The area of social communication implies that you interact with other human beings in order to improve your interpersonal skills.

Reading educational materials only, no matter how exciting and insightful it may seem, will not bring you any closer to having a fulfilling social life.

Watching videos on how to date girls, reading books on how to make conversations, participating in online discussion boards, visiting sites like this one may be helpful. However, if this is the only activity you focus on, you will hardly make any noticeable progress. Moreover, if you overdo it, it will become addictive.

You must realize that if you want real world results – to make new friends, find romantic relationships, get in shape, improve your health, – you need to take real world actions. You can’t change it, because that is how this world works.

If you feel stuck in a state of absorbing tremendous amounts of educational information, which you don’t put into practice regularly, consider balancing this tendency in the following way.

After you’re done reading that other book about improving your interpersonal skills, go out and apply at least one idea from it in the real world. You don’t have to succeed. Just take a recommendation from that book you feel comfortable about, and try it.

The same applies to the online resources, like this web-site. When you’re finished reading an article, do some easy-to-implement social exercise, like write or call an old acquaintance of yours and ask how s/he is doing.

If you expect that you may read a book and grasp all the information from it in one session, you are wrong.

Some advice from the book may simply not have any effect on you, as you’re not ready to accept it yet. Because you haven’t gotten enough real world experience to benefit from that recommendation or tip.

You may only benefit from a piece of information which correlates with the level of social experience you have at this moment. You can’t learn something in advance and you don’t need it. It will only clutter your mind.

However, if you practice for a little while, you’ll pay more attention to the information which didn’t make any sense to you the first time you read it.

When you’re reading a book a lot of ideas may seem “obvious” and “straightforward” to you. Check it in the real situation. It always looks “obvious” on the paper, but when you apply it under the real world circumstances, you may get a lot of questions to ask.

The real world experience will let you get the most value out of the reading, as you will better understand which part of the book to focus on.

Do not try to get prepared to every possible outcome. The real-world social situation will likely take such a twist that you haven’t predicted. Or you will not be able to perform in a way you planned it in your head.

Quite often having several options to choose from is worse then having just one.

If your head is overwhelmed with a variety of social strategies, methods, techniques, etc., you may easily get confused, which one you should actually use in this current situation you’ve got into.

Theory, if it’s not balanced with adequate amount of practice, tends to accumulate inside and make you tired and pessimistic.

Absorbing large chunks of information impetuously will overwhelm you eventually. It will make you depressed, tired, mentally crushed and pessimistic about your future progress.

Release your knowledge. Get your hands dirty.

No matter how addicted you are to reading than practicing, you need to find a reasonable balance between those two.

Make one tiny attempt to improve your social skills per week. After you’ve done it, enjoy your reading again, in a cozy environment, with a cup of hot cacao.

Practice at your own pace, but do practice. Do not let reading outweigh doing. Practice regularly, in cycle, and your interpersonal skills will improve.

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