Social fluency begins by stepping out of your room, opening your front door, and venturing outside.
But that’s not always the easiest process, is it?
It’s not that deep down we wouldn’t like to be able to overcome our insecurities and fears and just go out and talk to people. Maybe even talk to that hottie across from you at the bar and ask them out on a date?
But life gets in the way sometimes. You’re not feeling it that night. You have an early day at work tomorrow and you need to get a full night’s rest. You don’t think you’ll have fun at that party. That person isn’t even that cute, certainly not enough for you to talk to. You need to wash your hair.
Oh, really?
Those are all the excuses that we give ourselves to not have to confront our fears for another day. To avoid facing the social situations that will give us exposure to the patterns we need to learn social fluency!
Apply this approach to everything else in life and it’s just unacceptable – afraid of the job assignment? You can’t just avoid it.
You can’t constantly run away from things that make you uncomfortable in life. Given how much in life makes us uncomfortable and pushes our comfort zones, that allows fear to rule large aspects of your life. It can be debilitating and the opposite of empowering.
The good news is that you don’t have to see a psychiatrist to break free of these patterns. I’ve got 2 simple steps for you start confronting your fears and getting into the social situations that will help your growth.
First, pay attention to yourself.
Learn to recognize when you’re operating out of fear, social or otherwise. Ask yourself if the reasons you’re giving for not doing something are legitimate… only you can truly know.
Whenever you hear yourself say certain internal excuses or go into an internal monologue, pay attention to the following: “I’m just not a social person,” “I don’t have the time,” “I’ll get around to it when I have the time…”
They’re basically aimed at preventing you from staring your fear in the eyes and actually going through with it. The best way to overcome the almost automatic fear chain reaction that you go through is to focus on the worst case scenario, which brings us to step 2.
Second, think about the realistic consequences.
They aren’t that bad. Even the worst case scenario. If you say something awkward or make an off-color joke, so what? 2 seconds of confused conversation silence? Big deal.
You’ve pushed your comfort zones, and now can calibrate from that experience. The world won’t end, the sun will still rise, and tomorrow you’ll be so much better for pushing your comfort zone.
Let’s say you go out to a bar and summon up the courage to talk to the hottie at the bar. You try to start a conversation and they flat out reject you. What’s the real downside here?
Are you going to see that person again? Is your rejection televised for the whole world to see? Did the people around you record a video and upload it to YouTube?
Of course not!
The truth is you get rejected all the time. Small failures happen every day. You apply for credit, you don’t always get accepted. You apply for a job, you don’t always get accepted.
But do people fall apart when these things happen? Of course not. So look at it from that perspective. Ask yourself how bad it can get. What’s the real damage?
By constantly magnifying the fear of rejection and viewing it as some sort of personal judgment against you, you fuel your fear instead of overcoming your fear and becoming a stronger person.
Rejection in a social setting doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person or that you’re a less valuable person.
If you don’t even leave the house, you don’t even give yourself the opportunity for any positive gain.
If that process wasn’t convincing enough, just think about the high costs you’re paying when you give into your social fears. You’re cutting off any chance you have at creating meaningful relationships and even meeting your life mate. You might be losing out on truly lucrative career opportunities and the promotions that you know you deserve.
The walls of your comfort zone become invisible prison walls, and that’s no way to live.
When you read literature and you study history, who are our heroes? Who are the people who stand up head and shoulders against the sea of humanity? People who looked their fears in the eye and overcame them.
You might not be the next Winston Churchill or the next Napoleon, but that’s not to say that you don’t have your own personal giants to slay. Nobody else will do it for you, so take that leap of faith today.
