Do you often catch yourself worrying about what others think about you?
I know I was worried about the smallest things for the longest time.
As a matter of fact, most of my life.
How did I minimize my worrying? Well, I had to learn the hard way and I’d like to tell you a story of what seemed to be one of the lowest times of my life.
It was my best friend’s 22nd birthday and I had planned with his family to go for his birthday dinner at a decent restaurant. I had never met my best friend’s family before, but I had texted his favorite cousin indirectly through my best friend.
He seemed pretty excited to meet me since my best friend (let’s call him Gary, for the sake of the story) must have said great things to them about me.
I was very excited to meet them as well, but deep down inside, I was feeling very insecure about myself at the time. Several thoughts crossed my mind:
“What if they don’t think I’m cool enough for them?”
“It’s going to be awkward since they all know each other and they have a close relationship with Gary.”
“The spotlight should be on Gary, not me, so I’ll have to make sure that I don’t try to take over the conversation too much.
“What if they don’t like how I dress?”
These thoughts, now looking back, seem so silly to me. I was just making excuses in my mind and sabotaging my relationship with his family before I had even come into contact with them.
Anyway, while I was on my way to the restaurant where we all had planned to host the birthday dinner, I received a text from Gary that he was about 10 minutes away from the restaurant. I was only 5 minutes away at the time, which was good, because I had enough time to park and show up earlier than everyone else for him.
I went inside the restaurant, talked to the waitress, and walked over to the table that was reserved for us. I took a seat and was waiting on my girlfriend and her best friend’s arrival.
I had been building rapport with his cousin (let’s call him Oliver) over text through Gary and he seemed pretty friendly and excited to meet me.
So while I was waiting for them, the front door of the restaurant opened and I saw Gary and Oliver start walking towards me. I greeted Gary with a big man hug and introduced myself to Oliver. With Oliver, it seemed a bit forced and he didn’t seem to have a very excited look on his face, which made me start to doubt myself.
The rest of the night, as more and more of Gary's family arrived at the restaurant, Gary introduced me to most of them and some were excited to meet me while others didn’t seem to care much.
This made me doubt myself even more, because I had always thought I was a very charming and friendly guy. I thought to myself the following thoughts:
“Have I lost my attractiveness and self-worth?”
“How come some of Gary’s friends are not that excited to see me?”
“Is something wrong with me?”
“I feel very uncomfortable right now and I can’t wait to go home…so at least I can get away from this uncomfortable feeling.”
I tried cracking a few jokes with his family members, but many of them didn’t really find it as funny as I did in my mind. This was most likely because I was very nervous and it came across through my voice tone and facial expressions.
This further decreased my self-confidence and increased my worrying throughout the night.
I was feeling very defeated inside…I wanted to get away really bad.
After everyone finished dinner, had dessert, and took pictures, we all started getting ready to head out one by one. I told Gary's family it was really nice to meet them, said goodbye to Gary as well as to everyone else, then left the scene.
Why did I not have a good time at my best friend's birthday dinner? Hmmm…
Maybe because I was over thinking and overanalyzing everything in my mind.
I should have just let loose and be a little less engaged in my thoughts and more engaged in conversation with everyone. I would have had a better time, could’ve cracked relevant jokes at the right time, and had more fun as a result.
I’ve learned a lot about worrying and anxiety the hard way and I’m here today to share with you some tips to decrease the amount of worrying you’re engaged in as well as decreasing social anxiety as a result of this.
Lesson number seven:
4 Easy Steps You Can Take in Order to Stop Worrying So Much:
1) Realize that you’re worrying and bring it to your attention.
2) Tell yourself that worrying will not solve anything; it will just make matters worse.
3) Replace worrying with positive thoughts about yourself and others you will be talking to.
4) Realize that you’re not perfect and will make mistakes and that’s okay, because no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes from time to time. It’s part of human nature.
So get out there, stop worrying so much like I used to, and start being more confident in yourself!
I hope you found this post helpful and hope you will join me on the journey to self-confidence mastery.
Cheers!
– Steve Daniels
P.S. I would love to hear what you have to say about this post. Feel free to comment below!
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