Having good social skills is very important. You interact with people throughout your day and being able to do so skillfully will help you.

Not only in a work environment where social skills allow you to build business, but also on a personal level where you gain friends through your people skills.

Knowing the basics will help you to build good people skills that can make you successful in building good relationships.

Social skills are the way you interact with other people. It includes the way you talk, your body language and how you treat others in general.

We start building social skills at birth. We learn how to talk, how to react in certain situations and how to act towards others by what we learn from those around us.

If you have problems with your people skills it is easiest to fix them by looking at the basics.

1. Learn to stay calm.

You should not be nervous or worried during your social interactions. This only leads to mistakes and others seeing you as being aloof. You can also focus more on others and the conversation if you are calm.

2. Watch your body language.

Much of our conversation is based on body language. You can make others feel uncomfortable with body language or you can make them feel at ease. Body language includes hand gestures and facial expressions as well, so watch fidgeting or weird facial movements.

3. Learn to be interested in others.

This comes natural to most, but for others focusing on someone else can be hard. If you make eye contact and listen to others you will learn how to focus on them and not other things around you.

You will come across as genuinely being interested in others and people tend to enjoy interacting with someone who cares.

4. Look at how you use your social skills.

Before trying to change you should take a look at how you interact now. See what seems to be wrong so you know exactly what to work on.

5. Work on your general conversation skills.

You may need to brush up your communication skills if you find you have problems just carrying on a conversation. You should look at good conversation starters, how to handle others during a conversation, body language skills and small talk skills. Knowing how to be a good conversationalist will help your social skills immensely.

These five points cover the basics of people skills that everyone should know. If you go through and learn all five you should be able to tackle any problems you have with social skills.

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About the Author

Peter Murphy is a peak performance expert. He recently produced a very popular free report: 10 Simple Steps to Developing Communication Confidence. Apply now because it is available only at: conversation starters