Improve Your Conversation Confidence

Do you suffer from a lack of conversation confidence? When you make conversation with other people, is your mind constantly saying a lot of very harsh things to you about your conversation ability? Does your mind criticize every thing you say? Do you put yourself down for being shy or awkward?

If you really want to improve your shyness and overcome your difficulty in making conversation with other people, the first step is that you have to start noticing exactly what you are saying to yourself while you are talking with another person.

If you have some inner dialogue going on in your mind, is it positive, or is it negative? What exactly do you tell yourself?

People who constantly have a lot of very negative dialogue going in inside themselves may think that this negative dialogue is somehow going to make them improve their performance. Guess what? This negative dialogue that is constantly running in your mind when you make conversation with other people is only going to make your performance worse.

Your inner negative dialogue will make you more nervous, more anxious and more focused on your inner reactions, instead of actually listening to the other person and participating fully in the conversation.

People who are socially confident don’t have a negative inner dialogue running through their minds while they are making conversation. In fact, if they do have much of an inner dialogue during conversation, they might be saying things to themselves such as “Aren’t I great? Everybody really likes me.” Or they might say, “I’m bored already, I want to leave!”

What socially confident people won’t be saying to themselves is something like, “I’m such a loser! Why do I always say such dumb things? This person must think I’m an absolute idiot after that last remark I made. I’m trying to sound as if I’m smart, but I’m sure I just sound like I’m pretentious. I’m overdoing it again just like I always do. Why can’t I learn to make conversation like a normal person!”

If you are going to escape the trap caused by shyness, being tongue tied, or having low self esteem, one of the most important things you have to do is to stop the flow of automatic negative thoughts that are constantly running through your mind whenever you try to have a conversation with somebody.

In place of all the automatic negative thoughts you’re producing in your mind, you will have to substitute positive thoughts about your performance, and about your self.

If you suffer from shyness, or if you have poor self esteem, you may say, “That’s easier said than done. How do I change my negative thoughts of a lifetime? If I say positive things about myself, I’m not going to believe them anyway. Any positive things I say about myself will be fake. How can I believe good things about me?”

The answer is that making a change like this is going to take time. Making a change from being very negative about yourself to becoming positive about yourself may even require therapy.

Remember, none of us is perfect at all things.

If you happen to be poor in the area of making conversation, this is a skill you can improve. Learning to be kind and supportive of yourself while you make conversation is the most basic skill you need to improve your conversation.