Are you ok being by yourself, but whenever there are unfamiliar people around, you suddenly become irrationally anxious and self-aware? Let's be honest, each of us suffers from Social Anxiety in some way, and those that disagree, just don't consider slight feeling of discomfort as light anxiety.

Social Anxiety or Social Phobia is when regular social situations cause overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness.

Throughout my childhood I was very anxious and self-aware whenever people would try to look me into eyes. This is because I suffered from strabismus -- a condition in which your eyes are crossed and misaligned. I was always worried whether people would notice or not. It was a horrible feeling to say the least. In order to avoid it, I tried to avoid the eye contact with people all together. I also avoided being among people even though I loved being the center of attention!

Within ourselves we have a deep desire to be accepted by the group -- it is an evolutionary psychology. Even though in modern world rejection by a particular "tribe" doesn't compromise your success with billion of other groups, our subconscious and emotions are not aware of it. In tribal times, the risk of NOT being accepted by the group could mean expulsion and thus compromise your chances of successful survival and reproduction.

There are few common social situations that trigger anxiety in people. Does any of the following resonate with you?

• You feel uncomfortable being introduced to other people
• You don't like being the center of attention
• You hate being teased or criticized
• You can't stand when someone is observing you while you're doing something
• You don't like meeting people in authority aka "Important People"
• You don't like most social encounters, mostly with strangers
• You dread walking into a room full of people you don't know
• You're uncomfortable with close interpersonal relationships such as intimate or romantic

Even though we realize that most of this fear is unreasonable, it is hard to overcome it!

Read on as I have few tips for overcoming social anxiety. Just to warn you ahead, this is NOT a magic pill that will free you of social anxiety. You have to work on it as this is a process!

Understanding Social Anxiety

Social Anxiety is a fear of being judged and evaluated negatively by people. It is strongly intertwined with caring about other people's opinions about you and seeking their approval. You naturally tend to care and seek for other people's approval and validation due to the same reason of being accepted by the group.

Most people suffer from some degree of social anxiety, but only few admit that! In some of those, the level of social anxiety is so severe that it turns into panic attacks.

If you don't treat social anxiety now aiming for a long-term success, then soon you might fall into treatment that involves alcohol and drugs. You also risk not having desired relationships or remaining single NOT BY CHOICE.

People generally would avoid situations that they know will trigger anxiety in them. And that is natural -- we tend to seek comfort and thus escape anxiety-triggering situations.

Identify situations that trigger anxiety in you

You cannot solve the problem without first identifying it!

So the first step is to identify the situations that you are avoiding.

For example several years ago for me it was going to a party where I knew attractive women would be as well. Let's say a friend of mine invites me over to a party that is several days away and I immediately get excited for this social gathering, but as time passes my anxiety of attending the party is drastically increasing. I begin thinking about all the various scenarios and my mind inadvertently starts drawing the worst situations making me dread something that didn't even happen. Before the panic attack kicks in, I decide not to go and anxiety immediately drops...

Now, what happened here? My decision to avoid the party caused the reduction of anxiety which in turn reinforced the avoidance, and then my brain rewarded me with a feeling of comfort. This helps me develop a horrible habit: "In order to feel less anxious, avoid going to a party where attractive women are present". This reward for avoidance nurtures the fear of negative social evaluation and encourages avoiding various social situations thus severely affecting the quality of my social life!

I stay in my comfort zone and my anxiety becomes worse as time passes just like a disease.

Treat it now instead.

Write down 5 social situations or environments that trigger social anxiety in you. Start with the most dreading one and do NOT lie to yourself!

If you are struggling to identify them, then LIEBOWITZ SOCIAL ANXIETY SCALE might give you ideas because it already has some common situations listed.

Determine the sequence

Now pick one of those situations and write down steps that lead to your anxiety.

Everything begins in your mind. The power of thought causes you severe anxiety and emotional stress. Anxiety usually begins way before the actual situation occurs.

So the next step would be to identify how each step could be rated in terms of level of anxiety that it triggers in you. Rate each one using 10 point scale, 0 would stand for complete calmness while 10 would be a panic attack.

So my fear of attending the party could be broken down into following sequence:

• Thinking of attending a social gathering event (2)
• Heading to the event (5)
• Walking into a room full of strangers -- (6)
• Making eye contact with people in the room -- (7)
• Engaging into a conversation (8)
• Approaching an attractive woman (10)

Capturing the anticipated anxiety level will let you compare it to an actual anxiety that you would have when the situation occurs. This is important because often we exaggerate and in reality the anxiety is not as severe as they thought it would be.

By testing your predictions and realizing they are not as bad as you initially assumed, you are practicing positive reinforcement which changes your system of beliefs. As a result level of anticipated anxiety decreases for the similar social situation that will occur in the future!

For example when I actually did go to a party, approaching a woman was not as hard as I initially rated it at 10, it was about 8 at the beginning and dropped to 5 because she was very friendly and open.

