5 Exciting Places to Meet New Friends

If you’re trying to overcome social anxiety, you are probably hoping to make new friends.  For many this is a scary prospect as having never been good at doing this, you may not know where to go.  Considering to beautiful weather we have been having, and that fall in not that far away, I have decided to create this list of 5 amazing places where you can easily make new friends.

1. If you love sports, take up a new sport or join a new league.  Being part of a team is an excellent way to meet great people.
2. Do you have children?  If so, take them to the park.  Not only will you have fun with your children, but you’ll meet other parents with whom you share the common bond of parenting.
3. If public service is your thing, volunteer somewhere. No matter where you volunteer, if you’re working with other people, you make new friends.
4. Another option is to take a course in something you want to know more about.  Whether you decide to go back to college and take up a new career path, or just take a pottery, karate or dance class, you’ll meet people with these same interests.
5. Get out and go to events that interest you.  There are many great events where you can make friends.  Many town and cities often have festivals during the summer.  Now only do many of these festivals have great food, but you’ll find hundreds of potential new friends at them.  Car shows, computer shows home and garden shows, and even flee markets are all examples of places that you might want to try.

Now go have fun and make new friends, but just remember.  These are just suggestions.  The places where you will make friends with the most ease are the places where you have fun, and are comfortable!

A Guide to Finding Your Dream Mate

Nearly three years ago, I found myself recently divorced, alone, and wanting to start dating again. Because of my social anxieties, I had very little experience meeting women. This period of time, while difficult for me, eventually became the catalyst for much of the learning and change I have made since. In the time that spans between then and now, I have had 3 serious relationships, and though I still have not found the right girl for me, I am confident that I will. During the next few minutes I will share with you how you can accomplish this as well.

Relationships can unfortunately be distilled into a single formula that actually isn't very flattering. Both people involved in the relationship must give equally to each other of the relationship. If either party stops giving, or takes too much, the other will not be happy and the relationship will begin to fail. With that we understand our role in the relationship before we can even attempt to succeed.

People often say that they want to feel needed in a relationship. While this may seem right, when we are really needed, we tend to get annoyed because the other person becomes needy. Consider this. Which statement makes you feel better? "Honey, I need you to go to the store and get milk." or "Honey, would you mind stopping at the store while your out to get milk?" Actually there are many feelings that neediness can generate in a relationship. Neediness can cause the other person to feel trapped, under valued, or like they're the one that does everything. If neither person is needy, both can happily give because they want to, not because they "have" to. In other words, a relationship will work best when both individuals are self-sufficient, independent, and self-confident.

While there isn't a way to know right off the bat if the people we meet are these things, each of us has the power to become these things ourselves. If you do put in the time and effort to do so, you'll not only be in a better position to succeed in a relationship, but you will also find it much easier to find dates in the first place. These are things you can, and will probably need to work on over time, but you don't have to wait to start dating. Now we just need to know where to go to find dates.

I have seen tons of forum posts where people ask where they should go and many articles that list places.  In the end, only you know where you should look. There is no one place where everyone will find people they are compatible with. My advice to you is to stop looking for some magical place that does not exist.  Get out, try new things, and do the things you love to do. It is in these places that you will have the best opportunity to find what you are looking for.  These places are where you’re most confident, and that added confidence will show. 

Now that you know how important it is to be un-needy and confident, and you know where to look for dates, you’re ready to get out and find that special someone. I wish you the best of luck.  Now, get out and find your dream mate!

The Art of Building Relationships – Part 3 – Basic Rapport Building

In the parts one and two I introduced the concepts of rapport and congruency.  Today I will introduce you to the basic skills you will need to improve in order to build stronger rapport easily.  You will learn what you must pay attention to as well as how body language, speech patterns, and tone of voice affect others.

Building relationships would be much simpler if each person we was exactly the same as the last and we could react to every person in exactly the same way.  In reality, every person we meet will be different in some ways, even if the differences are subtle.  It is these subtleties that we must learn to observe in order to improve our rapport building skills.  What we observe about the people we are relating with is every bit as important as anything we can do ourselves because our observations will dictate the way in which we should interact with the person.

If you attempted to do the “homework” from parts 1 and 2, you have already begun to learn to observe certain aspects of the people you are conversing with. When you are in a conversation, always take time to note the posture, body language, vocal tone of the other person as well as the speed of their speech.  Notice how fast or slow the person speaks.  Notice the posture and position of the person you are speaking to.  Specifically note the positions of hands and feet, the angle their body is at, and whether they are sitting or standing.  Notice if the person’s attention is on you or if it is drifting to something else.   Eventually you will be able to notice all of this transparently during every conversation you’re involved in, but for now you’ll want to slowly start paying attention to more and more so that you can continue to devote your attention to the interaction at hand.  You probably already react to some of these “signals” unconsciously, but one begin to notice their significance, you will be able change your own non-verbal cues to control how you are being interpreted.

One very important signal that we all send is eye contact.  You have most likely heard that you should always maintain eye contact while speaking, but you may not know why.  Our eyes can say quite a bit during a conversation.  For instance if you are speaking to a person and notice that she is often looking up at a clock, you can probably assume that she is either bored, or nervous about being late for something.  If the a person were rolling their eyes, you could probably infer that he was annoyed by something.  You may then be able to infer further what is annoying, or why the person is bored based on the conversation or other cues.  For instance if the person appeared to be sweating more than normal, you might also consider that they may be nervous.  When you are building rapport, you want to communicate that the other person has your attention.  Maintain eye contact when they are speaking as much as you possibly can.

Another think to look for is the other person’s posture.  If you mirror the same posture, you will find that the other person will be instantly more open to you.  This happens because it creates an instant commonality between you and the other person that can be identified with.  From here you can begin to make subtle changes to your posture that will affect the other person in the ways you would like to affect them.  For instance if the person is in a stiff, nervous posture, you can slowly shift to a more relaxed posture, and they will likely follow and be more relaxed at the same time.  Speech works in much the same way.

As with mirroring posture, you should also attempt to mirror speech volume, tone, and speed as best you can.  If you do this, they may follow you as you shift them to the state you want them to be in whether it’s more confident state, or a more relaxed state.  In most cases this means you will gradually make vocal changes in steps over time allowing time for the other person to follow in between.  Combine your speech with eye contact and pattern matching and you will be much better at building rapport.

Now that you have a good idea of what it takes to build rapport I have one more “assignment” that will help you to notice how these techniques work.  If you want to, before reading Part 4, I want you do a little experiment while you are talking to someone.  Initially match the speed of the person’s speech.  After you’ve said a few sentences to each other at that speed slow down slightly and then continue speaking at that rate.  Do this a few times, and pay attention to the speed of the other person’s speech. Now, after speaking back and forth a bit more, speed the speech back up slowly, and notice the effect this has on the other person’s speech.

Be sure to come back soon because in part 5 I will begin to discuss the use of everything you’ve learned up to this point in various situations that you may find useful.

The Art of Building Relationships – Part 2 – Congruency

In the first part of the series, I took time to explain what rapport was, and how you will be able to build better relationships with it.  In this part more on the inverse, and how body language, and incongruence can lead to bad or untrusting relationships.  Congruency can almost be said to be a metric or how consistent you are with your self in your communication.

In most cases, when we think of communication we relate it to the words we say with our mouths, and maybe the tone of voice we use to say them. Many people never realize that their tone of voice, and their unconscious body language have a huge effect on the way that people respond.  This because short of the words we say, the other channels are normally processed unconsciously.  When we are incongruent, people tend to get a feeling that something isn’t quite right about us, or that we’re strange or weird.

If you didn’t do your homework from Part 1, you’ll may want to from this point on.  I am designing it specifically to help you to be more aware of what is happening around you which will be crucial in developing strong rapport skills.  If you did do it, think now about what you noticed.  When people were communicating well, what feelings did you get from them?  What was their body language like when you had this feeling?  What about when they were communicating badly?

Now here’s your homework for Part 2.  I want you to find the answers to the same questions as in Part 1 only this time while you are in conversation.  Answer the same questions for the person you are speaking with.  Are you confident?  Are you nervous?  How is that reflected in your body language?  How is it reflected in your tone of voice?  What about the speed of your voice?  If you slow down your speech, what happens?  If you speed it up what happens?

In Part 3 I will begin to explain how you can learn to build rapport.  I hope to see you back!

The Art of Building Relationships - Part 1 - What is Rapport?

