Social Skills Question: "In a Group, I Freeze..."

Isn't it interesting how sometimes we can feel so comfortable in a group, but other times we feel like some sort of awkward science experiment that just wandered out of the lab for the first time? 

2. A story of how I didn't take my own advice.

[Insert Frozen joke here]

This is a story of a time when I escaped from the lab...

My wife had signed up for a local kickball team,  and they were having a meet and greet at a local dive bar.

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We arrive. It's loud. There are people literally throwing (and missing) bottles into a trash can 25 feet away from them. It's some kind of contest. Apparently they do this every Thursday.

There were all these new people that seemed to know each other, they were laughing and joking around.

I was sitting there, my shirt felt uncomfortable. Why did I wear these shoes? I wanted to leave. I felt like an alien, an outsider who had landed at this bar. 

I was squarely focused on my internal thoughts and feelings. Which only seemed to make me MORE uncomfortable.

Classic social skills mistake. 

In the video above, I answer a similar social skills question about what to focus on while socializing in a group. (Hint: It's not yourself)

Action Steps:

• Next time you're in a group setting, gently shift your focus from internal (yourself) to external (other people, the environment)
• If you need to decrease your cortisol (stress) levels, do this for two minutes.
• Be curious about other people. Be engaged. Make observations. Ask Questions.

 Back at the kickball meet-up, what could I have done differently?

Had I been focused on my external environment, on other people and what their stories were, I would've had a MUCH better time. 

Why?

Because I couldn't have been focused on both my internal processes AND my external environment...it simply would've been too much to focus on.

(that's called sensory processing, it's basically how we process all the environmental sensory stimuli at any given moment so we can actually function.)

Learn from my social mistakes. Don't be an awkward science experiment.

Question:

Let me know in the comments about a time you felt uncomfortable in a group...how did that experience make you feel? What do you wish you'd done differently?

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