Social panic: 10 everyday actions to defeat it

Social fear is a natural mechanism to avoid being hurt. The low self-esteem and the lack of trust in oneself it makes us feel weak in social situations. We are afraid of feeling judged and it is very likely that this feeling has its origin in childhood.

Social panic: ten everyday actions to defeat it

Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, has fear of rejection. One of the things that differentiate a self-confident person from another who is not, is that the former learned to manage fear.

But how can we overcome insecurity?

First of all, we recommend that you read this article published in Psychology and Mind talking About shyness and how to try to overcome it.

Next we propose ten actions that you can apply in your day to day and that will help you to be a more sociable person.

1. Love yourself

The best way to end our fear of rejection is to work self-esteem. A good way to start is by learning to speak to ourselves and to value ourselves for who we are: to be aware of our strengths and to pamper and forgive our shortcomings. Also be aware that we can improve and not be ashamed for not knowing how to do this or that thing. Nobody is perfect and nobody knows everything.

To live is to learn and knowing how to correct our mistakes.

2. Don't take yourself too seriously

Laughing at ourselves and our flaws will help us relativize our mistakes. We should not get angry with ourselves but understand that mistakes are part of the learning. We are not born knowing, we have to be aware that everything has its process and we must not deprive ourselves of the luxury of being wrong. Let's rejoice in our mistakes because it will mean we are closer to our goal. In addition, laughing at ourselves, in front of others, will help us to be seen as courageous people who are not afraid of being judged.

3. Count your failures

There are few things funnier than the story of failure. Comedies tend to be failure stories and the characters who live them are people full of errors that make them endearing. Let's look at Charles Chaplin or Buster keaton; his films are plagued with downfalls and mistakes that make audiences laugh. His films are plots that feed on misunderstandings and clumsiness and the public laughs with them. Or if not, let's look at Woody Allen. All of his films revolve around him and his failures and, far from looking like a fool, people laugh with him and empathize with his experiences because, deep down, we've all failed at times and there's nothing wrong with it.

• About Woody Allen and his inability to seduce women, we recommend you read the following article: "The 8 beginner seducer mistakes".

4. Talk about your social fear

Saying that we are shy will help us to be able to communicate and will give information to others so that they can sympathize with us. We will be counting our failures and, at the same time, laughing at ourselves. Thus, others will know how to treat us and we will discover that it is okay to have social panic. For example, if we are in front of the person we like, we can say: "Excuse me, but you intimidate me and if I don't talk to you or I stutter it is because I am focused on not bleeding from the nose."

5. Learn to relax

There is no better way to combat anxiety than to learn to breathe and know a few relaxation techniques. There is endless information on the internet that will help us learn to fight stress. On Psychology and Mind we are supporters of Mindfulness, but there are countless ways to calm your nerves like yoga, the meditation or do sports. You can consult the following articles to learn simple and fun techniques that will help you have a better relationship with your mind and body:

• Mindfulness

• Sport

• Stress

6. Give conversation to strangers

Learning to be social people is not an easy task. We must start in everyday situations that do not involve a great effort. Make comments to strangers it is a very good way to start. There are countless everyday situations in which we can start practicing, such as saying good morning to the doorman of our building, talk about the weather in the elevator or tell a friend that hers looks very good again hairstyle. Little by little we will overcome our fears and we will learn to handle ourselves in different social contexts.

7. Assume that rude and rude are everywhere

Knowing which are our mistakes and defects and which are not, will help us to attribute certain reactions to others and not to blame ourselves if someone is unpleasant to us. There are people who camouflages her insecurity by being aggressive with the rest. We have to learn to detect it and to know how to forgive them. If we greet our boss and he responds in a dry or sour way for no apparent reason, we will think that he is dull or that he must have personal problems that make him answer that way.

8. Work assertiveness

Cultivating observation will be useful to know how we should communicate with others. If we start to detect the moods of people according to their body language, we can express ourselves, or not, in a more appropriate and we will save countless uncomfortable situations and aggressive responses that lower our self-esteem. Know the personality of others it will make us know how to make better and more accurate attributions.

• Do you want to know some keys to assertive communication? We recommend you read this article.

9. Dare to do new things

Experiencing new things and getting out of our comfort zone will help us to know different contexts and we will learn to better adapt to them in future occasions. As long as it is not a danger to our physical integrity or to our values, it is good and enriching for us to participate in new activities. Let's focus on the benefits of the activity and not its disadvantages. Let's take it as an opportunity to overcome a challenge and improve as people.

10. Take the initiative

As we face new situations and agree to do new activities, we will be prepared to be ourselves the source of the experiences to come. Make an event to go to the premiere of a movie that we would like to see or organize a dinner with our friends and asking each one to bring a stranger, is a good way to start and practice with people from confidence. Little by little we will become people proactive of great value to others and we will see ourselves as someone other people want to be around as a source of countless fun activities.

Patience, let us note that fears do not vanish from one day to the next. Little by little we will fight and overcome them. We recommend that you do not compare yourself with the person you would like to be, but rather that you compare yourself with the person you were. Day by day, month by month, year by year, you will realize that you are leaving social panic behind.