Whether you're here because you want to learn to get dates, conquer your social anxiety, or just because you want to learn to be more socially inclined, at some point you will need to know how to build relationships. Maybe the first thought that pops into your head when you read the word "Relationship" is the thought of romantic relationships, but there are many other types of relationships that we build all of the time. The social interactions we have with friends, family, colleagues, cashiers at stores, and even people we meet in passing all require a relationship of one form or another. A relationship is defined as an emotional or other connection between people, so in reality we have a relationship with everyone that we are connected to in any way. Your ability to build rapport is essentially your ability to build good relationships.

The art of building good rapport could very well be one of the most important things you will ever learn. Imagine if you could walk into an interview, and have the interviewer feel comfortable with you almost immediately.  Imagine striking up a conversation with a group of women you’ve never met before and having them feel like you’ve known each other for years.  Gaining good rapport building skills will have positive effects on every aspect of your positive life. As your skills improve you’ll begin to notice how people are more at ease speaking with you as new doors open to new possibilities in your life.

As you anxiously await part 2 of this series, where I will delve deeper into building rapport, you may wish to do a little bit of homework.  Start to pay close attention to the interactions around you.  Watch both positive and negative interactions, and try to determine how different aspects factor into them.  Watch the postures of the people involved.  Listen to the tone, and pattern of their voices.  Watch their movements.  Most importantly, notice how all of this affects the conversation.  

Until then, have a great time observing those around you!

Was I Socially Distressed?

by Dave Marshall of www.nlpman.eu

I don't know whether I would have been classed as socially distressed when I was young.  I was certainly very, very, very, shy and this shyness affected me all throughout my teenage years and through my twenties and into my thirties.  And then I had an idea, I was working for a large corporation that had an education department and I thought " if I could get it job as an instructor, the company would train me and if I could talk to a classroom full of students then I wouldn't be shy”.  Simple eh!  Well no, as I discovered. Even though I had trained as an instructor and I spoke to a classroom full of students I was still shy.  Not as shy as before but still very shy.  I also paid the price of living in fear every time I had to give a lecture because I knew I was only one page ahead of the students in the Manual, and they were far better qualified than me anyway.  And so life went on, I improved as an instructor in the classroom and my shyness reduced a little bit.

Then I discovered psychology!  I attended lots of courses on various aspects of practical psychology applied to business.  I discovered many things about myself, one in particular was that I was an introvert, surprise surprise.  Another was that other people would view me as being an eccentric person, and I thought everyone was as mad as me, apparently not.  This did teach me a valuable lesson and that was only 2% of the population were like me!  And the other 98% didn't much like the people who were like me.  Now this may sound a very simple discovery that it was a real eye opener to me.  What I learnt was, in public at least, I had to back off from some of my wild ideas and behave like the “normal” people.  I also learnt that something in my past had caused my introversion and so I continued to pursue the dream of becoming normal.

Many years past and I didn't become less introverted, but I did became involved in counselling and therapy, and discovered this new thing called Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).  I then proceeded to learn everything I could about  NLP.  In particular one of the many methods available was called  time line and, using this approach, you could go back in your memory to a particular time that caused your problem.  And as you looked back at this event you could correct the way you saw it and the problem would go away!  Well, could that really be true?  Yes, it is for most things that cause most people trouble.

Another method is to pretend that you can see the unwanted feeling in front of you (I know it sounds weird, but give it a go) and now notice what colour it is(really weird!) And its shape (even  more weird) and now as you pretend that this coloured shape that is in front of you starts to spin, notice what happens as you make it spin faster and faster.  And faster and faster and faster and faster.  Keep doing this until it changes colour and shape and when this happens slow it down until it stops.  Notice what the feeling is like now.  It should have changed into something that feels quite comfortable.  Put your arms around it and pull it into your body.  Now think about the time when you would expect to get the old feeling in the future, meeting new people next week or something, and notice how you feel when you imagine that you are there, seeing new people, hearing them  ask who you are, saying “how are you” and feel them shaking your hand. Pay attention to the new feeling that you will now have.  You can use this technique for any negative or stressful feeling that you may have.  Even if you were on your way to a meeting and start to feel uncomfortable just stop for couple of minutes and spin the feeling.

There are many many techniques in NLP that you can use that are beyond the scope of this article.  Have a look at my website www.nlpman.eu  and  freeiq.com/nlpman, which are both free to use, and contain lots more things you can do to overcome life's problems.

By the way, I would not say I am socially distressed any more, but I am still considered to be eccentric  HO HO !!!

Good luck,

Dave Marshall

Day 1 on the Quest to Quit Smoking

Today is the day that I quit smoking.  I know there are at least a few others joining me on this adventure so I figured I would share my experiences, and maybe some of you may want to share yours as well. 

I smoked my last cigarette last night, and put on a patch before going to bed because I was craving more before I went to bed, and the booklet said that wearing them overnight can help avoid cravings first thing in the morning.  That seemed to work.  I was awake for over an hour before I even thought about smoking.  That’s when the strangeness started setting in.  I started catching myself unconsciously searching in my pockets for a pack of cigarettes.  My lighter was there, my spare, but no cigarettes. 

Having realized that I am doing this concerns me a little bit because buying them has  also become habit.  Occasionally I’ll walk into a store to get something and ask for a pack just out of habit.  I’m afraid to go to the store now because I’m afraid I’ll do this.

So far other than the habitual issues, I’m not having any problems.  The patch seems to be doing its job and I don’t have any cravings.  I didn’t have any strange dreams last night, and the patch isn’t bothering me.  Hopefully this will be it!

Good luck to all of you!

Quitting Smoking - The Night Before

If you're like me, you're pretty good at putting thing off until the last minute. Seeing that I have set my goal to quit smoking tomorrow, this means that tonight, I will need to get everything in place. Here are a few things you may want to do the night before you quit.

1. Make sure you have your stop smoking aids ready to go. Go buy them if you haven’t already and make sure to read the instructions so that you know exactly what to do in the morning.
2. Search your house for empty or partially empty cigarette packs and throw them all away.   The more you can avoid thinking about smoking, the better off you’ll be.  If you have packs sitting around, you’ll undoubtedly be thinking about smoking constantly.
3. Get to bed a bit earlier than normal and get a good sleep.  Hopefully if you are more rested in the morning, you will also be less stressed, and you’ll probably think less about smoking.
4. Unless the directions for your stop smoking aid says otherwise, don’t wait until you have the urge to smoke to use them. If you use them first thing, you may completely avoid the cravings all together.
5. Try to avoid stressful situations tonight.  They may not affect tomorrow at all, but why risk losing sleep because of stress if you don’t have to?

Whether you’re quitting with me tomorrow, or planning on quitting in the future, I wish you the best of luck.

The Secret to Learning to Just Let Go and Be In the Present

Do you often find yourself worrying about stupid things to the point that you rarely have fun?  Personally, this has always been a problem for me.  I used to worry about everything and as a result I did just about nothing.  Recently though, that has all been changing as I have learned to focus my attention on the present and live life. In just a few hours today, I was able to do three things that would have left me with a crippling pit in my stomach just a few months ago.  So how did I get to this point, and how can you get to this point?

First you need to understand what it means to be present.  Take a moment to concentrate on everything that is going on around you right now, at this moment.  Forget about what happened before this moment and what will happen after this moment.  Just focus on everything that you see, hear, and feel right now.  This is the present. All of the pain and worry we feel comes from what we have experienced in the past, and expect to experience in the future.  So when you are in the present, you are focused on what is happening right now, instead of what has happened in the past or will happen in the future.

Once you have experienced being in the present you can begin to learn to let go.  It can take a lot of practice to be able to be in the present all of the time, so it makes sense to learn to bring yourself into the present at times when you being in the present is most helpful to you.  Doing this is actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it.  The next time you start to feel a pit forming in your stomach, just start to focus on everything that is happening right then at that moment.  Listen to the sounds, feel the breeze and see the colors all around you.  Then continue what you are doing, focusing on it one moment at a time.

Of course you wouldn’t want to do everything without considering the consequences, but even when you are in the present you know the difference between right and wrong.  You still are able to use your past experience to make decisions, and make choices that work toward what you want in the future.  The only difference is that in the present you don’t dwell on those facts, and can make the best out of every moment.

I have no doubt that if you take the time to learn to be present, you will have much more fun in life.  I cannot even begin to explain the difference that this has made in my life and I can only hope that it will help each of you, my readers, as well.

