Overcome Social Anxiety With These 5 Powerful Methods

Overcoming social anxiety is a goal of many people.

Whether they find themselves unable to express themselves in front of a group of people or unable to tell the opposite sex how they feel, feeling socially “stitched up” is extremely common.

According to Mental Health America, 15 million Americans suffer with some form of social anxiety and those are the ones that report it! Social anxiety in men is even more under-reported, because of stigma surrounding mental health issues (and the want to appear macho).

Regardless, dealing with and learning how to overcome social anxiety is key if you want to live life to its fullest capacity.

In this article, I’m going to discuss some tactics that will help you overcome social anxiety and make it take a backseat in your life – permanently.

What Is Social Anxiety? How Does It Impact Your Life?

what is social anxiety

Social anxiety is the persistent experience of fear or dread in social situations.

This can manifest in anything from slight shaking to a full blown panic attack.

Social anxiety as exists along a spectrum from 0 to 100. Many people have traces of it, but not enough to impede daily life. Having full blown social anxiety is rare and usually requires some form of medication.

Social anxiety can be present in various situations, but here are some of the most common:

  • Starting a conversation
  • Asking someone for a date or being on a date
  • Public speaking or presentations
  • Making eye contact
  • Entering a room
  • Going to a party

These events usually result in a “constricting” of focus and inability to express oneself and as earlier stated, panic attacks.

If social anxiety is left untreated, it can result in social isolation. Since most of life is a social affair, you’ll end up missing out. You might miss out on dates, jobs, and just life in general. Next thing you know, a year, 5 years, or a decade has passed by and you’re still in the same spot you were before. Afraid and alone.

What Personality Types Have Social Anxiety?

The socially anxious introvert is what we typically bring to mind when the words “social anxiety” are mentioned, but it doesn’t just affect introverts.

The socially anxious extrovert is all too common as well.

I consistently tested as an extrovert (ENTJ) on personality tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and I had moderate social anxiety that reared its head my freshman year of college. To shut out this feeling of not being in control, I developed a “stoic” and unflinching disposition. Many men will resort to developing a hard and gruff exterior to play the “confidence game” and make everyone think they’re a bad ass when in actuality, they have anxiety or even depression.

You may think you’re an introvert. But introversion and social anxiety are two completely different things. Introversion is an approach to life in terms of disposition, while social anxiety is an inhibitive response to life and social situations.

An introvert without social anxiety very well may look like an extrovert while an extrovert with social anxiety may be the “pop culture” depiction of an introverted individual.

So there are many people around in the world who think that they’re “introverts” because they stay in on a Friday or Saturday night – but they’re not. They’re just scared as hell about getting into sticky social situations.

So all personality types can have social anxiety. If you can’t determine whether you have social anxiety or you’re just an introvert, the only real way for you to find out is to take an in-depth personality test, ask yourself your motives in or avoiding social interactions, and maybe even see a licensed psychotherapist.

The Core Mindsets to Overcome Social Anxiety

To help you in overcoming your social anxiety, there are some mindsets that it helps to have. Let’s go through them:

Two Choices

If you’ve determined you that you do indeed have social anxiety, There’s some bad news and some good news:

The bad news: if you don’t deal with it and overcome it, it only becomes worse.

The good news: managing and even overcoming social anxiety is indeed possible.

There are many people who have not addressed their social anxiety or social phobia and over the years it just became worse or it leveled out at a high plateau. These people then just “live” with it. Some of these people remain stuck at home for months, even years at a time. They only become “free” when they’re under the influence of substances.

There are also many people who have decided to attack it head on and do whatever it took to get rid of their fear in this area and have gone on to become esteemed members in their community, respected professionals, and get what they want from this one short life we have to live.

You can be the latter but only if you choose to do so.

You Don’t Have to Be Perfect

This one of the biggest mistakes people who have large amounts of social anxiety and self-consciousness make. They think everyone is looking for them to slip up. To be honest, most people are more focused on themselves rather than what you are doing or not doing.

Simply stated: no one gives a fuck.

Most people are concerned with themselves most of the time. Many people are wondering how they’re going to pay the bills, what their crush or significant other thinks about them, or how they look to other people.

This revelation alone can be freeing for someone who has spent most of their life caring about what other people think. Chances are, they aren’t thinking about you at all.

Most People Don’t Have the Answers

Many people with social anxiety think that something is fundamentally wrong with them and that everyone else has seemed to “figure it out”. That’s what I used to think. I thought that everyone else found out the key to life. The reality was: no one knew anything.

In college and the young adult years, most people are scared as hell, but they won’t admit it. Again, they’re thinking thoughts centering around themselves.

Even as people “grow up”, they just sort of “survive”. They don’t thrive. Many people are swimming with their head barely above water and spend their whole lives that way.

Whatever It Takes

In a perfect world, no one would need to overcome social anxiety. In fact, in a perfect world, no one would have any problems at all. However, we don’t live in that world – so we need to deal with reality as it is.

The reality is: you have social anxiety. That’s the “problem”. What’s the solution? What are you doing on a consistent basis to manage it or overcome it?

As I said before, many people just end up “living” with feelings of fear and desperation because they aren’t willing to do what it takes to diminish their fear. If you truly want to overcome social anxiety, you have to have the mindset of:

I’ll do it or die.

