If you haven’t already, we highly recommend you first read “The psychological root cause of anxiety” before consuming the below solution. It’ll take ~1min.
You may view being called or seen as socially unskilled as unacceptable.
The reality is this may happen. You likely think this happening is “bad” or unideal for one or more reasons. For example, you might value being social and creating social interactions that others enjoy. The key to eliminating this trigger is to realize that, yes, you don’t want to be seen as not being socially skilled, but that doesn’t mean you must get anxious or see it as unacceptable if others see you that way. Instead, you can rest in the awareness that you know you dislike such opinions about you.
This point of view is critical because it can be easy to think that things you intensely hate or dislike are things you should be or get anxious about. You may take high levels of hate as a rationale or justification that anxiety is called for and should exist. When you knowingly or unknowingly think that people viewing you as socially unskilled is unacceptable or something you should feel bad about, your body registers this as “dangerous” and will trigger anxiety whenever you think or know someone thinks you’re socially inept.
If you’re finding it difficult to accept that to overcome or get rid of this trigger, you have to acknowledge that despite disliking it and not wanting it to happen, it’s ok if people think you aren’t socially skilled, then you probably have 1 or more reasons (likely unconscious and unique to you) why you think you should be anxious if others think you’re socially unskilled.
To address this, you will have to uncover these reasons so they are out in plain sight. Uncovering these reasons alone may dissolve the trigger. In other cases, uncovering these reasons will reveal what happened to you (likely in the past) that led to you tagging the thought or reality of others thinking you’re socially unskilled as something to be anxious about.
You may, for example, find that you think you should be anxious because the anxiety is a reminder that you dislike it. When it’s all said and done, the likely primary reason you view the idea/thought of others thinking you’re socially unskilled as something you should be anxious about is that you think the anxiety is helpful to you in some way. Because of this, you will likely have to create a new strategy or response to the thought/idea of being viewed as socially inept that doesn’t involve using anxiety.
It can be easy to forget that we can dislike things without feeling bad or anxious about them. Feel free to drop a comment if you’d like help coming up with a new strategy/response. We recommend that, at the very least, you use your current goals to inform your actions.
Eliminating the trigger: First, remember that the top goal is to be free of anxiety. Alongside this, it’ll be important to recognize that whenever you get anxious, you get anxious for one or more reasons. It can be easy to forget this and think anxiety comes out of nowhere or that there’s no identifiable reason for why you get triggered.
In most cases, the trigger exists as a strategy to limit the number of times someone sees you as socially inept, but a potentially more effective strategy is to have clarity on what you want to gain out of social interactions you enter into.
One of the core reasons people want to be seen as socially skilled is because they think it will help them get what they want in some way. that true? How exactly do you get what you want in life? The link has a more in-depth answer that will help you address misconceptions that may be fueling your anxiety.
If you read the article, you’ll see that getting what you want is often a result of providing something of equal or more value in exchange for whatever you want. If people you’re interacting with think social skills and interactions are worth more than other things you can provide, like skills, knowledge, abilities, etc, do you really want to engage with them? That’s a question that can easily be overlooked.
If you still want to engage with them and think you must be seen in a certain way to get what you want, at least you’re conscious of the dynamic. To be free of this anxiety trigger when the opinions of others may impact you getting what you want, you have to be ok (not see it as unacceptable) with the fact that people may see you as socially inept. If not, your body will trigger anxiety whenever you think or know they view you as socially inept. You can put your best foot forward and do everything you can, but you don’t have the ability to control everything in the minds of others. You don’t control the machinery of others’ brains. You do have control of whether you have internal peace or view something you dislike as something to be unhappy about.
You may not need social skills to get the things you want
For example, some things can be bought with money alone. In another example, some people don’t care about social skills as much as they care about technical skills.
When you become aware of the different perspectives shared in this solution, you can see that there are different kinds of people in the world who may not be ideal fits for you. If someone primarily cares about following certain social rules over things you think matter, you will likely find it difficult to work with them. It’ll probably be in your best interest to find people who value what you can or have to offer beyond social skills alone.
Recommended reads for overcoming social anxiety
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If you struggle with low self-esteem, self-consciousness, low self-worth, or low self-confidence, we encourage you to view our self-help solutions for these and other common psychological challenges.
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