Further Reading

If you would prefer to learn more about being present, I highly reccomend reading "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle.

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle Read more about this book...

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61) by Eckhart Tolle Read more about this book...

6 Tips to Help You Prepare to Quit Smoking

As some of you already know from my last blog, I have decided to quit smoking this Thursday (April 3rd, 2008) and invite any of you to join me in doing the same. For those of you who are going to continue to wait to quit, you have plenty of time to prepare. For those of us quitting this Thursday, time is short, yet there are still things we can do to help make quitting easier.

#1  Break the Habit

If you are a smoker, I’m sure you have experienced those moments where you unconsciously grab a cigarette and light up.  This happens to me every day in my car.  This happens because you have a habit of lighting up in specific situations.  From now until you quit, when you notice yourself doing this, try to delay lighting the cigarette for as long as you can. Getting used to interrupting yourself before you quit will make it easier for you to resist the urge once you have quit.

#2 Remember to Breath

I don’t know how many times I have read that you should take a deep breath whenever you have the urge to smoke.  While breathing deeply may help you relax and lessen the urge to smoke, it probably won’t eliminate the urge to smoke altogether.   Many of the sources that do suggest breathing entirely miss the point of it.  The end goal isn’t to relax you, or even to lessen to urge to smoke.  What you really want to do is divert your focus from smoking to something else and there is nothing better to divert your attention to than the present. 

#3 Being in the Present

In the past you smoked, in the future things may happen that will make you want to smoke.  Why would you want to focus your attention on either of these while you are attempting to fight off the urge to smoke?  Instead keep your mind on the present.  Breath deeply and take time to look at what is going on around you.  What do you see?  What do you hear?  Let these things pass into and out of your mind as they happen, and just be present.  This will not only help you put more time between your cigarettes as you prepare to quit, but will also help you to resist the urge to smoke once you have quit smoking.

#4 Don’t Be Afraid to Use a Stop Smoking Aid

You shouldn’t feel intimidated or embarrassed about using a stop smoking aid.  The addiction to nicotine can be worse than the addiction to drugs that are considered to be far worse.  Just as with those drugs, your body had a chemical dependency on the nicotine which can be dealt with more easily using these aids.  Whether you choose to use something over the counter, or something prescribed by your physician, you should use something.  Over the next few days decide what you will use, and plan when you will get it so that when the time comes you will be prepared.

#5 Reach Out and Get Support

There are many places you can look to for support.  Whether you prefer calling one of the stop smoking hotlines, turning to your peers, or turning to others who are also making an attempt to quit, don’t be afraid to get support.  I will be more than glad to talk, share stories, and thoughts in comments here and on Plurk (I am sociallydistressed there).

#6 Be Excited

Just by reading this you have already made an effort toward quitting.  With sheer determination, and a little bit of luck, you may soon be smoke free.  You’ll have more money to spend or save. You’ll feel so much better.  People will no long shy away from you because you smell like smoke. 

 

Related Posts:

Quitting Smoking as a Technique to Improve your Self Confidence

Quitting Smoking as a Technique to Improve your Self Confidence

This morning on my way into the office this morning, I made the decision to quit smoking once and for all. As I was driving and thinking about the implications of quitting I realized how overcoming the nicotine addiction can be another big step in improving my self-confidence. Quitting cigarettes can give one much more than simply the sence of accomplishment gained from accomplishing something so difficult. Most of the positive effects are fairly obvious. You will be healthier, and will feel better day-to-day. Cigarettes are expensive, so depending on how much you smoke, and how you buy them, you could end up saving a fairly large chunck of change each month. When you go out in public, you will no longer wonder if you smell like cigarettes. All of these can make a huge difference in your self confidence, which in the end will help your social anxiety. You may be afraid to try to quit, because you might fail. You shouldn't be. The nicotine addiction is extremely difficult to dump for some people (including me), and there is no way to guarantee that you'll be able to do it. Our goal in this case is to try our best to make our lives smoke free. At the very least, we'll smoke a few less cigarettes than we would have otherwise. While keeping that in mind, also keep in mind that our long term goal is to quit. In order to do that we need to maintain positivity, and believe that we will succeed. If you're nervous about quitting alone, feel free to join me. I will be quitting on Thursday, July 3rd (2008). Feel free to comment, or join me on plurk and we can work together. In addition to being open to talk, I will also be blogging about my experiences, and providing tips and thoughts as I go, so make sure you check back often. I hope to see a few of you join me in this adventure!

Finding Encouragement in Discouraging Situations

Just as with anything else you put your mind to, it’s inevitable that you’ll experience ups and downs as you become more confident in social situations.  Perhaps one day, you may be a social animal, while the next you might feel like hiding.  While the ups can be very gratifying, the downs can be very upsetting and discouraging.  It is important as you venture toward a more social life that you learn to let these negative experiences roll off your back. 

Most likely people have told you “Just shrug it off” many times in the past, never explaining how one can simply drop failure and not dwell on it.  In fact, it may very well be impossible to do so.  If there were no such thing as failure however, there would be no need to “shrug it off.”   A world without both success and failure couldn’t exist, could it?

That answer to that question depends on how you choose to look at any given situation.  Lets assume for a seconds that we are running a lemonade stand.  Yesterday our goal was to make $10, yet we only made $8.  In this case we can choose to consider the day a failure, or choose to look at the success we did have during the day.  So perhaps the day before we had only made $5.  Perhaps during the day we discovered a method of enticing new customers.  Perhaps we improved the flavor of the lemonade.  Despite not meeting our goal, we still had success, and the day was not a failure.  Instead of shrugging off your failure, you turn it into a success.

Having the ability to see your success even when you fail to meet a goal is a very powerful tool.  This gives you the empowerment to transcend the negative effects of failure and to remain positive. You will feel more energetic and capable of accomplishing your other goals.  In addition to all of this you can look deeper and learn how you can better set your goals. I will write more about this in the coming days.

On a Personal Note

I have recently applied these principles myself.  I had set a goal for myself to write a minimum of 1 blog post per day. During the past week, I found that to be impossible.  I would get half way through a post before drawing a complete blank.  I’d save the post and move on to another idea.  No matter what I was writing, I would get about half way though the post, and get stuck.  I didn’t let it discourage me though.  I worried a bit about the effects not posting might have on my readers, but didn’t focus on my inability to complete a post.  Instead I looked at the fact that with each post I started to write, I was half a post closer to another great post for my readers.  In addition those posts will get more review, and consideration than my posts normally would leading to overall better articles.  So in the end despite the fact I couldn’t manage to give you, my readers, something to read last week, I was still successful.  When I am able to finish those posts, you will be reading posts that have received much more thought and time than most of my writing.

What Other Social Anxiety Sites do You Visit?

Over the past few months, I have been searching for more social anxiety blogs, and I have only found a few that actively post content.  I know that others must exist.  What sites do you visit, and which have helped you the most?

Realistically Coping With Approach Anxiety

Most of us who have had to deal with approach anxiety (AA) have heard at least one person tell us “Just do it and it will get easier with time” and assuming that you’re approach anxiety is just as easily dealt with as theirs was.  If you’re reading this because of your AA, it’s probably because you haven’t been able to bring yourself to “Just do it.”  I am writing this primarily because I know how difficult approaching the opposite (or in some cases same) sex can be.

Approach anxiety is something that is experienced by both men and women.  In fact women may experience it to a greater extent due to the fact that traditionally it is the man who approaches the woman.  Due to this, women often feel anxiety for the same reasons as men, but additionally the pressure that society puts on them to not approach.  Because of that many women pass up what they want, and opportunity flies by.  In my opinion, we should all be enabled to go after what we want.

Anything good in life takes some work, and approach anxiety is no exception.  Believing that anything can make it disappear instantly is going cause you to become more and more frustrated until you eventually give up.  Instead it is important to focus on the small accomplishments you make from day to day, making sure to give yourself at least as much credit as you deserve.  If you remain positive you will make progress, be more motivated, be more relaxed, and your anxiety will fade away more quickly than if you try to take on more than you can handle at one time.  You shouldn’t look at this as if controlling your anxiety will take more time than you had hoped.  Instead view it as if you now have a plan to incrementally decrease your approach anxiety.  A plan that will allow you to become more confident in your social skills and abilities with each day that passes.  The false hopes of conquering your anxiety “magically” are now behind you, and you now have the empowerment and knowledge to realistically tackle what it is you have set out to do with confidence and determination.

