What If I’m Scared of Social Situations?

• January 1, 2021
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If you’re scared of social situations – good.  Oh Hell Yeah!  That could be an invitation to a great place to grow.

You grow by training.  Deliberately feel the fear and keep inviting different social situations to go through.  The fear is at its highest when you feel like you’re jumping into unknown social situations.  When you keep inviting that fear and facing it and welcoming it by going through it over and over, then you’ll get used to jumping in unknown social situations.  It will start to be fun.

The fear is just going to get bigger in your mind if you run from it.  Being social is here to stay, and it’s safe to say that your social life is going to be a huge part of the quality of your life.  You’ll see this approach a lot in self development.  It’s a “feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway” style approach.

Address the Fear

Another side of the coin is to look to address the fear and not try to plow through it.  Give the fear a voice and address it.

There was a period where I was doing cold-approach sales for DirectTV while in different retail stores like Best Buy and Sam’s Club.  There would roughly be about 10% of people interested in our DirectTV pitch, and everyone in that 10% would have some objection to actually pulling the trigger and buying.  It was our responsibility to handle their objections and make the sales process as easy and simple for them as possible – what we called objection handling.  If they told us they needed to check with their spouse first before buying, then we gave them a phone to call that spouse.  If the price of DirectTV was too high for them, we had deals we could offer to them.  If there was a question about DirectTV service we were expected to know EVERYTHING about it so we could explain it to them.

There might just be a good reason you’re scared of a particular social situation.  During this Covid-19 era there have been plenty of legit fears related to social situations.  Many people have ignored that legit fear and attempted to plow through.  Some have avoided any consequences whatsoever.  Other’s weren’t so fortunate.  Those other’s may have gotten sick, died, and/or infected someone else.  We’ve seen the rise of live streaming and Zoom calls as a work around to address these fears and handle those objections as best we can.

Questions to Ask

When you’re jumping into an unknown social situation and feel the fear, ask yourself “Is this a legit fear”?  Do you predict that the outcome will go well?  Is there any way you can prepare to have the best possible outcome?  Is it just a mind-made fear?  Did you weigh the upsides with the downsides?

Your ability to discern whether your fears of social situations are legit is a benefit from training.  The more you train, the more confidence you’ll gain in your ability to approach fears with intelligence.