Believing that you are unacceptable or socially unpleasant can be painful. Lack of self-confidence can make you fearful of social interaction. When you find yourself in situations where you will be observed by others or where you need to speak in front of a crowd or with strangers, you may feel anxious. This can make you act uncomfortable. You can avoid eye contact and behave too cautiously. The idea that you are socially unacceptable can be reinforced when you feel like other people are reacting strangely to you.
As a result of the challenges you face, you could 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 when living our daily lives. You may be invited to parties where friends are celebrating or colleagues at work celebrate your birthday. 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 a little story about a rat.
When you have a rat in the house that eats your tomatoes and spoils your fruits. To detect it, you would need to know how, when and where it operates. You will want to catch it when the house is calm with a piece of cheese in the mousetrap or place a rat poison in places where the rat is likely to prowl.
A similar approach is applicable to improve self-confidence. You need to understand how your mind works and what patterns it goes through in order to interrupt those patterns and form new ones.
The first trigger is mentally, you get pictures of yourself doing something that will cause you embarrassment. 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 (thought) – 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 it 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 a trigger for anxiety. We are human after all human, once we are burned we never want to go near a lit candle. So to help you improve social self-confidence, you may need to first forget about 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. Consider social situations as opportunities by recalling past successes
Some successful sports teams have a tradition in which they lead players through past successes before a cup final. Players are shown the previous cup finals before the match and are taken through all the trophies the team has won before. The team’s past success helps the players motivate themselves to win another cup final for the team. If you’ve ever been successful in social interaction, use this as an anchor for yourself. Remember how you successfully presented 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 it well despite your fear? This is the time to have these fresh memories in your mind. Remembering your past successes and celebrating past victories can help you believe in yourself and be able to overcome current anxious feelings towards social interactions.
2. Use visualization to empower yourself in social situations.
Access the power of your subconscious mind by constantly imagining yourself interacting well socially. This does not have to take a long time. It can help to spend five minutes seeing yourself approaching a stranger and having a nice conversation or imagining yourself making a great presentation publicly. Once our mind has been where we want to be, our bodies just need to support us to get there. By mentally imagining yourself having social confidence in yourself, you will be better able to strengthen yourself to represent 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 feel anxious. So visualize before social interactions and try as much as you can to stay natural in social situations.
3. Make social interaction a challenging exposure game.
Sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and this does not help. Improving social anxiety requires that you have a playful attitude from time to time. 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 have when interacting socially, the better. Try to start a little conversation every time you are in a social situation with a stranger. This can be as simple as saying hello to a cashier every time you pay for items in a store or when you shop. Just asking the cashier his name and thanking him for the service is enough to get you started.
Few of us remember appreciating cashiers when they shop, you will make their day just by showing appreciation and also improving yourself. Try everything you can to expose yourself.
Gasoline assistants are also good people to interact with in a non-threatening environment to start a conversation. It is better to do it in a playful way so that you see it as a challenge rather than getting too serious and reading too much about the results. The more you become aware of how to interact with others, the better you will be exposed and improve the way you interact socially.
Spending time with a friend who is not afraid to interact socially may also help in this situation. Humans also learn by watching. If your anxiety is specific, such as falling in a public place, ask a friend to pretend to fall in a public space so you can visually see that the results are not as worse as you thought they would be. Exposing yourself without emotional attachment. Use a playful attitude with any friend who is comfortable interacting socially and have fun doing it. Practice makes perfect, this is also true for getting rid of social anxiety.