Steps To Creating Your Own Good Conversation Starters

Starting Conversations 101 Part 2/4

In this article you’ll get some simple steps to creating your own good conversation starters.

What I share works best if you don’t have social anxiety.

Or, if you only have a very low level of social anxiety.

If you have moderate to severe social anxiety forcing yourself to start conversations might not be your best approach to become socially confident.

I’ll introduce you to a far more effective and easy approach to become socially confident below.

Once you’re (mostly) free of social anxiety, starting conversations can become EASY and FUN.

Anyway, here’s how to create some good conversation starters…

Start by taking a week to simply go to all the places you normally go to do the things that you normally do.

Bring a notepad and a pen.

When you’re at one of your locations, start observing people.

Just notice what is happening around you.

Your mission here is to first just observe as much as you can.

When you are in a social situation, ask yourself:

What is happening around me?
What is the thing that is obvious, but that no one speaks of?
What is a specific person doing and what is his/her purpose being out here?
What are the facial expressions of the people around me expressing?
What emotions are on their face? What might they be thinking?
What are people wearing? Something unusual? Are they trying to communicate something?
What is obvious about the environment? What stands out?

Answer the ones that you can most easily answer and write them down on your notepad.

Then go to the next situation.

Do this for 10 situations. My advice would be to not rush it. Do one or two locations per day.

Once you’ve done your day task -your one or two extensive observations in common situations-, go home. Then in the comfort of your own home think of what could’ve been good conversation starters.

The answers to these questions are giving you plenty of material to develop your good conversation starters.

Some Examples Of Good Conversation Starters

You look (like) X (You look like you’re having a great day)
Hi, how’s your day going
(Sarcastically) Thank god we don’t have to wait long…
Ow man, they’re losing again, the suck this season. Who scored the 0-1?
I love your shoes, they’re awesome.
Cool tattoo! Any deep meaning behind it?
That smells so good…
You look like (*you’re having a good time)
Hi, excuse me, do you guys speak English?
Hey how’s it going? Where are you from?

While the above are good conversation starters, I’ve found that it actually doesn’t matter what you say.

It’s all about HOW YOU FEEL when you begin a conversation with a stranger.

When you feel confident and calm and you genuinely want to connect with that person, they will in 95% of the cases respond positively.

Even if they don’t want to connect with you, they will almost always be polite.

Other people ALSO don’t want to have an awkward situation!

Actually, The BEST Conversations Start With…

1. You having the confidence to say whatever comes to mind
2. You not worrying about how the other person responds
3. You expecting a positive response
4. You being OK with whatever response you get

See, it all depends on you.

Good conversation starters can literally be anything.

And starting conversations is effortless once you have your inner psychology in place.

When I suffered from intense social anxiety I first tried forcing myself to talk to people.

I was terrified doing it, but I read everywhere it was the only way to overcome my fear.

I studied all sorts of clever conversation openers.

I hardly ever uses any of them because in front of someone I was frozen by fear.

When the moment came up something would stop me.

It was like an invisible wall blocking me from opening my mouth and saying what I had rehearsed.

Opportunities to meet people constantly passed me by.

On the odd occasion that I did manage to force myself to say something, I was highly anxious doing so.

And it was almost always awkward.

I’ve since come to realise that becoming socially confident is for the most part an inside job.

When you get rid of the reasons for why you’re anxious, and you feel comfortable in your own skin, calm around people, saying hello to someone new is no biggie.

Here’s The Easy Way To Become Confident Starting Conversations

On my podcast show I interviewed psychologist and “self acceptance expert” Steve Wells.

We’re discussing a powerful emotional release technique, and how effective this is compared to forcefully facing your fears. Here’s what he says:

We discuss the technique in detail on the podcast, and I also teach it to you for free over a series of videos (see below).

It’s a technique to rapidly release fear, shame, anxiety and so on.

With it you can change your inner psychology. You can get rid of the underlying reasons for your social anxiety one by one.

I’ll share how to use this emotional release technique to become anxiety-free in my Ebook “How to overcome social anxiety completely”.

You get it along with my story of how I used the technique to overcame my social anxiety, as well as 11 videos containing a technique to rapidly release shame, fear, and anxiety.

With these resources you will be able to reduce your social anxiety today.

Put your name and email address in the box below and I’ll send it over.

Go to Starting Conversations 101 part 3/4:
“How To Start Conversations”

Go to Starting Conversations 101 part 4/4:
“Mentally Rehearse Your Conversation Openers”

Go to Starting Conversations 101 part 1/4:
Creating Interesting Conversation Starters

Techniques To Create Conversation Skills

“Become Comfortable Starting A Conversation With Anyone”

Go to Part 1/3: Asking Questions To Start Conversation?!

Go to Part 2/3: Conversation Starters For Every Situation

Go to Part 3/3: Asking Conversation Starter Questions…

“Conversation Topics Mastery”

Go to Part 1/2: 24 Interesting Conversation Topics

Go to Part 2/2: Conversation Exercises For Conversation Confidence

“Conversation Questions Mastery”

Go to Part 1/2: Excellent Conversation Questions For Conversational Mastery

Go to Part 2/2: Questions To Keep Conversation Going?

Normal Phone Conversation Starters

If you want to completely overcome your social anxiety disorder, I found a technique that helped me accept myself and overcome my social anxiety completely. It isn’t changing your thoughts, deep-breathing and facing your fears…

It’s far more powerful than that.

I have a free social confidence starter kit where I teach you this technique over a series of videos.

Don’t worry — your e-mail address is totally secure.
I promise to use itonly to send you Secrets Of Social Confidence.

Go from Good Conversation Starters back to the Homepage

July 30, 2012 #SASBlog

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Sebastiaan

Sebastiaan van der Schrier is a Social Confidence Coach and ex social anxiety sufferer. He helps socially anxious people become confident using a unique and painless approach. He is the host of the Social Anxiety Solutions podcast show and runs the first ever online Social Confidence Community.