These are the types of efforts needed to solve persistent lifestyle issues. If you had or have a drug addiction, your only two options would be to live and recover or eventually continue taking drugs until you overdose. There is no in between.

Until you have that type of willingness, nothing else will help you.

How to Overcome Social Anxiety: 5 Methods to Help You

overcome social anxiety

There are some ways to mitigate or sideline social anxiety in the short-term, but long term implementation will be with you and again, how willing you are to deal with the issue. If you want to get on the road to start doing so, here’s 5 things that can help:

1. Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Everything you want in life lies outside of your comfort zone. If not, you’d already have it. The only real way to overcome social anxiety without a long term crutch is to do the things you don’t want to do. In other words, self-discipline.

How to fix:

  1. Determine your areas of discomfort – Most people only get social anxiety in certain situations. What is it? Is it at social gatherings? Is it public speaking? Mark that down as a potential area of improvement.
  2. Make inroads on that thing – Once you’ve determined what it is, make small steps to address that area.

2. Repeat Exposure

If you go to a therapist, they may ask you what the “root cause” of your social anxiety is. You, you might not even know the “root cause”, you just know you were “always a socially anxious person”. While this introspection can help, it doesn’t solve the problem of not developing a “social template” you can draw upon in various situations. If a woman is showing you interest at an event or party, you will most likely clam up and not show off your attractive side because you simply don’t have experience in that area.

How to fix:

  1. Regularly socialize – Regularly make it a point of duty to get out and engage with people weekly. Call or text a friend and ask them if they want to get some food. If you don’t have any friends, join a Meetup group that gets together regularly.
  2. Schedule it in – This is to prevent the “Oh damn, I forgot” excuse that may “conveniently” arise when you start anything new. Constantly put a reminder in your face (on your computer monitor, on your calendars) to be social. This is an easy way to hold yourself accountable.

3. Learn How to Manage Your Mind

The act of mind management is one of the most difficult things to achieve, but it is well worth it. Being able to consciously sort and filter through the massive amounts of information you are presented with on a daily basis is a key skill everyone should learn how to develop.

To learn how to do this, check out Self-Persuaded: The Definitive Guide to the Art of Mind Management.

4. Increase Your Self-Efficacy

Social anxiety often (though not always) comes from low levels of self-esteem or self-efficacy. We all know what self-esteem is, but self-efficacy is the belief that your are capable of “holding your own” in any particular situation that life throws at you. You may not be “the best”, you may not be the most graceful, but you managed to see things through regardless.

High levels of self-efficacy often produces high levels of self-esteem and people who are socially anxious most likely do not see themselves as someone with high levels of self-efficacy.

How to fix:

  1. Prove it to yourself – The best way to increase your self-efficacy is to do things that have greater and greater levels of difficulty. In this case, this may involve social situations, but you want to increase your overall levels of self-efficacy in life. It’s very hard to imagine someone who fought in a war being socially anxious around people. It happens, but the chances are very low because of the sheer triviality of a social situation in comparison with life-or-death armed combat.
  2. Nail down your foundations – While social interaction should never be outright neglected, it is something that should be secondary to your overall lifestyle foundation. As an adult, self-efficacy comes from the ability to take care of yourself. If you find it hard to meet perpetual basic needs, secure those first before you extend yourself in a line of self-improvement.

5. Introspection (Meditation and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

If you see a licensed therapist, one of the prime techniques they will use is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a way to disarm cognitive distortions. Social anxiety originates from a distorted self-image and self-talk with CBT work to help correct this.

Another introspective tool helpful in overcoming social anxiety is meditation. Meditation is “en vogue” these days because millions of people see how effective it is when done right. Meditation has been proven to help with a number of mental health ailments, including anxiety.

How to fix:

  1. Start a meditation practice – Meditation has little to do with burning incense, wearing hemp, and chanting in foreign tongues. Meditation has two components: sustained focus and energy management. To meditate, focus your attention on a theme or motif and hold it there. Increase the amount of time you do so incrementally.
  2. Start dissecting situations – The purpose of CBT is to help you frame situations in a rational light and to see the good that is present. You may have moderate to severe levels of social anxiety. OK. But what else is working well in your life? Have there been other situations you have overcome and become triumphant? If you’ve overcome those situations, why not social anxiety? This is the essence of positive self-talk. A good book on this is What to Say When You Talk to Yourself.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

Many people struggle with social anxiety and it’s not a problem that only affects certain people. Various people from various backgrounds struggle with it. Social anxiety can be debilitating and something that impacts your life for the worse. If left untreated, social anxiety only grows until it becomes something that takes over your life via warped thinking.

You can overcome social anxiety with a mindset of willingness and a combination of repeat exposure, stretching beyond your comfort zone, increasing your self-efficacy, and introspective self-bolstering. With diligence and patience, you can learn to be extremely comfortable in a variety of social situations.

Do you have social anxiety? What have you been doing to overcome it? Let me know in the comments.

One Response to “Overcome Social Anxiety With These 5 Powerful Methods

  • Hi Sim,

    I came across you on Quora and love the idea that you are introducing a new generation to these ideas. People ask what is the “secret” to success – there is no secret – the methods have been known for thousands of years. Keep doing what you are doing!

    If I can be of any help to you or your readers let me know.

    Wishing you the best of success,
    Paul

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