Thoughts on How To Build Confidence and Reduce Anxiety

What’s coming will come, and we’ll meet it when it does. 

J.K. Rowling

How do I build self-confidence, how do I lessen my social anxiety, how do I bring myself to do something that scares me? 

These are questions I get asked a lot from my patients.  This quote shows us such a great way to challenge avoidance.  People who struggle with anxiety and OCD tend to use avoidance quite a bit.  Sometimes we avoid situations out of fear and low self-confidence, too.

 So many people in a variety of situations use avoidance to “handle” situations they think will turn out badly.  We think that if we don't have to do it, be there, or face it, it will just be so much easier, and this is true... but only for a small amount of time.  In the long run with this practice, the cost is high.   Get out a thick notebook to have enough room to list all the avoidances and limitations that start to add up- where you can't go, who you can't show your face to, who you can't speak up to, and what new things you can't try.  When we repeat these thoughts and behaviors, we start to form the conclusion that this is the only way that works to handle a potentially challenging or unknown situation.

BUT, what if we took J.K.'s wise words to heart?  What if we chose to show up to those situations, meet them when they come, and just see what happens?  If you start to show up you are sending yourself a really important and nurturing message that says I believe in myself and I believe I am capable of figuring it out.  You don’t have to do it perfectly and you don’t have to face it all at once, you just have to show up and meet it instead of avoiding it.

What do you think would change or improve if you started to more consistently meet things when they came rather than catastrophize, build up anticipation and avoid?  Spoiler alert a lot would change and in a really powerful way... like a Harry Potter magic sort of way.