Blogging Against Social Anxiety

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably set lofty goals in the past — say overcoming social anxiety — and after a brief spurt of hopeful enthusiasm, have have ran into the inevitable setback or two that made you question if you were making any progress at all. It’s how we deal with these setbacks that ultimately decides if we are going to make genuine progress towards our goals. This is exactly the issue I am facing right now. From an objective viewpoint, I have made some real progress in the past two months. I have been to the gym three times a week without fail over that period — and physically, am probably in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I’ve stuck to my goal of attending a public speaking class once a week, and in fact, most weeks have been going twice a week. I still get very nervous at times while public speaking, but the crippling anxiety that I suffered two months ago has subsided. So why am I feeling so much frustration lately?

In terms of anxiety, the number of “bad days” I’m having lately is lower; but the amount of frustration I feel on these “bad days” is greater than it was before. Once you start to make some improvements in your life and see what is possible on a “good day” it can become extremely frustrating that you are not able to achieve that state of mind all the time. Furthermore, tacking a huge problem like social anxiety can be daunting because there are so many facets to work on. For example, after two months of public speaking classes I am getting much more comfortable at giving formal presentations in front of a group of people. But I still feel that in social situations in general my conversational skills are lacking. I still get nervous talking to my boss. I still feel like I have trouble making new friends. I wish I was more comfortable talking to women, and so on and so on.

But change is a long, slow process. Reprogramming the mind after a lifetime of negative thinking is not going to happen overnight. As I have written on this blog before, I think the key to staying on track when you start feeling such frustrations is having a concrete plan that you can stick to, and realizing that small actions taken consistently over time have the potential to create huge results in the longer term.

Another useful approach for me has been to consider the nature of learning in general. According to George Leonard, the aikido master and author of “Mastery”, learning any new skill in life involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau that is somewhat higher than the one preceeding it. On the path to mastery, “you have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere,” he says.

I will keep practicing, for as long as it takes…