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Oddly, it’s much easier to work within constraints. Give me some direction, some structure, or a model to follow, and magically I feel much more confident. Contrary to common sense, limitations get things moving.
No matter how extensive, structure gives you a purpose, a definition. It takes away uncertainty and gives you clarity and conviction. It allows you to gain confidence in your skills and, by extension, in yourself.
Even if there’s no predetermined job, you can still create structure by giving yourself an assignment.
You can be the center of attention without being yourself.
By contrast, Aisha’s role was that of a champion—she filtered her actions through what would be best for her families.
Not only does emotion affect the body; the body also affects emotion. If that’s not a superpower, I don’t know what is.
most people susceptible to social anxiety are reluctant to play a role that benefits only themselves.
This is part of the package deal of social anxiety—being self-serving isn’t our style. But we’ll step up in service of someone we love or on behalf of a cause we believe in, like Aisha and the families from her clinic.
Nothing happened. This is the ideal outcome: nothing. Nothing our imaginations can conjure. Nothing our Inner Critic can predict. Even rejection, once experienced, is seldom as bad as we imagine.
To be noted
What goes up must come down.
Rather than reinforcing the idea that the girl on the bench is a threat to be avoided, we learn she’s polite, even if she already has a boyfriend.
We learn that while we’re uncomfortable, sitting there doesn’t kill us—we can handle this, even if what we blurt ou...
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one, we are much safer than our imaginations would have us believe,
Your mountain of anxiety will erode into a molehill. And your confidence will grow into a mountain. 10 Putting It All Together: Your Challenge List My life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened. —MONTAIGNE
Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection.
In technical speak, facing your fears is called exposure,
The success of your task is independent of the outcome. The only bar: Did you do it? Yes? Gold star for you.
Why do we keep using safety behaviors? When we do, there is a sense that we are hiding, which makes us feel safer. But instead of truly hiding, we are hiding in plain sight. Even though we feel like we are concealing our flaws, people can see us. I know that sounds obvious, but while we’re busy trying to keep ourselves safe we’re actually sending an entirely different message.
“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
Remind yourself of your best and your best will show up.
Finally, remember the confidence myth. You don’t gain confidence in a vacuum and then go off and conquer the world. Instead, you learn to be confident, to have courage, to get over anxiety, to live your life authentically, by doing challenging things. And an authentic life includes some rejection, some awkwardness, and some embarrassment.
Once we feel threatened, we lock in and see threat everywhere.
So it is with threat. When we selectively zoom in on turned backs and grumpy scowls, we miss the nodding heads and smiling faces surrounding them.
When we’re anxious, we think we wear it on our sleeve.
How you feel inside and how you appear outside don’t match.
Huge discrepancies exist between how we think we look and how we actually look.
we overestimate the extent to which our actions and appearance are noticed by others.
person you are talking to “is a hundred times more interested in himself and his wants and his problems than he is in you and your problems.” We’re each at the center of our own worlds, but we forget that every other person is in the same position.
