Talking to a camera to improve social skills

[AdamR95]

Few days ago i started talking to camera, just to see how i would come off and i was suprised how hard it is to speak off the cuff and at the same time be authentic and not monotonous. After few days i see some improvements and it gives me an idea to come up with some specific excercises to practice and improve some areas of social skills so that when i am in social situations i would be able to speak without thinking and instead focus on more important aspects of these interactions than trying to think what to say.

Some of the excercises i came up with are:

1. Choosing some random word and speaking about it for some time than choosing some word from the last sentence and keep talking about that word for a while too and so on.

2.creating random dialogs with myself, playing roles and improvising.

3.pretending to be comedian, being funny, making jokes and being silly.

4.practising storytelling

5.presenting some random thing or product or trying to sell something and be enthusiastic about it.

I think it will be good suplement for my socialisation and its something which i can make habit out of easily. Another benefit is i can retrospect and see my mistakes and i can than see my progress which in real life interactions i am not able to see myself from another perspective and also see objectively my own progress in retrospect.

(Obviously its not meant to replace speaking with real people)

So what do you think about it? Do you have some ideas for it to make more practical or you think its good strategy as it is?

[Miguel1]

Very good!

Another one is starting a podcast for yourself. Just keep it private but make a podcast every week.

Pros and cons to both. A podcast will be easier to start with, so you can just focus on your speaking and no need to focus on your facial expressions yet.

Also, with a camera, if you dont know how to work it properly + the lightning, you can come off looking very bad, which can be demotivating.

[Bando]

@Miguel1 I second this every week make time to record for 30 minutes talking about whatever interests you. Review your content and watch the way you would watch any other creator. 

You'll learn a lot on how to speak and use body language in a more engaging way.