At the same time, be comfortable with the fact that you are an introverted person.
Don’t try to be something that you’re not.
Now, this is an interesting point and this is something that I personally struggled with an
enormous amount when I was much younger. A lot of people don’t believe it when I
say this but I grew up a very shy person. I am a very introverted person. And, you know,
social situations and talking to new people especially, is absolutely terrifying. And I
always had this sense that that was somehow a bad thing. That that was somehow wrong, that
somehow the extroverts were better and I needed to become an extrovert. And I can tell you right
here right now that that never worked out because I’m not like that. Just not that kind of person.
I think, first and foremost, it’s about becoming comfortable with yourself - knowing that it’s
okay to be an introvert. You know, if the whole world was this kind of like, “Rah! Rah! Rah! Yeah,
everything’s positive! Everything’s amazing! I’m going to get out there, I’m going to talk
to everybody all the time. I’ve got no fear!” kind of people, you know, the world would be
boring. That said, you know, I would go out to the pub by myself and have a beer. Sometimes
I’ll sit there by myself and just not talk to anybody and just drink it and then leave. And I’m
perfectly comfortable with that, and I really enjoy doing that. Sometimes I’ll sit in a pub
and I will chat to, you know, somebody on the next table, and you know, since Ireland, people tend to
be very chatty. People just tend to talk to each other and I’ll enjoy that just as much. But I
think it’s really just because I’ve, I’ve become comfortable with it over time. And perhaps still
not amazingly good at it, and to be perfectly honest. But the best thing you can really do is
just start getting out there and talking to people. And the more you do that, the more
you realise that actually nothing bad is going to happen. Nobody’s going to laugh at you, nobody’s
going to be mean about your English. It just becomes an easier thing as you do it over time.
Now, there are exercises and things that you can do. I did an event years ago called
“Small Talk Superhero” where I basically went through like 36 of these exercises.
And one of the best things that you can do in week 7, I talk about something sort of task-focused
exercise. And what that essentially is is you challenge yourself to do something during that day
in English. The key to this is, you know, you pick one thing and you’re going to challenge yourself
to do that. Now, this can be to use a certain piece of language, and that’s an excellent way
to help you really memorise, learn that stuff. But you can also do it with conversational skill and
technique because what you’ve got to understand is the skill of conversation is not just about
your English, conversation is a skill. As you know, us introverted people, tend to struggle
with that more than the extroverts among us. What you can do is challenge yourself to do
certain things. Today’s challenge is going to be “start a conversation with a complete
stranger”. And all you’re going to do is start a conversation with a complete stranger. It
doesn’t matter if you talk to them for 10 minutes, it doesn’t matter if all you say is,
“Nice weather we got today” “Yeah, it’s pretty nice, mate” – you know, that could be the entire
conversation and that’s absolutely fine. But by challenging yourself to do these things,
what you’re then doing is you’re constantly searching for situations and it’s going to force
you to step out of your comfort zone as well. And there are a lot of different things you can
do but the basic principle of it is do more of it, get out there, talk to people. But,
at the same time, be comfortable with the fact that you are an introverted person.
Don’t try to be something that you’re not. Retain your personality, be happy with that because it’s
a brilliant thing. And, you know, all of our personalities, you know, nothing’s ever
better than anything else’s, it’s just different. Go out there and do these things. And it can be
as simple as go to a café, have a cup of coffee, and make a comment about the weather with somebody
and then not say anything else and leave. And the more you do that a little bit of the time,
the confidence will build and it becomes easier and easier. It really is one of those things that
you get good at what you do, and so the more you do it, the more you get good at it really is the
key there, I think. And these task-focused little challenges that we can set ourselves
can just help to give us a structure to make that easier to do. Does that all make sense?