3 Social Skills We are Losing

Life is so much more enjoyable, productive, and profitable when you learn and practice these three basic social skills.

Social skills are like any other skill: use it or lose it.

Knowledge can stick around. I still remember my best friend’s phone number from third grade. I no longer, however, can carry on a conversation in French like I could in third grade. (Loved the French immersion program!) Skill requires practice, even after it’s learned.

Like all skills, you have to use social skills to retain them. And as a society, it seems we no longer do. Maybe it’s because we’re glued to our phones. Or because we are mostly social online. Or because we’re rusty after the pandemic. Whatever the cause, skills that used to be commonplace have become more rare.

And this is a problem! Without social skills, you lose confidence and relationships. Dealing with people becomes a necessary evil or even a source of anxiety — comments I hear frequently from coaching clients.

Thankfully, it’s easier to pick a skill back up than to learn it new — as I’ve discovered in my quest to relearn French. (Ça va bien, merci.) So, if you lost these basic building blocks of interacting with humans, just start practicing. Social and business interactions will soon become way more fun and valuable. Here are three things to…