How Much Socialising Do You Need to Overcome Social Anxiety & Build Good Social Skills?

To know the best answer for yourself and your life, it's important to do some reflection.

What does having good social skills and a good social life look like for you personally?

Perhaps confidence at work, family gatherings and a couple of mates to hang out with is more than enough. Alternatively, you might want to be amazing at networking, achieve a top career or business position and have tons of friends.

Or maybe you simply want to feel confident socially when doing a few activities you enjoy, such as dancing, playing sports or hosting dinner parties. 🙂

Knowing the answer to the above question will help you focus your efforts accordingly.

You don't need to master socialising in every possible situation or become the king or queen of all social situations. You can focus on the areas that actually matter to you — unless, of course, your goal is to become extremely confident in almost all social situations.

Focus on Progress, Not Hours:

The main thing to track is whether you're making progress, not how much time or experience you've racked up.

If you're feeling more relaxed, being more yourself and coming out of your shell, you're on the right track.

Whether you're socialising every day or just one evening a week, as long as you're genuinely progressing in this way, you're already doing something right.

Here's the key:

You already have good social skills.

Even if you're on the spectrum, when you're with good friends or family, or when you feel totally included and accepted within a community, you'll often find that you naturally socialise well.

So the task isn't necessarily about learning a box of techniques. Of course, some helpful training wheels exist, but for many people it's more about unlearning fear and working through emotional and belief-based blocks.

How Much Socialising Do You Actually Need?

For many people I've coached, 1–2 social sessions per week is ample for making quality progress.

You don't necessarily need to spend hours socialising every day.

However, for growth it's important to deliberately face your fears and collect evidence that you can handle the discomfort.

For example, if you're afraid of talking to strangers, going to networking events for career and business growth (even if you don't have a business!) or attending general social meetups can provide a great training ground for you to grow.

You can treat the social landscape of opportunities like a gym.

First, decide what sort of athlete you want to become. Maybe you want to be a bit of an all-rounder. Or perhaps you want to become particularly strong in specific areas, such as meetings, networking or public speaking.

Then get your training in and develop those connecting and conversational muscles. 💪

Quality Over Quantity:

In my experience, with focus and commitment, depending on your current level of social anxiety, you can make significant progress in overcoming social anxiety and developing strong social skills within 6 months to 3 years, even with deliberate action in just one social training session per week.

And in just 6 weeks, you can make noticeable progress.

It's all about quality over quantity.

Of course, racking up a good number of total hours genuinely helps. But being deliberate and intentional about the environments you put yourself in, the people you surround yourself with and the ways you challenge yourself is where some of your biggest leverage points for progress are.

So you may currently be at base camp, wondering how long it will take to summit the mountain. 🏔️

But the first step is picking the mountain.

You don't need to summit all of them.

Then it's about making quality progress, step by step, in the right direction.

As long as you're moving upwards, you're on track.

If you're looking for help and support and are considering going down the coaching pathway, having someone in your corner to support you, hold you accountable and help you become your best self can be incredibly valuable.

You're welcome to check out my coaching page and book a 1:1 session. 💪🗣️📈

Phil