Self-care Sunday ~ Social anxiety

3. Taking action — just do it!

Once you have self-awareness and a confident mindset, it’s time to take action.

First, it is perfectly valid to avoid things that make you too uncomfortable. If you prefer online shopping and self-checkout over talking to cashiers, then that’s fine! If you’d rather hang out with someone in a spacious area over a crowded bar, then go ahead!

But often it can be more stressful trying to avoid something rather than actually doing it. You don’t want to live your life being completely controlled by SA. You don’t want it to stop you from health and happiness.

There comes a point when you have to shut off your thoughts and just do it! And the more you push yourself, the easier it gets!

I can assure you that the anticipation of failing is much scarier than actually failing.

If you’re about to give a speech, go ahead and do it. So you end up stuttering, mixing up your words, and people have trouble hearing you. But now it’s over with, and now you have more practice.

If you’re about to ask an authority figure a question, and you’re terrified of them yelling at you, just go ahead and ask. So they made you cry, now you can go tell complain to your friends about it. At least you got your answer.

If you want to go and talk to a romantic interest, then go ahead and do it. So they acted distant or rude, or didn’t give you the response you were hoping for. Now you can feel better knowing that you broke the ice and maybe next time you see them they’ll be the one to reach out to you and make up for it.

This is the absolute simplest step. It won’t be easy at first, but as soon as you get it over with, you’ll be like “wow, that wasn’t so bad” or at least have the satisfaction of knowing you tried.