You Gotta Have Faith

     Before you think that I am going to get preachy, let me clarify what I mean when I say "you gotta have faith." The goal of this blog is not to make a statement regarding any sort of religious belief. Whether you have such beliefs or not, this principle will apply to you. What do I mean then? Let me ask you this, if you are reading my blog it is because you struggle with social anxiety. So, do you believe you can truly overcome it? Do you have faith that things are going to work for you and that you can achieve your whatever goals you have in this area? These questions are important because at the end of the day there is no evidence that things will ever change for you. There are millions of people who struggle with social anxiety and many of them never make any real progress. So why should you be any different? You could look up statistics to see how many people make progress but that does not answer the question, "will you overcome social anxiety?" 

    You might be thinking, "there is no way I can know if I will ever really change." That is true. You don't know but what do you believe? This post is a good follow up to my last post where we talked about biases. Most people who struggle with social anxiety are biased against themselves. They do not believe they can function normally in social situations and the ones who are destined to never change do not believe they will. Those who have faith, believing they can change even though there is no reason for them to think that, are the only ones who have any real chance of changing and most of them do. In the past, I have been a part of and even ran social anxiety support groups. I have seen people who had faith they could change and I know they did because they invested their entire selves into making the changes they needed to make. And they certainly changed. I've seen people go off to be successful in their careers, find meaningful relationships and even get married. The ones who became successful fastest where they ones who never doubted they would change. I never heard them say, "I guess I'll be stuck this way forever." It was almost as if they could see the future and saw themselves being successful so for them it was only a matter of time.

    You might also be thinking "how do I find faith when I don't have it?" That is a great a question, thank you for asking! When we have struggled with something for a long time often times things can seem hopeless. There is a mountain of evidence in the past where we avoided situations, forced ourselves in situations where the anxiety was too much, or other people have criticized us for being weak and passive (or worse). That is why I use the term "faith." Faith does not need evidence. It doesn't matter what anyone says, if you have faith in something you will believe it. As a matter of fact, people have done amazing things because they had faith. In Christianity, missionaries travel all over the world and overcome incredible barriers simply because they have faith in their beliefs. People in all religions accomplish great things because of their faith. (I mentioned Christianity only because that is the one I am most familiar with). In a lot of ways faith is simple but hard. Less is more with faith. If you find yourself roaming internet forums or even delving into research studies you are filling you brain with things that can create doubt. A caveat that I should add here is that I am not saying you shouldn't do research but you need to be careful that you do not catch your fretting over the statistics. It is good to find different strategies and approaches to making progress but do not worry about the likelihood of changing and do not compare yourself to other people in forums. Put you brain power into being successful.

    Here are some tips to help you grow your faith so that you can change. First, protect your mind from negative influences. You might need to stay away from certain places on the internet or even certain people in your life. Also, you want to seek out encouraging sources. Find sources that tell you that you can succeed and give you a different perspective. Expose yourself to these daily. Second, envision yourself overcoming social anxiety completely. What does that look like for you? How did you get to that point? What work did it take? Notice that faith, in this instance, is not passive. I would never suggest that you can sit around, not do anything and overcome social anxiety. Imagine yourself taking the time each day to prime your mind with encouraging and rational messages and challenging yourself in new social situations. See yourself gradually becoming more confident and outgoing. Make it real in your mind and practice that everyday. Instead of dwelling on what is wrong with you, dwell on what is right with you and why your future will be different than your past. Also, create a phrase that will remind you of this. Something like "I am making progress," "I will get there," or anything that speaks to you. Use that phrase when you confront anxiety and afterwards when you are tempted to dwell on the situation. There are many ways you can use your internal dialogue to help you feel more confident but that will take another post. Lastly, put your faith into motion by acting on it. If you feel anxious going up and talking to people, try it. It will most likely be difficult and might not be entirely positive. Hold on to your faith that things will get better even when there is every reason to believe that it won't. This way you will keep going and keep making progress. That is the only way.

    There is a very rational and logical reason why you should have faith that you can overcome social anxiety and it is simply because that is your best shot at being successful. If you dwell on your doubt and why you will fail then you will fail. If you focus on being successful then you will be. It takes a lot of faith to believe you will be stuck in social anxiety forever. Why not direct your faith towards overcoming it?