Good Luck!

Am I Socially Anxious Or Just Shy – Overcoming Social Anxiety Disorder

Matt at “Overcoming Social Anxiety Disorder” has written a very interesting Blog on the shyness and social anxiety disorder.  Personally I choose to believe that the two are the same beast because they involve the same irrational fears.   My social anxieties in some ways extend directly from my shyness as a kid, and because I was “just shy” I never learned to overcome my shyness into adulthood.  “Just shy” became my excuse, lie and reason for being miserable and cut off from the world.  I learned quite a bit reading Matt’s blog, and even though I don’t totally agree with everything, there the majority of what he says is spot on.

http://socialanxietydisorder.org.uk/am-i-socially-anxious-or-just-shy/

Just That Interesting: Internet dating sites

My friend, laFunk over at “Just That Interesting” has amazed me again with a brilliant blog about finding dates on Internet dating sites.  I wish I had had this advice when I was on the prowl. 

Just That Interesting: Internet dating sites

Anxiety, Dating, and Exercise

Everyone knows that exercise is for the most part good for them, but there are a number of advantages to exercise that many people don’t know. Of these, two are relevant to this blog.  You may already know or have noticed that exercise can make you more relaxed.  Another side effect, that I only know to be applicable to men is that after exercise you are more attractive to women. Let’s find out why.

Whenever you exercise, your body releases endorphins.  Endorphins are wonderful proteins that are known to reduce stress and frustration.  In other words, if you regularly exercise you will be on much better able to deal with your anxiety when necessary. There are a number of advantages that come from being less stressed.  You will be more relaxed which may on its own reduce your anxiety.  As you’re more relaxed, you will be able to more easily employ the techniques and strategies you’re using to reduce your anxiety.  Overall, you’ll may be much more comfortable.

Pheromones are another advantage to exercise.  These wonderful chemicals are excreted from our sweat glands and waft of into the air and have a positive effect on women. It is important to note that pheromones have no odor, and that smelling bad will likely negate their effects completely.  If you’re going out, and want to take advantage of your pheromones, you can go out for a quick run or jog after taking a shower.  Work yourself just enough to break a light sweat and stop because you don’t want to smell bad.

As you can see there are many benefits to exercise in addition to the health benefits that we normally associate with it.  Knowing this however doesn’t give us a place to start.  There are hundreds of ways to exercise, and you need to choose one that you find interesting so that will stick with it. There are even video games like Dance Dance Revolution and Wii Fit that you can play. I personally prefer to ride my bike for at least half an hour a day weather permitting.  When I can’t ride my bike, I play my drums, or Dance Dance Revolution.  Going to the gym can provide other advantages since it puts you into a social situation.  Overall the choice of what you’ll do is up to you, but if you take any of my advice, start exercising if you don’t already!

The Therapeutic Qualities of Social Networks

Since it was released, I have been hearing quite a bit about this new social network called “Plurk.”  Initially I put off joining as I didn’t want to have to interact with people to build another network of friends.  Finally yesterday I decided to join and see what all of the hype was about.  Initially I started out with the one person I could find that I in my friends list on nearly every social network.  From there it began to expand.  I was reading plurks, commenting and having a blast. Before long, the anxiety I had experienced that had previously kept me from participating in other social networks had disappeared.  I soon realized, that if designed right, social networks could contribute to my quest of reducing my social anxiety.

The Downfalls

Before I get into how social networking can help your social anxiety I want to make it very clear that if you don’t use caution, it could actually slow your progress.  While social networking can help build communication and social skills, it may be very easy for some people to allow it to become their social life.  If you rely on the anonymity of talking to people online to avoid dealing with your real world problem, you problem will likely become worse.  That isn’t why you’re here, so don’t let it happen.

Getting Started 

The first thing you need to do is decide which site you wish to network on.  I would recommend Plurk because it seems to be the most social site of all of the networks I belong to.  I invite you all to join, and friend me (SociallyDistressed) as that will give you a starting point.  Once you have joined, if you didn’t friend me, you’re first task will be to find people you know to network with.  If you friend me (click here), you already have a decent starting point.  From there you can either post your own plurks, find more people to friend or fan, and start networking.

How Can This Help?

There are many reasons this can help.  It provides a great medium for working on your social skills.  There are always conversations that you can jump in on, and you can start your own.  Depending on how much anxiety you experience while talking to people online, this will may also provide some useful systematic desensitization. 

Come, join me, and let’s have a blast!

Social Anxiety | Make Decisions! | General Information | Dealing With Social Anxiety

I stumbled upon this post earlier as I was checking through my feeds.  Prior to this I had always looked at the effect of my anxiety on the decisions I made, but never the other way around.  After reading it however, I am going to try to force myself to make decisions more quickly, and I’ll report back on what I find in a couple weeks.  Make sure to give this a read now though.

Social Anxiety | Make Decisions! | General Information | Dealing With Social Anxiety

5 Ways to Boost Your Confidence to a New Level

Image courtesy of AarinFreePhoto.com.

1. Continue to Learn – The more you know, the more you have to be confident about.  Why not fill in with knowledge in areas where you’re not so confident.  Generally it helps to pick subjects that are relevent to the people you are around.  Perhaps sports, music, movies or current news would be good topics.  It also helps to learn more complicated subjects such as other such as areas of your work you’re not completely confident you know.
2. Take up a Hobby – Not only is a hobbies a productive way to pass free time, but they also give something else to be confident about.  Whether it’s collecting stamps, building models, painting, pottery, hunting, fishing, racing or any number of other things, you become an “expert” to those around you who are less involved in that hobby.
3. Get Some Exercise – Getting up and exercising is a great way to build confidence.  Exercise causes the release of endorphins which naturally make you feel good while being more fit will naturally make you more confident.
4. Organize – Knowing when you have to to be places, and where everything you need is is a great way to build some confidence.  Start keeping track of your bills, finding places to keep things, and keeping track of your appointments.
5. Dress Better – If you don’t already put effort into the things you wear, this can be a great way to boost your confidence.  You know when you look good, and so does everyone else, so put some effort into it.

May’s Progress

Here’s a quick overview of the progress I made during May.  The weather is finally getting warmer here in the north-east US, so I have been starting to get more exercise.  I spent quite a bit of time researching and learning.  I continued my research into NLP techniques, and started to look at the world of hypnotic language patterns.  On top of all of this I have managed to make quite a bit of progress with my social anxiety.

After identifying a few events that had contributed to my anxiety and applying the NLP techniques I had learned, I began to experience much less anxiety with old friends from school.  My Facebook network went from 5 friends to 72 friends in the matter of a week.  I have also become more social at work, and find it much easier to Joke around with my co-workers, where before I found it difficult to participate.

Moving into June I have been very excited.  I went out this past Friday and purchased a new mountain bike. I am planning on getting more socially involved in that sport.  My daughter’s soccer league starts tonight, and I hope to be more involved with that as well.  In addition to those, I plan on continuing to learn about hypnosis and NLP, and experiment around with different techniques so that I can continue to provide new stuff for all of my readers to try as well.

Dating 101 for the Socially Anxious

Ok, so you've managed to overcome your anxiety enough to get a date, and now you're feeling the dread of the infamous first date. How can you do it? What will you say? Will you sink or swim? Ooooh, the anxiety.

Don't Panic. Did you bring your towel?

Relax, most of your anxiety is most likely caused by irrational fear.  Ask yourself why you are feeling what you’re feeling.  What are you afraid of?  How does that make sense?  Once you know the answers to those questions, you can reason with yourself as I discussed in  “Inner Dialog - The Craziness in Us All”.  Beyond that, the most difficult part is being prepared to be social.

How Do I Prepare?

There are a few things that you can do to prepare for your first date that came make a huge difference.  Watch some of your favorite movies again.  Make sure to learn some of your favorite lines, and scenes so you can talk about them later.  Listen to your favorite music, and remind yourself why it is your favorite music. Get to know your likes and dislikes again, and rehearse talking about it with your self, and other people whenever you have a chance.  This will give you a ton of material to talk about while you are on your date.

Talk About Things You Know

I’m sure there are things that you’re very confident with that don’t cause anxiety.  Working these into conversation can be very useful.  As well as the benefit of having more material to talk about, this can lead to other advantageous side-effects.

