Some of us are born social butterflies and others struggle to get five words out at a cocktail party or company meeting. Although it is obvious that some of us have a tendency to shyness, it is equally clear that the ability to boldly sell yourself and make social connection can be a huge benefit professionally as well as personally.
If you find yourself anxious and inhibited in a variety of social situations, whether that’s meeting new people, speaking in front of a group of people, or eating in public, and if you fear that you will be rejected or feel humiliated because other people see your anxiety, you may suffer from social anxiety.
Social anxiety spoils life. It gets in the way of fun opportunities and making new connections with others. Most people get a little self-conscious or feel somewhat shy around others, but if you suffer from social anxiety, you feel a self-consciousness that is crippling and a nervousness that will make you lose your words.
The good news is, you can do something about it and once you become more socially confident, you open the door to new friendships, new job opportunities and generally more fun in life.
So let’s take a look at how you can overcome your social anxiety and hugely improve the quality of your life. Our 8 SOCIAL CONFIDENCE TIPS will help you feel calmer and more relaxed when you are out with others and will allow you to start your journey from social anxiety to the confident person you really are.
#1 Prepare to Relax
By intensely worrying about an upcoming social situation you program yourself to worry without being aware of it. Of course, if you repeatedly worry, the anxiety about the event only grows and it is no wonder that when you actually get into the social situation you feel anxious. It’s clear, you have programmed yourself to worry. But it is possible to reverse that programming by taking the time to learn how to relax yourself and then think about the future event. Once you are in a relaxed state of mind, visualize yourself in a social situation completely relaxed and confident. If you do this repeatedly, you program your body and mind to build new and better automatic associations with social events. We’ve talked about relaxation techniques before, but if you are not familiar with it, start by focusing on your breath, learn how to meditate, take a walk in nature, listen to chill out music, practice yoga, tai chi or qi gong or simply take an aromatherapy bubble bath. Find whatever gets you in a relaxed state of mind so you can start your visualization from a calm, peaceful mind.
#2 Seek Out Social Situations
If you stay away from social situations, your anxiety will only get worse. Why? Because the more you avoid something, the more you send a message to your subconscious mind that something is dangerous and that’s why you are avoiding it. So your mind, in an attempt to be helpful, builds up even more fear. We tend to avoid what frightens us. Start actively putting yourself in social situations to program your subconscious mind that this is normal. Face-to-face interactions with sympathetic people are the most effective way to clam your nervous system and relieve some stress and anxiety about social gatherings. Start by seeking out kind people and build and maintain a supportive network, that will help you keep your anxiety and stress in check.
#3 Look at Your Surroundings
People who are socially anxious tend to bring their focus inward. We get caught up in our anxious emotions, feelings and thoughts and monitor our bodily sensations. Our major focus is to control ourselves while fearing that people around us will find out that we are nervous and will judge us for that. So it makes sense to bring your focus outward to lower your anxiety levels. When you are in a social situation that makes you anxious, take a mental note of the pictures on the wall, what other people are wearing, the lighting in the room… Switching the focus from internal to external can go a long way towards reducing social anxiety. Keep in mind… you can’t pay attention to two things at once. The more you place your focus on what’s going on around you, the less you will be affected by anxiety.
#4 Create Objective Goals
When you are anxious, you tend to disregard positive feelings. It is possible that you are doing great, but because you are feeling anxious, you see your performance as bad. Setting objective behavioral goals in a social situation that you can measure and objectively judge your progress are a great way to shift your focus from whether you are nervous to whether or not you actually performed that behavior. So set an objective goal when you are in a group setting, for example no matter how much you are sweating or blushing, have the goal of making at least three comments. Avoid focusing on the reaction of others. It doesn’t matter whether your co-worker likes your idea or not. It matters that you actually speak up in the meeting.
#5 Ask Questions
Social anxiety makes us worry about what other people think of us, so instead shift your focus on other people and cultivate curiosity. Ask people open questions, meaning they require more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer and make it a point to remember what they tell you, so you can refer back to it later. This again forces you to shit your focus from internal to external. It also makes other people feel good about being the center of attention and having someone who actually listens to what they have to say and be interested.
#6 Turn Off Your Imagination
Imagination can be a beautiful thing if we use it constructively. It can be massively helpful like we showed in tip #1. But using your imagination to scare yourself has the opposite effect. Don’t try to imagine what other people think. After years of teaching, we learned to stop trying to figure out what other people think of us. So if you catch yourself trying to read someone else’s mind, tell yourself the truth: I really have no idea what the other person is thinking right now. While we can influence what other people think of us, we can’t control it. Bottomline is, the more socially confident you are, the less you care about other people’s opinion anyways.
#7 What Do You want?
Feed your mind with positivity. Rather than thinking about how terrible you will feel, focus on how you DO want to feel. Find a target feeling by reflecting on times when you were comfortable with others, like with trusted family members or an old friend. Program your mind to perform in this way when in other social situations. Find a relaxed state of mind (see #1) and take some time to remember how it feels to be completely comfortable with trusted people and then see yourself in less comfortable social situations, whether that’s a dinner party or a company meeting and use that mental rehearsal as a powerful tool that over time can make a huge difference.
#8 Be Yourself
The only way to ‘win’ in any social situation, again it doesn’t matter if that’s personal or professional, is to be yourself. Now it takes a lot of confidence to be who you are and be comfortable to also show parts of you that are less than perfect. But ultimately, striving for perfection kills spontaneity and makes us stilted. A big part of social anxiety is that we care too much about what other people think of us. Forget that and start to care about what you think about yourself and make sure that the image you have of yourself is positive… flaws and all.
If social anxiety is sabotaging your goals and stops you from living the life that you want, seek help and try our confidence tips. Social anxiety is treatable! You can become more confident and grow in the process of overcoming your social anxiety.
Just remember that socially confident people also act weird sometimes, they can get things wrong or feel flustered from time to time. It’s just that they can relax when those things happen. Feeling vulnerable in certain situations is part of human nature. It takes a little while to overcome social anxiety, but you can learn to be more comfortable in social situations and reclaim your life.
DO YOU FEEL IT’S POSSIBLE TO OVERCOME SOCIAL ANXIETY? WE MOST CERTAINLY DO!
Joschi & Monika
#BoldNaked
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