What worked for me better than anything was standing on a busy sidewalk holding a sign that said “Free Hugs” for a few hours. I came away feeling very high status and had a friendly, open orientation towards everyone I saw.
Another idea is to play the eye contact game lukeprog mentions in one of his skill-building posts: stare in to a friend’s eyes for 15 minutes straight. Seems to have permanently made me way more comfortable maintaining eye contact (this is more than a year after doing the exercise).
Thanks for the advice. The second one in particular is surprising because most of the once-off life-changes I’ve tried have had no effect on me a week or two later. I’ve added both to my list of “things I’ll wish I’d done sooner”, from where I’ll hopefully make concrete plans to actually execute them.
What worked for me better than anything was standing on a busy sidewalk holding a sign that said “Free Hugs” for a few hours. I came away feeling very high status and had a friendly, open orientation towards everyone I saw.
Another idea is to play the eye contact game lukeprog mentions in one of his skill-building posts: stare in to a friend’s eyes for 15 minutes straight. Seems to have permanently made me way more comfortable maintaining eye contact (this is more than a year after doing the exercise).
Thanks for the advice. The second one in particular is surprising because most of the once-off life-changes I’ve tried have had no effect on me a week or two later. I’ve added both to my list of “things I’ll wish I’d done sooner”, from where I’ll hopefully make concrete plans to actually execute them.