In the modern world, many suffer from various fears. One of them is the fear of people, or social phobia. You can overcome its mild form on your own, but you will need endurance and great willpower.
Identifying the causes of social phobia
According to psychologists, the main reason for fear of communicating with people, especially with strangers, is a feeling of uncertainty due to the fact that it is unlikely that it will be possible to predict how this conversation will end and whether it will be pleasant for you. Self-doubt plays a very important role here.
Of course, you can try to imagine the outcome of communication, but if you have problems with self-esteem, it will be quite difficult for you to make an objective analysis of the situation. Most likely, you will over-dramatize events. Thus, fear will make it easier for you to avoid any contact with others, and this will further aggravate everything, because you will deprive yourself of the necessary experience.
It turns out to be a real vicious circle - no communication, no experience. If there is no experience, then there is a desire to avoid any contact with people.
There is only one way out here - to leave your comfort zone and try to start at least somehow to make contact. There is no need to rush into the pool with your head, for a start you can do a number of exercises, and if the situation gets out of control, make an appointment with a psychologist.
From theory to practice
One of the ways to overcome social anxiety can be called "Bus". Take any route you like. On the bus, go to the conductor, and if there is none, start a conversation with any of the passengers. Ask where the bus goes, which streets, how long it will take to get to a certain stop, and so on. In this situation, you risk nothing at all. It doesn't matter if your speech is perfectly structured or if you made a mistake somewhere. Nobody will pay attention to this.
Another way is Shopping. Go to a large store, for example, home appliances, call a sales assistant and start asking him about the characteristics of certain products. Come up with a story, say, that you are choosing a washing machine or hairdryer and start interviewing. Approach with full responsibility the choice of the allegedly desired product. If you do not like something, try to politely refuse the seller, or, conversely, if you are really interested in something, give a positive rating. This will also teach you how to say yes and no.
Another method to start communicating with people is "Call by phone". You should start with it if a conversation with another person brings real terror to you or you are panicky afraid of people. In this case, all communication will take place over the phone, so at any time convenient for you, you can simply hang up.
Arm yourself with a telephone directory and start calling various organizations. Ask what they do, what kind of work they have. In the course of obtaining information in your head, for sure, other questions will arise. Most likely, after that you will understand that talking to people is not so difficult, and many of them do not want to offend you at all. Then you can switch from a telephone conversation to live communication.
