’re at and go from there. 

My advice for you is to set 2 kinds of goals. 

The first one is your ultimate goal of where you want to end up eventually.  

Maybe for you, you want to have a group of friends that you do fun activities with and a quality partner that you’re excited about.  

But, the thing is, you don’t know when and how exactly those things are going to happen.

First of all, people are extremely unpredictable. 

For example, when you attend a social event, you can’t know for sure who’s going to be there and who you’re going to meet. 

You don’t know what mood they’re going to be in when you talk to them. 

And you also can’t know for sure if they’re going to like you or if you’re going to like them. 

Does that make sense? 

You can only control so much and the rest isn’t up to you. 

That’s why you need to chunk things down. 

Break up your long-term goals into lots of shorter and achievable ones. 

For example, maybe for now, you should work on figuring out how to be less self-conscious.

Or maybe you could learn how to improve your conversation skills so that you’re able to maintain your interactions much longer. 

Or maybe, you could work on going out more and developing new and fun hobbies. 

Do you see how that works? 

Personally, I really like this approach. 

This is especially a good thing to do for those who get overwhelmed very quickly. 

Not to mention, who knows what will happen in the next 5 to 10 years. 

But, mapping out the next 3 months is a lot more manageable.

It’s short enough that you can accurately make predictions, but it’s long enough that you can make some solid progress. 

When you approach learning how to improve your people skills in this way, you’ll see tangible results very quickly.

You’ll feel a lot more motivated because there’s nothing more encouraging than seeing progress.

As a result, you’ll be a lot more likely to keep going instead of always feeling defeated. 

2. Create Your Game Plan 

Okay, at this point, I’m going to assume that you did the exercise and you now know where you would like to end up socially. 

I’m also going to assume that you’ve set some short-term goals that are achievable for you and appropriate for your current level of experience. 

So what do you do next? 

Here’s the thing, a goal without a plan is just a wish. 

That’s why you need to translate what you want into specific things that you’re going to do in order to achieve it. 

To hammer this point even more, I want to share with you one of my favorite quotes.

“If successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers.” 

That’s from Atomic Habits by James Clear. 

It’s actually one of the best books that I’ve ever read and I highly recommend you check it out.  

Anyway, I want you to think about that quote for a second.

If you want to create more meaningful relationships in your life this year, setting goals alone just isn’t enough. 

In fact, it’s just one part of the equation. 

You also have to focus on building the right systems that will help you turn that into reality. 

So how do you actually do it? 

The best way for me to explain this is to give you a common goal that I hear from other introverted engineers I’ve worked with in the past.

Let’s just say you’re a single guy and you grew up pretty isolated.

As a result, you don’t know how to interact with people in general. 

That’s why you want to figure out how to meet like-minded friends and you also want a quality girlfriend.

Are you with me so far?

In any case, here are 3 things that you should be tracking.

#1. How often you’re going out and where

#2 How many strangers you’re having conversations with 

#3 How many people you’re reaching out to and how often 

Can you see that if you just focus on doing those things, you’ll move a lot closer to reaching your dating and social goals? 

The answer is definitely yes because I’ve seen it happen way too many times with previous clients. 

Because they took the right action on a consistent basis, it was inevitable that they got what they wanted. 

So now you might be wondering, are goals completely useless?

No, not necessarily. 

Knowing what you want is important because it points you in the right direction. 

It also determines what skills, beliefs, and character traits you need to develop. 

So as you can see, what matters more than setting goals are the systems that you implement over and over again. 

When you focus more on the process, the outcome literally takes care of itself.

You’ll have more fun along the way and you’ll prevent yourself from feeling impatient. 

3. Assess Your Progress 

At this point, we’ve talked about the right way to set your dating and social goals.

We’ve also discussed the importance of creating a process that will help you get what you want.

So, where do we go from here?

Well, the truth is, learning how to be more socially confident is simple but it’s not easy. 

From my experience, there are only a handful of things that you need to consider

In this case, it’s your ability to manage your thoughts, your presentation, your conversation skills, how often you’re putting yourself out there, and the way you keep in touch with people. 

That’s really it. 

What makes this whole thing difficult are the setbacks that you’re going to experience along the way. 

Check out this video if you want to know how to stop overanalyzing social situations.

I don’t mean to scare you but you’re definitely going to get rejected. 

You’re also going to say embarrassing things and you’ll have a handful of awkward moments. 

That’s just part of the journey and that’s to be expected. 

Now, this is where taking the time to reflect comes into play.

Yes, you have to go out and learn how to put yourself out there.

But, you also have to make sure that you’re making adjustments along the way. 

As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result, right?  

Assuming you actually tracked your social interactions, you now have some data to work with. 

And if you take the time to analyze it, eventually, a pattern will emerge I promise you. 

You’ll begin to see what works for you and what doesn’t.

For example, maybe there’s a venue that’s better suited for your personality and the type of people that you want to meet.

Perhaps there’s a certain outfit that you wear that gets you noticed more and you get more compliments from others.

Maybe, there’s a way that you tell your story or crack your joke that will get a better reaction.

And you’re not going to know those things if you don’t take the time to think about what you’re doing in relation to what you want.

Looking back now, I wish I had known about this and done this sooner when I used to be a shy engineer.

To be honest with you, before I figured this out, I used to go to bars and clubs to try to meet people, especially girls. 

Back then, I used a lot of cheesy pick-up lines and did a lot of weird routines.

For years, I wasted my hard-earned money on expensive drinks and spent almost every Sunday on the couch hung over. 

After a while, I realized that what I was doing wasn’t working and I had to take a different approach. 

I got stuck in a rut because I didn’t take the time to assess my situation. 

Does that make sense now?

Sure I was taking massive action and putting myself out there. 

But I was working on the wrong things. 

Remember, speed is only good if you’re going in the right direction. 

That’s why you need to take the time to reflect. 

Again, by doing so, you’ll learn valuable lessons a lot sooner and make progress in your dating and social life much faster. 

That’s why for me, these days, I spend a lot of my time at trendy coffee shops, fitness centers, and self-development events. 

I know that my kind of people are there and I also like going to those places myself. 

As a result, I’m able to connect with more like-minded individuals in a very efficient way. 

Conclusion

If you’re wondering how to improve your people skills as an introvert, I just shared with you my best tips.

Feel free to go through them again and implement them as much as you can.