Talking about the things that you are intimately comfortable will help you to think about those things.  While you are thinking of them, you will slip into the same state you were in as you experienced them.  This will help you to be more comfortable, confident, and prepared to forge forward.  Your anxiety may disappear altogether.

Where Should We Do?

The answer to this question depends on you.  I would suggest doing something that you are comfortable with.  If you are comfortable going out to a particular restaurant, go there.  If you have a ton of fun, skydiving, do that.  Whatever you’re most comfortable doing, that’s what you should do.  This will allow you to be more comfortable to begin with.  If you’re not comfortable doing something, it will only add to your anxiety, but if you do something you are comfortable with, you’ll tend to forget about the things that cause your anxiety and have fun.

But What if I get Rejected?

I wish I could say that rejection isn’t a possibility, but fortunately it is. If you’ve done as I have talked about and you still get rejected, you’re love interest isn’t interested in the same things that you are.   In fact, if he/she isn’t interested in the things that are important to your, you should be the one  rejecting him/her. 

If your date is genuinely interested in these things, you won’t get rejected.  If you do get rejected, that just saves you the additional anxiety of having to reject your date. 

And Now the Date

Now you can plan and go to your date.  You will be prepared to talk about the things you are most comfortable with, do something that you are comfortable with, and be able to get yourself into a state where you are empowered.  Now it’s time to let your anxiety fade away and know that if you should be together, you will be.

Blogging as Therapy for Social Anxiety – Can it Help?

Lately there has been quite a bit of news about how blogging can be therapeutic and I have been reading along. I have been blogging for over two years, and I had never stopped to think about how it might be therapeutic up until I started seeing articles pop up on Digg, Slashdot, and the news.

Even then I started this Blog with no thought as to the therapeutic opportunities it could offer me.  It wasn’t until a few days ago that I started to realize the changes I had made without noticing them.  Prior to starting this blog, I would troll the social networks, waiting for people to add me to their friends lists, and never adding them myself.  I would start to write comments and then chicken out and cancel them before posting them.  It was pretty bad.

Now things are different.  I regularly add new people on the social networks I belong to.  I even message people and strike up conversation occasionally. When it comes to commenting, I now find myself easily posting positive responses, and occasionally having to pry my hands from my keyboard to avoid posting negative responses.  I’ve taken some time to consider how much of this change can be attributed to blogging itself.

I have come to the conclusion that in conjunction with the various techniques blogging has contributed quite a bit to my accomplishments for a number of reasons.  First of all, it has given me a reason to reach out and contact others.  When you combined with my understanding of my irrational fears, I could suddenly overcome the fears to do whatever I had to do.  Secondly, whenever I write an article I learn a slew of things that I didn’t notice before.  I’ll sit for hours writing and re-writing as I discover more about how the different techniques work for me.  Of course while I’m doing that, I come up with hundreds of ideas about how the techniques could possibly be improved, and come up with other related techniques to experiment with in the future. 

I really do believe that blogging is therapeutic, especially when you blog about your problems.  Whether you meet new people with the same problems, or learn more about your problems it is all beneficial in the end.

Related Articles:

Blogging: Group Therapy of the 21st Century – ABC News

Blogging now Considered a Therapeutic Tool – Yahoo Tech

Blogging as Therapy – The Obvious

Blogging seen as Good Therapy – Dr. Deb

Can I Always Be “Present?” – Thoughts About Being In the “NOW”

When I first read “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle, my first thought was “How can I always be in the now, and still have things to work toward?”  It seems like goals are always in the future, so it would seem at first glance that Mr. Tolle would have us believe that we shouldn’t have goals. This thought scared me until I discovered that when I was in the present, I still had goals as much as I did when I wasn’t in the present.  When I am in the present, however, my perception of my goals is very different.

Explaining the difference in my perception of my goals in the present perspective versus the future perspective is very difficult. In a way, while in the present, I feel detached from my goals. It feels almost as if they might belong to someone else.  In this state, I no longer feel intense pressure to accomplish the end result of the goals, but feel the reason to accomplish the small piece that I am working on right now.  While I am in focused on the future, however, I feel the overwhelming pressure of the whole goal stacked up against the miniscule piece that I can accomplish right now. 

After realizing this I have come the conclusion that you can live your life in the “NOW” all of the time.   You can draw on your past and ideas for the future, but in the end both the past and future are just there to give you a plethora of possibilities that you can draw upon to live life now. 

Site Updates

Over the past few days, I have been working very hard on the site.  The site is now accessible via www.sociallydistressed.com.  In addition, I re-vamped the look of the site quite a bit, and will be making additional changes over the next few days.

I hope that everyone enjoys the content I have been providing, and I look forward to providing much more.  If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to contact me at  andy at sociallydistressed.com.

Thank You for Visiting!

Service Disruptions

I would like to apologize for any difficulties anyone has accessing the site over the next 24 hours.  I had the bright idea of purchasing sociallydistressed.com, and made a few errors rushing to set it up.  With luck, everything will be solid by 5:00 tonight.

Once again I apologize for the inconvenience.

Andy

Social Anxiety, Self Confidence, Knowledge and Depression - The Connections

Managing our social anxiety requires that we cope with a number of factors in addition to the anxiety itself. As the title suggests, the three factors that I will discuss are self-confidence, knowledge, and depression with hope of providing insight into how they relate to and effect your ability to control your social anxiety.

Many times people who experience social anxiety also experience depression. There are many factors that might cause or amplify depression, but it is important to understand how social anxiety and depression can affect each other. Social anxiety and depression are symbiotic in that social anxiety can feed of of depression while depression feeds off of social anxiety.  Depression will lower your confidence, make it more difficult to see your accomplishments, and make your shortcomings more pronounced to you. At that point, the negative feelings you have from your perceptions will lead to deeper depression. Unless it is interrupted, this cycle will continue perpetually.

Self-confidence has the exact opposite effect of depression. By building self-confidence you can overcome the vicious cycle of depression. The more confidence you have, the more confident you'll be in social situations. The more confident you are in social situations, the more you'll notice your accomplishments and the less effect your shortcomings will have on you. Your depression will weaken its grip, and you're social anxiety will dissipate. This is where knowledge comes in to play.

Think of a situation where you are confident.  Part of this confidence derives from the knowledge you have in dealing with the situation.  Often times, this knowledge is gained through years of learning.  We have a wide range of resources available to us to learn the skills and information we need to know.  There are good examples of social interaction all around us that we choose to learn from every day.  Not only can we learn from other people, but we can learn from characters from TV shows and movies just as well. Once you’ve built confidence through your knowledge, you’ll find it much easier to improve your confidence in other ways which will eventually lead to improvement in your social anxiety.

Now you know how self-confidence and Depression directly affect your anxiety.  Knowledge is one thing that you can gain outside of the situations that cause you anxiety that will increase your anxiety. If you learn to control your own thoughts and self-limiting beliefs at the same time as you are learning your social patterns, you’ll whip your depression into submission and notice your anxiety fading away in no time at all.

NLP Resources

I have mentioned NLP in many of my articles, but I have been trying to avoid writing too much about it, because I do not feel I know enough to do the subject any justice. At the same time I have been itching to introduce everyone to this amazing field as it has been extremely helpful to me. This is why I have chosen to provide a list of resources to help with the matter. Below you will find a list of sites and books that deal with the subject, and do it much more justice than I could.

NLPMan.eu - This site contains many useful NLP techniques. The author has over 20 years experience and has been trained by some of the biggest names in the field. I have personally learned quite a few techniques here including how to cure a headache.

neuro-linguistic-pro-site.com - Yet another excellent reference, Neuro-linguistic-pro-site provides a wealth of information from the basics to more advanced topics.

http://www.intonlp.com/ - Here is one last resource that I felt worthy of being on this list. This site contains just about everything one needs to know including a very good article explaining anchoring.

Crazy Easy Confidence Builder!

Crazy Easy Confidence Builder!

Not suprisingly, here's another article that reccomends saying "Hi" to people. The author also suggests a few other tips to help you build you confidence. If you need help in this area, check it out!

Social Anxiety? Just Say No! | General Information | Dealing With Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety? Just Say No! General Information Dealing With Social Anxiety

This post offers a very simple, yet effective method of retraining negative thoughts. However, I felt the need to throw in my two cents, because I have a slightly different method that is very similar, yet has been much more effective for me. As humans we are very habitual, and often repeat the same patterns. The key to changing your thoughts more quickly is to break these patterns. So when you're consious of your negative thoughts, physically do something different than you'd normally do. Not only will this help you to change your normal patterns, but this will also break your negative train of though.

