2 Give yourself a lot of external stimulation

To keep your focus off of yourself you need to put more and more attention on other person. If you only listen to her words you still have plenty of idle brain power that will drift back to make your self consciousness grow.

Instead you need to give your conscious mind so much to pay attention to that you are totally absorbed in other person. Become fascinated by how she expresses herself and not just by what she says.

Keep stacking on more details to simultaneously pay attention to until you are challenged without feeling overwhelmed.

Here is a list of some elements to focus on:

- rate of breathing - speech rhythm - pupil dilation - changes in skin tone - speech patterns - metaphors - posture and movement - combinations of above

The more you pay attention to other person less self conscious you will be because you will have become other conscious. Which is in fact hallmark of people who make friends easily. Your clear interest in other person will shine through.

3 Patient Persistence

The final point to remember is that patience and persistence wins day. Play with these strategies a little each day and you will start to exhibit traits of people who are supposedly gifted with people skills.

People skills are a matter of strategy. Learn strategy, practice it and you too will enjoy benefits that come to those who get along well with whoever they meet.

At same time you need to earn riches that await you. Many know what to do but few do what they know.

For that reason you have to link your needs to their gains by negotiating - tell them they will get what they want IF you get what you want.

3 Say No When You Do Not Care About Outcome

When you are flexing this new found ability to say No for first time use every opportunity to get some practice e.g.

- In a restaurant, say no to first table you are offered - at home say No to coffee when everyone else says Yes, have tea - In a store say yes to an offer of help but No to product

What I mean is to say No when you are dealing with people whose approval is not that important to you. You will quickly learn through experience that it is not end of world if you say no and other person is not pleased with you.

4 Say No to Big Request and Yes to a Smaller One

Sometimes you are going to be asked to do more than your fair share. If you cannot avoid job you may need to consider doing part of it.

A good way to handle these requests is to offer to do part of job but not all of it. For example:

- I will clean 2 rooms if you do other 3 rooms - I can do 5 pages of report as long as you give me data - If you start project I will finish it

By standing up for yourself on small points you will gradually assert yourself more often on big issues. The main thing is to get started today on winning back control of your interactions with anyone who pushes you too far.