Social Anxiety Challenge Thread

[Drummer90]

I've been trying to speak in a more broad tone. I have a very deep voice but it's easily lost and turns into mumbles. The rough part is the fact that I've been speaking pretty confidently and people still try to talk over me ect or ask me to repeat myself. The eye contact is a working progress...I normally make eye contact and go back and forth staring off at whatever. But these small challenges are somewhat working. When I start my new job I'm going to attempt to make better conversation with some women. I do have a slight fear of rejection but overall I am fighting my own bitterness and drinking habits.

 

[DanielLewis]

I went out today by myself, even thou my sa was giving me griff. An by the eñd of it, i was feeling a lot better.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Good job! That's was taking action does. You feel better knowing you did what you set out to do despite feelings of fear and doubt. It feels good to make progress, even if its the slightest of progress. Just keep it up. If you want to see any significant improvement say, a year from now, then you must remain consistent and persistent. I would encourage you to smile at strangers everywhere you go in public....the grocery store, the mall, school, etc. Keep doing it until you feel comfortable with it....until you feel you're good at it and feelings of fear and self-doubt don't control you in the situation....also until when you could care less about how they react to you. The fact that many of us would get so worked up and fearful over such a small act of kindness lends us a peak into our current limiting beliefs and mindset that we have to work to fix. It's going to take time to reshape negative thinking patterns, beliefs, and habits, but it'll be worth it in the end. We can all do it, and get the change we so badly want, if we only choose to. However, it's not a one-time choice. Sure, we may have just decided that we're going to do whatever it takes to change, but you have to make this decision daily. Make the most out of your days. You never know where you could be a year or two from now.

Keep this thread going man. Us sa sufferers need hope! And we need to somehow get motivated to do something about this. Alright, you guys go ahead. I'll wait back here.

I'll try as long as people keep posting here. I'll try and think of new challenges, but really it's not that hard. Anyone can come up with their own challenges, which may be best anyway since you know where you're at better than me. Everyone has to go at their own pace without jumping too far ahead. I mean, how many of us would jump right into Toastmasters right now? That would probably be biting off more than we can chew. However, it would be a good thing to do in the future when we're ready for it.

The goal of this thread is to motivate you. You have to know that you have the power to beat and conquer SA, along with many other obstacles in your life. Don't just settle and give up without taking action to overcome it. Most of us here are smart people without anything holding us back from becoming the people we want to become besides ourselves. We have the capability to learn new skills and develop ourselves mentally, which is really what it all boils down to. But, I bet most of us here live such isolated lives without much social practice which is a main contributing factor to this SA or shyness. I mean, is it any wonder that we experience SA, which is feeling discomfort or anxiety in social situations, if we don't socialize much? Again, I would go back to the example of saying to imagine you were forced to socialize with a group of different strangers for 4 hours a day, each day. You would not have SA and, if you did, it would be very little. You obviously would have good social skills too. It's inevitable if you're forced to learn like that.

I've been trying to speak in a more broad tone. I have a very deep voice but it's easily lost and turns into mumbles. The rough part is the fact that I've been speaking pretty confidently and people still try to talk over me ect or ask me to repeat myself. The eye contact is a working progress...I normally make eye contact and go back and forth staring off at whatever. But these small challenges are somewhat working. When I start my new job I'm going to attempt to make better conversation with some women. I do have a slight fear of rejection but overall I am fighting my own bitterness and drinking habits.

That's good that you're focusing on the basics like voice tone. Body language is very important and it has a profound affect on the way people perceive you. How you feel shows through in your body, particularly in the eyes. When I have felt very nervous and anxious and look people in the eye, not only does it feel difficult to maintain the eye contact, but they can see how I feel through my eyes. So, the solution, if you want to display friendly and confident body language, is to actually feel confident and happy. Of course, you can fake it, but it's not always that easy to mask how you're feeling. It's pretty much inevitable that it will show up through your body language somehow. What I do, then, is ask myself calmly and without getting to worked up why am I feeling this way? The cause is either conscious or sub-conscious thoughts, or a combination of both. I may be thinking negative conscious thoughts or have deep-rooted sub-conscious thoughts associated with negative feelings in the particular environment or situation. So, I'm doing a lot of thought work right now. I have to be conscious of my thoughts for now, getting rid of all negative ones as soon as they appear, until I no longer have to be conscious of it anymore because a new habit has formed.

I commend you for choosing to fight for what you want in life and for attempting to make better conversation with women at your job. It sounds like you're looking for a date because you mentioned rejection. From my experience, I wouldn't do that with the SA as it is for me now. I recently dated a girl (only 3 dates) at my work and because of SA and shyness it got very awkward when she rejected me. Well, it was awkward even before then because I had great difficulty talking to her at work in front of all my coworkers and that was my first dating experience. I'm glad I did it still because what I got out of it was more valuable than what I didn't but, thing is, there are women everywhere. Why date a girl I work with. If you're talking not about dating a girl and trying to get her number, then rejection isn't very likely at all. First off, if you're just being friendly trying to have a conversation, and she rejects that, you're in no way at fault. You have to realize that and not take it personally. Don't ever take any type of rejection personally. Secondly, she most likely is going to want to be friendly back no matter what given that you guys work together. Shes going to want to maintain a friendly relationship with people she sees regularly to keep things positive for you and her whereas, if she didn't she you regularly, she may care less about rejecting you.