Social fear is a natural mechanism to prevent us from being hurt. Low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence make us feel weak in social situations. We are afraid of feeling judged and it is very likely that this feeling will have its or her rule in childhood.

Social panic: ten daily actions to overcome it

Everyone, to a greater or lesser extent, is afraid of rejection . One of the things that differentiates a self-confident person from someone 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 that talks about shyness and how to try to overcome it.

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

1. Love

The best way to end our fear of rejection is to work on self-esteem. A good way to start is to learn to talk to ourselves and value ourselves for who we are: to be aware of our virtues and to pamper and forgive our defects. We should also be aware that we can improve ourselves and not be ashamed of not knowing how to do this or that. No one is perfect and no one knows everything. To live is to learn and to know how to correct our mistakes.

2. Don’t take yourself too seriously

Laughing at ourselves and our defects will help us to relativize our mistakes . We should not get angry with ourselves but understand that mistakes are part of learning. We are not born knowing, we have to be aware that everything has its process and we should not deprive ourselves of the luxury of making mistakes. Let us be happy about our mistakes because it means we are closer to our goal. Besides, laughing at ourselves, in front of others, will help us to be seen as brave people who are not afraid of being judged.

3. Count your failures

There are few things funnier than the story of a failure . Comedies are usually stories of failure and the characters who live them are people loaded with mistakes that make them endearing. Let’s look at Charles Chaplin or Buster Keaton ; their films are full of falls and mistakes that make the audience go wild. His films are plots that are fed by mistakes and clumsiness and the audience laughs with them. Or else, let’s look at Woody Allen . All 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 have all failed at some point and there is nothing wrong with that .

About Woody Allen and his inability to seduce women, we recommend reading the following article: “The 8 mistakes of a beginner seducer”.

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. In this way, 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 or stutter it is because I am concentrated on not bleeding from my nose”.

5. Learn to relax

There is no better way to combat anxiety than learning to breathe and knowing a few relaxation techniques . There is a lot of information on the internet that will help us learn how to fight stress. At Psychology and Mind we are in favour of Mindfulness , but there are plenty of ways to calm our nerves like yoga, meditation or doing sport. You can check out the following articles for simple and fun techniques that will help you have a better relationship with your mind and body:

  • Mindfulness
  • Sport
  • Stress

6. gives conversation to strangers

Learning how to be sociable is not an easy task. We have to start in everyday situations that do not require much effort. Making comments to strangers is a very good way to start. There are plenty of everyday situations in which we can start practicing, such as saying good morning to the doorman of our building, talking about the weather in the elevator or telling a friend that her new hairstyle looks great. Little by little we will overcome our fears and learn to manage in different social contexts.

7. Assume that borders and rudeness are everywhere

Knowing what our mistakes and defects are and what they are not will help us to attribute certain reactions to others and not blame ourselves if someone is unkind to us. There are people who camouflage their insecurity by being aggressive with others. We have to learn to detect this and know how to forgive them. If we greet our boss and he answers us in a dry or sour way without any apparent reason, we will think that he is dull or that he must have personal problems that make him answer like that.

8. Works assertiveness

Cultivating observation will help us to know how we should communicate with others. If we start to detect the moods of people according to their body expression, we will be able to express ourselves, or not, in a more adequate way and we will save ourselves from an infinite number of uncomfortable situations and aggressive responses that lower our self-esteem. Knowing the personality of others will make us better attributing and more accurate.

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

9. Dare to do new things

Experiencing new things and leaving our comfort zone will help us to get to know different contexts and learn to adapt better to them on 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 on 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 accept new activities, we will be prepared to be ourselves the source of the experiences to come. Making an event to go to the premiere of a movie we would like to see or organizing a dinner with our friends and asking each one to bring a stranger, is a good way to start and practice with people we trust. Little by little we will become proactive people of great value to others and we will see ourselves as someone that other people want around because we are a source of countless fun activities.

Patience, let’s keep in mind that fears do not expire overnight . Little by little we will fight them and overcome them. We recommend that you do not compare yourself to the person you would like to be but that you compare yourself to the person you were. Day by day, month by month, year by year, you will realize that you are leaving behind the social panic.