Give it a try.

Inner Dialog - The Craziness in Us All

When you pass someone on the street who is muttering unintelligibly to himself, you most likely take a moment to consider, how crazy that person must be. If you're thinking about it though, you're having your own conversation about it, just internally. This internal conversation that we all have is what is known as "Internal Dialog."

Our internal dialog plays a huge role in how we will feel, act and react in social situations. If your internal dialog is positive and reassuring, you will be much more comfortable than if it is negative. This is why, as social anxiety sufferers, it is important that we pay attention to our internal dialog. Even a small change in our internal dialog can contribute very quickly to putting our anxiety in check.

The biggest difficulty I have had in noticing my internal dialog is that when I am in an anxious situation, my mind empties, and I forget to pay attention to my thoughts. At one point, I was nearly convinced that I would never be able to to remember what I was thinking while I was anxious. Fortunately I didn't give up and eventually discovered that if remembering your thoughts is just like most other things in life. You have to practice it.

I came to this conclusion by considering the things I am good at. Why does my anxiety drive me when I am on stage playing drums? Why does it do the same when I am at the center of attention in meetings? The answer had been in front of me all along, yet it was never directly stated. Just like playing drums, or being able to make highly detailed technical presentations, I had to practice paying attention to my thoughts to get good at it.

Now I, and you can begin to get to the heart of the craziness that we feed ourselves in our own minds. We can start to do away with those crazy limiting beliefs, self-criticisms and illogical fears. The one thing we're still missing is how to get from point A to point B. How do you practice paying attention to your thoughts?

Start here - What are you thinking about right now? Good, find a way to remind yourself to think about it again in 5 minutes. You might want to set an alarm or find another way of cuing yourself to think about it. I haven't tried it, but perhaps one could use NLP to install a trigger. Personally I started by using the time I spend driving to and from work to monitor my thoughts.

Once you become proficient at paying attention to your thinking at your set times, expand it and try to remember to pay attention in more and more stressful situations. Perhaps someone just said something that upset you - What are you thinking now?

So far I have focused completely on paying attention to what you are thinking, not trying to change what your internal dialog is. The truth is, that even just consciously realizing what you are thinking may cause a drastic change in the way you feel. This is probably because one you've consciously taken control of your thought process, you realize that your fears are irrational. Should that not be the case, there is still plenty of hope left.

Now that you know what you think to yourself while you are anxious, you can start to attempt to change your internal dialog. As crazy as it sounds, you can talk to yourself internally. Ask your internal dialog, "Why, when I am in this situation, do you tell me this?" It may surprise you to find that you will get an answer. Don't tell your inner dialog that it is wrong to have this opinion, but instead ask it how it believes this is beneficial to you. At this point, the answer may or may not make sense to you, but just as if you were talking to another person, keep asking questions until you understand why your internal dialog "feels" this way. At this point, you can begin to reason with it.

This was initially difficult for me, but it helped me to imagine that I was actually talking to a different person. Now you need to consider the reasoning your internal dialog had for presenting you with the dialog it did, and come up with suggestions in how it can better help you in the future. "I think it would be better in this situation if you were to tell me this and this because of this and this, don't you think?" Continue to reason with your inner dialog until you can come to an agreement on something that would be more helpful to you.

During this process you may notice that your inner dialog may have justify what it tells you using actual things that have happened to you. In this case you will want to remember these, and write them down when you are done, so that you can reflect on these. I would recommend bringing these up to your therapist if you are seeing one as these may be key to helping you in the future.

If you follow this technique, and take the time to do it correctly, you will probably notice at least some improvement in a fairly short time. Some people may notice a huge change immediately, but as with all good things, these changes can also take time.

Persuasion | Persuasion Artist

Persuasion Persuasion Artist

I didn't even finish reading this great article over at Persuasion artiist before I decided that I had to post about it. If you're at all interested in pickup, you won't want to miss the topics discussed in this article. If you're not interested in pickup, you still will probably want to check it out. The article mentions and explains many topics which can be very usefull not only with pickup, but also with your own work on your inner game.

This is definitely a must read.

The Curse of Self-Limiting Beliefs

In many ways, the beliefs we have define the people we are. Whether positive or negative they define how we interpret and react to each and every situation we experience. Usually it is easy to tell the difference between our positive and negative though, but one type of beliefs, self-limiting beliefs, can often fall into a grey area where they are difficult to realize.



One subset of self-limiting beliefs is very dangerous because they masquerade as positive beliefs that have some potential benefits even though they still limit our over all potential. These beliefs often come in the form of "I can still do this even though I can't do that" or "Even though blah blah blah holds me back there are other ways I can accomplish this." Both of these forms of though may affirm that we can do something, but they limit the range of possible approaches we have to accomplish it.



There are also much more obious self-limiting beliefs. For instance one might think to himself "She would never go out with a guy like me." or "I will never make that much money in my life. Both of these may very well be true, but just as easily as they could be true, they could also be false. If you limit yourself to not trying, how will you ever know?


The negativity associated with these beliefs may not be immedietly noticible because it is implied from the segment of possibilities that we believe we "can't" do even if the belief expresses itself in a positive way. In other words if were to have a problem with walking forwards for some reason, the belief that I could walk to my car backward instead would be a self-limiting belief. This implies that I "can't" walk to my car forwards, and thus I am intentionally excluding the possibility of walking forward because I am afraid to do so. In this way, the limiting belief gives me an excuse to only walk backwards because I can, allowing me the to more easily put off learning to cope with walking forward comfortably. Now I know that is a stupid example, but it explains the general idea very well.

You may be wondering how you can know if a belief is a limiting belief. You can start by thinking of a situation you are uncomfortable in. What beliefs do you have about your ability to deal with that situation? How would normally act and what would you say. Next think about what your internal dialogue would be telling you. From this you should be able to infer how your beliefs limit you to the resources you normally have available to you and exclude the other possibilities.

Once you have identified your limiting believes, you'll need to find a way to expand your possibilities. Sometimes just understanding what was holding you back, and that there are other possibilities will be enough. In other cases you may need to boost your self-esteem, or learn new things to open up new possibilities. No matter the case, identifying, and coping with your limiting beliefs will definitely open new possibilities for you.

Social anxiety, dating, and the bar scene | Social anxiety disorder and everyday life

While I was checking my subscriptions this afternoon, I found this slightly disturbing post. It really struck a chord with me because it contains alot of the thoughts that I used to have about myself. The author was stating that he was looking to go outside of ordinary dating methods because he had been unable to successfully control his anxiety. The first thing I noticed was that nearly every paragraph contains at least 1 self-limiting belief, so I wanted to point out a few of them to give people a better idea of what self-limiting beliefs are. Later this week, I will write another post to explain how you can discover, and deal with your own self limiting beliefs.

Here is the article:
Social anxiety, dating, and the bar scene Social anxiety disorder and everyday life

And here are the things I wanted to point out:

"Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s effective if you have the right personality and approach it in a positive way." - Here he is implying that he doesnt' have the right personality to approach dating in the way that most people do, mentally limiting himself to a smaller subset of methods that could work for him.

"Unfortunately, unless you have something going for you (looks, confidence, winning personality), there’s not much chance that you’ll meet anyone." - In this case he's going further, completely eliminating himself from being considered at all . Seriously, everyone has something going for them, you just need to learn what it is, and how to make it apparent. As for confidence, that is something you will build over time.

"It’s hardly the kind of place where a very average looking guy can have women approach him." - Ok, I may an average guy as well, but I have some very attractive friends who have never had a woman approach them. Most women don't approach men.

"But what really helps is that now I know it’s nothing to do with me personally. The problem lies in the way I project myself in public, how I view myself, and how I misinterpret people and situations." - Here he is resigning to the fact that this is just the way he is, and not accepting the fact that this is just the way he allows himself to continue to be. The big self-limiting belief here is "how I view myself" because this has a direct effect on how you project yourself in public, as well has how you interpret other people and situations.

10 Things You Should Do Before Going Out This Weekend

With Memorial Day weekend just a few days away, I thought it would be a great time to put together a list some of the things you can do before going out to help reduce some of your social anxiety.

