Believing that you are socially unacceptable or unpleasant can be painful. Lack of self-confidence can make you afraid to interact socially. When you find yourself in situations where others are watching you or where you need to speak in front of a crowd or with strangers, you may feel anxious. This could make you act strange. He may avoid eye contact and behave too cautiously. The idea that you are socially unacceptable can be reinforced when you feel that other people are reacting strangely to you.
As a result of the challenges you face, you may end up avoiding social contact, even though you know that being in social places and interacting with others is an important part of anyone’s life. We cannot always avoid social situations in daily life. You may be invited to parties where friends are celebrating, or co-workers who are celebrating their birthdays invite you. It is not always possible to avoid social interaction.
So how do you improve social self-confidence when you don’t have it? Before I tell you how, let me start by telling you a little story about a rat.
When you have a rat at home that eats your tomatoes and spoils your fruits. To catch it, you would need to know how, when and where it operates. You’ll want to catch it when the house is quiet with a piece of cheese in the mousetrap or place a rat poison in places where the rat is likely to hang out.
A similar approach is applicable to improving self-confidence. You need to understand how your mind works and what patterns it follows so you can interrupt those patterns and form new ones.
The first trigger is mental, you get images of yourself doing something that will cause you shame. What you think is what you feel. Your thoughts make you feel anxious. When you feel anxious, you respond by avoiding social interaction and the result is that you lack social self-confidence. Therefore, to overcome social anxiety it is necessary to influence this pattern. Let’s draw what the pattern looks like:
social situation (environment) – images of shame (thinking) – anxiety, fear (feelings) – avoidance (response)
We know that we cannot change the external environment (sometimes you will be in a social situation whether you want to or not). We can only influence ourselves internally in terms of how we respond to the external environment. Constantly trying to avoid social situations can serve as a temporary solution. However, this cannot guarantee long-term success in improving the way you interact socially. What you can change is your thought process, your feelings, and your responses.
Past failures may have conditioned you to view every social situation in which you need to interact as an anxiety trigger. After all, we are human, once we get burned we never want to go near a lit candle. So, to help you improve social self-confidence, you may first need to forget past failures and try to change the way you view social situations first. Here are the 3 ways I have developed to help you overcome social anxiety and improve social interaction.
1. See social situations as opportunities by remembering past success
Some successful sports teams have a tradition of taking players through past successes before a cup final. Players are shown previous cup finals before the match and are shown all trophies the team has won before. The team’s past success helps motivate the players to win another cup final for the team. If you’ve ever had success in the past interacting socially, use this as an anchor for yourself. Remember how you successfully delivered a presentation in front of an audience and interacted very well with a stranger. Have you ever been in a situation where you gave a public speech and did well despite your fear? This is the time to keep these memories fresh in your mind. Remembering your past successes and celebrating past victories can help you believe in yourself and be able to overcome present feelings of anxiety towards social interactions.
2. Use visualization to empower yourself in social situations
Access the power of your subconscious mind by constantly imagining yourself interacting socially. This doesn’t need to take a long time. Just spending 5 minutes watching yourself walk up to a stranger and have a nice conversation or imagine yourself making a big public presentation can help. Once our mind has been where we want to be, our bodies just need to support us to get there. By mentally picturing yourself as having social self-confidence, you can empower yourself to reproduce your mental images in real life when situations call for it. Be careful though, viewing should be done before a social interaction. Actively doing this while interacting socially can be problematic because it will force you to think about what you are doing. When you think about what you are doing, you are more likely to become anxious. So visualize before social interactions and try as much as you can to remain natural when in social situations.
3. Make social interaction a challenging game of exposure
Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and this doesn’t help. Improving social anxiety requires that you occasionally have a playful attitude. Use a playful attitude to expose yourself socially. Exposure has been scientifically proven to be very effective when it comes to improving social anxiety. I know this is the last thing you want to hear because when you feel uncomfortable interacting socially, the immediate response is to avoid social interaction. However, the more exposure you get by interacting socially, the better off you are. Try to start small talk whenever you are in a social situation with a stranger. This can be as simple as saying hello to a cashier every time he pays for items in a store or when he goes shopping. Just asking the cashier for his name and thanking him for the service is enough to get you started.
Few of us remember to appreciate cashiers when we shop, it will brighten their day simply by showing appreciation and improving yourself as well. Try everything you can to expose yourself.
Gas attendants are also good people to interact with in a non-threatening environment to start a conversation. It’s better to do it jokingly so you see it as a challenge instead of getting too serious and reading too much into the results. The more you bring it into your awareness to interact with others, the better you will expose yourself and improve the way you interact socially.
Spending time with a friend who isn’t afraid to interact socially could also help in this situation. Human beings also learn by seeing. If your anxiety is specific, like falling in a public place, ask a friend to pretend to fall in a public space so he can visually see that the results aren’t as worse as she thought they would be. Expose yourself without emotional attachment. Be playful with any friends who are comfortable interacting socially, and have fun doing it. Practice makes perfect, this is also true for getting rid of social anxiety.