Social anxiety is something we can feel from time and time again. Especially when you are meeting new people or you are in a new environment, you can tend to feel socially anxious.
What Is Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety is the fear of social situations or being judged by people or the fear of being rejected in a social situation. Social anxiety could even be as simple as you not liking your new haircut and you are scared to show it off to people, so you wear a hat.
You ever felt shy before? Just imagine feeling that x 10, that is what social anxiety could feel like. 2019 is the pinnacle of social anxiety for young adults and even kids. Social media has done a great job of inflecting social anxiety upon people. I believe the social anxiety from social media starts out at a lack of self worth from not getting enough “likes” on a picture you post. Then that lack of self worth bleeds into you standing in front of someone and you don’t feel worthy of their presence despite who they are and how they actually feel about themselves.
I believe in this day and age, social anxiety is the top of people’s list of phobias. This phobia has been programmed to us unintentionally by cooperations. Companies like Ubereats, Amazon, or any online store has made our lives easier but it’s a double edged sword, causing us to suffer from social anxiety. Due to our lack of exposure of social situations.
So before getting into the 2 important steps to get over social anxiety, you are going to need to get exposure. You can practice these 2 things I mention in this article but they will do you no good when you are practicing them in front of mirror. You are going to need to get social and in front of people.
We all want the quick fix, cure my problem in a couple easy steps I can do in my bedroom. But in reality you know deep down how you can solve your social anxiety. GET MORE SOCIAL. Sometimes that’s not enough and you need a couple steps hence that’s why you are reading this article to help you when you are in social situation to make it go more fluidly.
2 Steps To Get Over Your Social Anxiety:
1.Fake It Until You Make It
Act as if you aren’t socially anxious! I know this sounds confusing because how could you be able to “act” socially confident when you feel anxious. What would a socially confident person act like? Get a picture of them in your mind then try to mimic them.
Acting as if you aren’t socially anxious is like a magic trick to your mind and body.
When you act as if you aren’t socially anxious, what happens is your body and mind gets tricked and starts to believe that you aren’t social anxious because you are “acting” confident, so then you must not be socially anxious, so you then feel socially confident. Your mind and body is like “hey we aren’t acting socially anxious so then I must not be”. This changes the chemistry in the body.
Your body is the mind and your mind is the body.
You become not socially anxious when you act as if you aren’t social anxious. Forget about the “just be yourself” advice because where has “just being yourself” got you so far? I believe when it comes to being social, it is an act at first but then it becomes natural after some practice.
They call it social skills because it’s a skill that you must train everyday through practice. After repetition of acting as if you confident and free flowing when you are in a social situation, eventually you become natural. At first you have to act it out, that’s why it’s called fake until your make it. When you fake it like you aren’t socially anxious, eventually you make it because you become confident when being social.
2. Think About The Other Person When You Are Speaking To Them Instead Of Yourself.
Here’s what makes us socially anxious: Thinking only about yourself. When you go up in front of a room of people or even in front of a few friends, what are you thinking? I can bet that you are only thinking about yourself.
You are thinking about what will they think of me if I screw up? “I don’t want to mess up because I’ll look like a fool”. When you are being social you are most likely only thinking about yourself and that is where and when you screw up.
This ego invested mindset is makes you socially anxious. But when you change this paradigm from thinking about yourself, to thinking about the other person, or your audience, you become confident and free flowing. This is because now you aren’t protecting an identity, you are only caring about the person or people you are speaking to instead of yourself.
This is the best mindset shift ever. When one can simply change their thinking from thinking about themselves to thinking about the people you are speaking to, you become confident and you get out of your head.
“If you stay in your head, you’re dead”.
You stop caring about screwing up or stuttering because you shed the ego in front of the person you are talking to you. You start to care about how they are going to benefit from your conversation that your start free flowing. Instead of only caring about not screwing up or stumbling over your words.
Social anxiety is an ego invested mechanism. You are socially anxious because you are protecting an ego or in other words an identity. I can’t stress this enough. You have invested so much in this persona you display that you are afraid that you could ruin this persona by stumbling over your words and looking like a fool.
This is how you get over social anxiety.
Act as if you aren’t socially anxious, act confident in-spite of not feeling confident . Then when you are speaking think only about them not about yourself. How can you make this persons day or add value to them, not speak to protect an identity. These two things change how I am in social situations. You will feel more confident and feel flowing.
Try it today:)
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