1. Take a shower or bath - You may already take showers before you go out to make sure that you are clean, but take one even if you don't need it. The warm water will relax you, causing you to be more comfortable.
2. Shave - You don't have to shave off whatever style of facial hair you have. Just touch it up so that you are comfortable that it looks good.
3. Listen to Music - More specifically, listen to music that will help put you in the state you would like to be in. It helps to put some consideration into how different types of music affect you specifically. My favorite song to listen to right before I leave or right before I get out of my car is Clawfinger's "The Biggest and the Best" because it puts me in a very resourceful, confident and determined state.
4. Watch Something Funny - What better is there to put you into a state to have fun? Comedy will lighten your mood and make everything a little bit easier.
5. Exercise After Your Shower - Getting excercize will put you in a more powerfull mood, but perhaps what is more important is what breaking a light sweat might do. We release pheremones in our sweat, so this may help make you more attractive to women. Just remember you don't want to smell bad, so don't over do it.
6. Dress Nice - I'm sure you've heard the expression "Dress for Success." The better you dress, the better you'll feel about how your dressed. In other words dressing better will give you one less thing to not feel confident about.
7. Eat a Healthy Dinner - I'm sure you know its good to eat healthy, but do you know why? If you're going to be drinking, having food in your stomach is always a plus, but also, eating healthy can give you a sense of accomplishment before you leave your house.
8. Have Some Material You Can Use - Do you ever have those awkward moments where you don't seem to have anything to say? Before you go memorize some jokes and information that you think might be appropriate for the social situations you will be in. You'll be much more confident when you know that you have something to say.
9. Clean Up Your House - Is your house a little messy? Would you be embarassed to have people come in? If so, clean it up. You'll feel much better if you do, plus you never know what might happen.
10. Have Fun - This is by far the most important thing on my list. What is the point in going out if you arn't going to have fun yourself? The simple fact is that if you're having fun, others will be drawn to you because they want to have fun as well. If someone makes fun of you, they're probably just jealous becuase you're having fun and they're not so help them have fun to.

I wish the best to all of my readers this wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I'll be out and about as well, so wish me luck as well. Just be safe.

But I'm Shy

How many times have you heard someone say "I can't because I'm shy." or something similar? Personally, I have heard it a million times and there have been many times that that same phrase has come out of my own mouth. In reality this phrase is just a well accepted excuse that we use when we are scared of a social situation. Is there a difference between being shy and having a social anxiety? I don't think so.

In reality, being shy is our excuse to ourself to avoid entering into an uncomfortable social situation. It allows us to deny that our fears are unfounded, and comfortably hide behind a socially accepted term.

If being "Shy" is socially accepted, then isn't it ok?
This depends on how being shy affects you.

1. Does it hold you back?
2. Does it frustrate you?
3. Does it prevent you from doing things that you should be able to do?
4. Do you miss out on things because you are shy?
5. Do you avoid finding a job because you're too "shy" to go to an interview?

If you answered yes to any of those, then I would have to say that it isn't ok. Your shyness is composed of social anxieties which you can learn to cope with should you choose. Too many times I have seen people, including myself, sit back and miss out on wonderful opportunities while hiding behind the shield of being "Shy." If you fit into that category, and you would like to change, you can. I have posted alot of information and tips on my blog pertaining different methods I have used to overcome some of my social anxieties. In addition to what I have here there are a number of sites, books, and other information available that can be invaluable in your search to conquer your shyness. In the Related Sites section of my site, I have posted links to a number of sites that you may find helpfull. In addition, you will find that I reccomend various books that I have read in some of my post.

Approach Anxiety » Blog Archive » What Kind of Guy Just Walks Up to a Woman and Says Hi?

Approach Anxiety » Blog Archive » What Kind of Guy Just Walks Up to a Woman and Says Hi?

As you may remember, I wrote a post a few days ago, "10 Tips for Approaching that Hot Girl" where I said "Just do it." Well , Eric over at ApproachAnxiety.com has written an article that expands upon that nicely. In it he does a very good job of listing the excuses you might have, and provides a method you an use to deal with them. Check it out.

10 Tips for Approaching That Hot Girl

1. Just do it - It doesn't matter what the outcome is in the end, you will never know if you don't try.
2. Approach quickly - Don't give yourself the opportunity to talk yourself out of doing it
3. Be yourself - Don't act differently than you normally would. If you do try to be something that you're not your body language will give you away.
4. Trying and failing is better than standing around - Who would you have more respect for - The guy who just stands around looking dumb or the guy with the balls to approach her?
5. Don't offer to buy her a drink - While doing so might get her to listen to you for a few minutes, it will immediately throw you into the same category as all of the other chumps that offer to buy her drinks. There are better ways to get women to talk to you.
6. Be fun - Don't interview or interrogate her. She's there to have fun, and if you show her that you can have a good time with or without you, guess what she's going to want?
7. Don't be hard on yourself - No matter what you do managed to do, dont be hard on yourself if you fail to do what you wante to do. Look at what you did accomplish, and next time try to do better. If you thrive on your failure instead of concentrating on your successes, it will be harder next time. If you look at your success for what it is, you'll be more successfull next time.
8. Dress well - You don't have to wear a suit and a tie, but you definitely don't want to be dressed in the cloths you wore to work on your car that afternoon. While looking nice may not be the key to unlocking the door into a relationship, it will help get you get those first few words in.
9. She's not the only girl in the world - There are alot of available women out there and if she chooses not to talk to you, that's her loss because someone else will get the opportunity. Plus going into the situation realizing that its ot the end of the world if she shoots you down will make you less nervous and more likely to succeed.
10. Be Confident - You have nothing to lose, only something to gain. If you are 100% confident approaching and talking to her she will respect it, especially if she is really hot. Hot women are used to men being intimidated by them so she'll be interested in you when you're not.

Learning to be more Social : My Goal

Right now I am at what will most likely be the longest part of my process of becoming more socially experienced. I am learning to communicate with people who's interests are different from mine. For me this has always been a huge sticking point because, while I find the topics that most other people talk about interesting, I never have much to contribute to the conversation becuase I am more interested in scientific and technical things.

To put my problem in perspective, I'll use movies as an example. I love to watch all type of movies, and do so with great regularity. As a result of talking with friends and coworkers, however I have discovered that my movie watching habits differ in a subtle way from theirs. When they watch a movie, even once, they pay attention to details. They can repeat specific lines, and remember the story in great detail. I, on the other hand, can normally remember only wether I liked it or not, and sometimes a few specific details as to why. Many times I'll be asked if I remember a specific part of the movie, and I don't until hearing the plot repeated, after which it all comes back.

The point I am attempting to make is that because I don't reguard these details important to myself, I don't remember them. Because I don't remember them, I am not able to utilize them in conversation. This leads me to my current goal which is to start paying more attention to seemingly unimportant details that I may be able to work into social conversation.

Since movies are one thing that most people have in common, I am starting there. My favorite genre is comedy, so I intend to watch at least 1 comedy a day for the next week. While watching I will pay particular attention to the jokes and attempt to commit them to memory. If I have to I might even start writing things down in order to express upon my mind that this stuff is important to commit to memory. Not only have I chosen comedy because I suspect that doing so may reap other benefits.

I am hoping that committing details about comedies to memory will allow me to do more than just recite the jokes that I learn from the movies. I am not inept when it comes to making jokes, but this process is easiest for me when I have a wealth of information to draw on. Thus the information I learn from the movies should improve my creational skills to some extent. In addition, my delivery skills may also be enhanced.

In about a week, I will write another post detailing my experiences with this. I will describe the techniques I have used, the observations I have made, and the perceived effects that I have noticed in myself.

Motivating Yourself for Change

When my wife of 3 years left me 2 years ago I was in for a real shock and a number of lessons in motivation. I had been pretty lucky most of my life, and I never really had to motivate myself to do anything. Everything I wasn't motivated to do had been done for me. I never had to look for a job, work to meet new people, or do little things like clean my house.

Within a month, my house was a wreck, my bills were unpaid, I was lying on the couch whenever I was home more depressed than I had been with my life leaving me, and worst of all, I was living on a diet of beer, fast food, and tv dinners. I say that is worst of all because food has always been important to me, and cooking was one thing that I had always been motivated to do.

For weeks I laid there feeding myself the excuse that it was my wife's fault because she had left me and made me feel so horrible. Finally one day, I woke up, looked around and had a revelation. She was gone, and wasn't coming back. More importantly, it wasn't her fault that the house was a mess, it was mine. I realized that I had to find a way to force myself to do these things that I didn't want to do. Over time I was able to put together a couple of things that worked for me.

