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Total social confidence is what I always wanted when I was dealing with social anxiety.

My social anxiety started when I was 12.

I was probably in my mid to late teens when I figured out that social anxiety was the problem.

Since then, the idea or desire of being free of it was an obsession.

I’m like:

“Wow! One day, I’ll be totally socially confident. I’ll have no social anxiety whatsoever. How amazing would that be?”

And that has been a reality in my life for a long time now.

I am 37 years old now.

This is what I do. This is what I teach.

I spent a fortune on getting help to get to that place.

And so, in the last year, I’ve experienced social anxiety maybe once or twice.

I can honestly not remember experiencing social anxiety for more than one scenario (I thought of it before shooting this video).

And that was roughly a month, or a month and a half ago, when I was in Rovinj, Croatia.

It was the biggest Salsa Festival in the world (or at least in Europe), and there were dancers on stage.

I thought about being called to the stage and performing salsa on stage.

Now I’m a decent dancer, but I’m not amazing.

Imagining that caused me to feel a bit of anxiety.

I’m like, “Oh, interesting!”

When I stopped imagining that the anxiety was gone instantly.

It’s not really relevant in my life because I have no interest in being a salsa performer.

In other areas of my life, there is no anxiety. I’m just calm, comfortable, and at ease.

Now, why I am sharing that with you is…

…I consider myself to be social anxiety free.

I am socially at ease.

By the way, ‘being social anxiety free’ is just a normal natural state.

There’s nothing special about it. You’re just comfortable. You’re just at ease.

But you could argue that I don’t have perfect social confidence.

And to me right now, it’s no problem. I don’t care.

Now, if I want to become a public speaker -which I’m considering, not necessarily a public speaker, but I want to speak at TED at some point-, then I might still have some anxiety when I start with that.

I don’t know if that’s the case. But if that were to be the case, then I would simply work through the remaining triggers that are there.

Then I would be able to get to the place where I’m comfortable and at ease speaking publicly, if I’m not already.

I’m sharing this with you because…

When I started out doing this inner work and clearing my traumas, my beliefs, and my negative fantasies…

… I started to become less and less anxious.
… I started to get triggered less frequently.
… My anxiety went away faster.
… I started to be able to connect with others more.
… I feel more myself with others most of the time.

As that started to develop, my obsession was:

“I got to be 100% social anxiety free totally, completely, confident.”

And as a result of that mindset, I avoided certain situations where I might get anxious.

I was still really afraid of getting anxious.

I was like, “I got to avoid that at all costs.”

As a result, my life experience was still very limiting.

I couldn’t get to the place where I’m at now -and where I have been for years- where I’m actually at ease.

Now, if I were to get anxious, it’s okay.

It’s not what I like or prefer, but I’m okay with it.

It’s not going to freak me out.

It’s not going to knock me off my course because I know what it is.

I accept it. I allow it. There’s no problem.

It’s just an experience that I can handle.

That attitude of acceptance and allowing the anxiety is actually what gets you to social confidence or social ease quicker. Faster.

That attitude is a necessary component of effortless social ease.

If you do not have room for anxiety to exist, that’s a problem.

And that is the message of today.

So, if you want to have a 100%, social anxiety free life?

Come to terms with social anxiety.

Allow it and accept it.

That acceptance and allowance is counterintuitive, but that actually gets you to be more socially at ease.

The fear of social anxiety, and your resistance to accepting it, actually contributes to the anxiety and keeps it in place.

So, if you want to have perfect social confidence, get rid of that idea of perfect social confidence.

This is a little bit of a mindfuck, but this is what it is.

Social perfectionism? Get rid of it.

This idea of no flaws, no anxiety, and all of that stuff…

…that’s part of the problem.

Accepting and allowing the social anxiety to exist allows you to get to the place where there is none of it.

Hope this helps you.

Have a great week.

This is Seb from www.social-anxiety-solutions.com.

Bye for now.

If you experience Social Anxiety, click below to receive the FREE “7 Secrets to Social Confidence” Mini Course!

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Sebastiaan

Sebastiaan van der Schrier is a Social Confidence Coach and ex social anxiety sufferer. He helps socially anxious people become confident using a unique and painless approach. He is the host of the Social Anxiety Solutions podcast show and runs the first ever online Social Confidence Community.

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