Right now you're probably wondering what my housework has to do with social anxieties. Actually it had quite a bit to do with it. First of all, not only was the mess depressing on its own, but the feeling that I couldn't manage to avoid or fix the mess was also depressing. Because I was depressed, it was very difficult for me to get out, be social, and improve my anxiety. On top of that, the same motivational ideas that led to me being able to clean up for my self applied to motivating myself to do things I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise while working on my anxiety.

Here is a list of tips that I have come up with:

1. Don't Threaten or Force Yourself - Have you ever noticed that if someone threatens you, you feel more resistence to doing what they say? Well the same applies to when you threaten yourself. Instead of forcing yourself, you need to find other, more positive methods that will motivate you to do whatever it is you are doing.
2. Consider the Advantages - Take time to think about all of the good things that will come from whatever it is you need to do. If you need to clean, consider how nice it will look, how good you will feel when it is done, and whatever other advantages exist. If you're working on a particular social skill consider the many doors it will open for you, how good accomplishing it will make you feel, and any other advantages you can think of. Don't however consider the negatives such as how long it will take, how much work it will be, and how much you hate doing it.
3. Modify Your Perception of the Task - If you still arn't motivated to do whatever it is after considering the many advantages, you probably have strong negative feelings associated with the task. I use NLP in these situations. If you can think of a particular events that led to you experiencing these feelings, dissociating from them can help to minimize those feelings. If not, or in addition to that you can use triggers to associate positive feelings into your perception of the task. I am not an NLP guru, so I won't even attempt to explain how to do this, but I will reccomend finding an NLP therapist, or reading a book. If you choose to read a book, I would reccomend starting with "NLP: The New Technology of Achievement." Of the NLP books I have read, this one is written the best for beginners.
4. Break Tasks into Smaller Tasks - Whenever you can find ways to break up your tasks into smaller tasks that are more easily accomplished. This way you can concentrate more easily on the smaller, less overwhelming tasks rather than the ultimate task as a whole. When you complete each small task you will feel a sense of accomplishment which you can use to motivate yourself to complete the another small task. As an example, when I clean, I don't clean my whole house, nor do I clean my livingroom. I clean one couch, then another couch, one end table, the other, different sections of the floor, my bookshelves, and finally the TV. Each thing is a seperate task after which I congratulate myself, and take a well deserved short break before moving on to the next task.
5. Rituals are Your Friends - By rituals I'm not referring to ritual sacrifice. Instead I refer to ritualistic patterns that you can employ that will help you to form good habits. If you look back to the previous example, I clean my living room in that same order every time. With anything that you will need to do over and over again, creating a ritual for yourself can be amazingly helpfull, but don't start or stop at the end of your tasks. As part of your ritual, include something at the beginning to get yourself in the right state to do the task, and at the end to congratulate yourself on a job well done.
6. Rituals can also be Your Enemies - Not every ritual is beneficial. In most situations that we deal with on a day to day basis we develop some form of ritual. These rituals can actually be triggers for the negative feelings we have toward doing something. So it makes sense then to try to find these non-beneficial triggers and do something to change them. The trick is to identify these rituals in your life and do something to change them. For instance if you have trouble approaching people in bars, identify your rituals. For instance, if you walk into the bar, find a seat at the bar, buy a drink, and then look around for someone to talk to try something different. Walk into the bar, talk to someone, then sit down and order a drink and see if that makes a difference.

Coping with Limiting Beliefs

About a month ago, a co-worker said something to me that just about made me fall off of my chair laughing. I have always had alot of respect for him, and believed that he was one of the most confident people I knew. On this day, he ed me this girls picture on myspace and said "I almost think she's interested in me, but I must just be dreaming. I could never get a girl like that." As soon as I was able to stop laughing I said "Man, you really need to do something about your limiting beliefs."

To put things in perspective, this guy has just about everything he needed -Good looks, a good sense of humor, a sweet car, and (or so he had had me convinced) confidence. The part that I found funny was that I looked up to him, yet the girl he showed me was slightly below what I know I am capable of attracting.

This was a classic example of a limiting belief and I had to find a way to explain to him what a limiting belief was, and get him to talk to her. It hadn't been very long since I had dealt with my limiting beliefs, and I still didn't completely understand how I had managed to change them. I don't know if he ever did talk to that girl again, but a couple weeks later he was showing us pictures of his new girlfriend who I have to say was much more on his level.

At some point in time, we all experience limiting beliefs wether they are about women, our career, our family or anything else. These are the things we believe that tell us "I can't because..." I many cases we say we "can't" when in fact we can. Perhaps whatever we're speaking or thinking of might be difficult or possibly its something we really shouldn't do, but in fact we really are capable of doing it or at least trying to do it.

Step 1
With that in mind, The first step to ridding yourself of your limiting beliefs is to remove the word "can't" from your vocabulary. For instance if you were asked to do something you had neither the tools nor the knowledge to do, change the way you think. Instead of saying "I can't because I don't have the tools and I don't know how" to "I could learn how to do it and find tools that would work, or possibly find someone else who is more suited to do it." In this case I have used a situation where you probably shouldn't do whatever it is, but you continue to recognize the fact that you are capable of doing with the right resources. Another case would be if someone asked you to kill someone. Hopefully your limiting belief response would be "I can't do that.", but now that you have removed "can't" from your vocabulary, you might say "I am capable of doing that, but doing so would require me to go completely against my beliefs so I won't."

Obvoiously there may be reasons why you should do something despite knowing that you can in fact do it. You probably shouldn't pick up that girl in the bar if either of you is married. Perhaps it wouldn't be a good idea to take on a project that you don't have the resources to complete on time. I'm sure you can think of many other situations where this applies.

Step 2
Learn to change your thoughts. Eliminating the word "can't" from your vocabulary may help remove it from your thoughts, but it probably won't work completely. Fortunately, the part of your brain that feeds you these thoughts learns very quickly. In order to do this you just have to reason with that little voice.

First, think of a situation where you know you have limiting beliefs. Ask that voice, in your head, "In this situation, what would you tell me." Pay close attention to the thoughts that come to mind, and pick out the limiting beliefs. At that point, ask the voice again why those specific limiting beliefs are important to it. Next you will want tell that voice that you understand why what it is saying and explain how you recognize that it is looking out for you in feeding these thoughts to you. Finally you need to negotiate with the voice and come to an agreement on how it can replace the limiting language with more empowering language.

I know this sounds like the mutterings of a psychotic person, but what I am speaking of is actually very natural. The "voice" I speak of is that inner thought dialog that we all experience. Once you have come to an agreement with that "voice" simply ask it if it could try to handle similar situation in a similar matter.

After you have completed these two steps you should notice that many of your limiting beliefs are pretty much gone. You may experience some self-doubt at times, but in these cases you can reason with your mind once again.

Why read "The Power of Now"?

Up until recently, I spent every day suffering every day, as I struggled working toward getting everything I "needed" to be happy as many people do. Based on the way I was looking at things, I needed to have certain things before I'd really be happy, but I could never afford them. Then I found "The Power of Now" and after reading it twice, my life began to change.

Years ago, a friend of mine who struggled with cancer for years told me "You're lucky. Your smart, you have a good family, and hopefully you live a long life. Just do yourself a favor, and live each day like its your last because you never know when it might end." At the time I thought I understood what he mean and at times I did exactly as he meant. Until I read and began to understand "The Power of Now," I really never understood what he was really saying.

I interpreted his words to mean that I should basically get everything I wanted, and do whatever I wanted to make myself happy. That didn't work because I couldn't afford the things I thought I wanted, nor could I afford to do some of things I wanted to do.

After I read "The Power of Now" I truely understood what he had told me. There is more to life than the things we have and do. Most of us let it pass us by without ever noticing what we're missing. We waste our time putting our energy into thinking about the things that have happened in the past or could happen in the future rather than focusing on now, and seeing the beauty in what we have.

That one book has had an incredible influence on my life. I no longer spend every day of my life looking forward to tomorrow. Any anxiety I used to have about what would happen I missed before trying to find the things I thought I wanted. Most importantly I'm happier now than I have ever been in my life, and nothing that happened yesterday or will happen tomorrow can change that.

"The Power of Now" completely changed my life.