Identify your comfort zones and eliminate them

We constantly seek comfort because comfort yields safety and worry-free life.

The problem is -- comfort zone does NOT stimulate any desire to improve and try something new.

As Tony Robbins said: "Your purpose in life is to expand", that is to constantly develop and improve yourself. However if you dread stepping out of your comfort zone, staying there, yields development of fears that turn into anxiety and eventually panic attacks.

Write down 3 comfort zones to which you escape the most whenever faced with social anxiety.

For example 10 years ago for me it was::

• Locking myself in the room with a bag of chips and playing Counter-Strike while talking to my online teammates over the headphones for hours.
• Inviting over few of my introverted friends to play board games for several hours.
• Keep talking to the same people over and over rather than trying to start conversation with a girl I don't know.

If you aren't outside of your comfort zone, you're NOT learning, you're NOT improving, you BECOME STAGNANT!

Embrace the discomfort

Once you identified your 3 biggest comfort zones, begin STEPPING OUT OF THEM!

For example my biggest comfort zone of playing Counter Strike and socializing virtually with people I have never seen, had to be replaced with something opposite. That is going to the venues full of real people and engaging into conversations with them.

I remember how weird and anxious I felt. I took little tiny steps though. I went to the closest shopping outlet mall with a notepad making a record of every interaction that I initiated with a stranger. I clearly remember my first day -- it was 7 people, out of which 5 were women.

There are 2 challenges here:

• First is stepping out of your comfort into unknown and uncomfortable zone.
• Second is forcing yourself to stay there for prolonged period of time no matter how uncomfortable it is.

For example I made a plan for myself to stay out of comfort zone for longer periods of time every day:

• Monday -- 2 minutes
• Tuesday -- 5 minutes
• Wednesday -- 10 minutes
• Thursday -- 20 minutes
• Friday -- 30 minutes
• Etc.

Get used to throwing and keeping yourself in those situations and environments that trigger the most discomfort in you.

Expose yourself. Overcoming social anxiety is a thousand mile journey and it starts with the first baby step -- expose yourself to the situations that cause the problem in the first place. At first it will be very uncomfortable but as you stay there, your get more desensitized and realize that your fears were not rational.

This has to be repeated on daily basis for months and in some cases years to see the effect.

It's ok to be anxious when you're exposing yourself because that is the whole purpose of it.

Remember, delayed gratification feels thousand times better than immediate.

Challenge your negative thoughts

The above will cause a lot of negative thinking and self-doubt. You will want to quit, your mind would try to convince you to stop torturing yourself. However no matter how counter-intuitive it sounds, you must force yourself to stay out of your comfort zone!

A power of thought can not only affect your emotional state, it can shift the reality! Think about it: if you think more about negative outcomes and undesirable scenarios, then that is exactly what would happen because of the power of your thinking. You will eventually attract the corresponding people and sequence of events that would turn your anxiety into reality.

Might sound superstitious, but if you do not agree with me here, then at least you know deep inside that your own emotional state is affected by your thinking. So leash that thought! Once you realize there is a negative thought in your mind, start observing it but do not identify with it! Do not let it guide you anywhere. It will eventually escape.

If a positive thought enters your mind, then stick to it and keep it on a close shelf so that you can reach for it anytime you want!

For example I was always afraid that my mind would go blank. Various undesirable scenarios were entering my mind making my anxiety worse. I thought I cannot resist and they did take full control of my mind.

In reality though even if I publicly admitted that my mind just went blank and I forgot what I wanted to say, then no sane person would judge me for that!

So challenge and argue back at these thoughts!

Stay present

Don't get in your head whenever you are around people.

Stay alert and aware of yourself. Move your conscience from your Head to your Solar Plexus and stay there. This will help your stay self aware and responsive to the stimulus from the immediate environment, such as someone asking you a question.

Stay straight, don't let yourself slouch. Make eye contact and begin interacting with people on non-verbal level. Walk around steadily and acknowledge people.

Easy said than done, but the problem isn't the environment, it is your current state in that environment. The problem is in your head, your thoughts and your irrational fears.

By being present you are distancing yourself from the destructive mind of yours, tuning down the internal dialog and submerging your conscience into the present moment maximizing the input from all your senses.

That in turn makes you more aware of the surroundings to help you quickly react to external stimulus such as listening or observing someone and immediately coming up with relevant response to a question or any conversation topic. Your body is more relaxed, there is less  tension and your verbal stream flows out smoothly.

Confront your fears

Refer back to the sequence you made earlier. Imagine each step at a time and stay with it repeating positive affirmations and thinking of positive scenarios until your anxiety drops.

Respond rationally to your negative thoughts. For example when I pictured myself walking into a room and a thought "Everyone can see my crossed eyes" pops up, I start reminding myself that most of the people would be occupied with their own conversations.

Those few who actually make eye contact with me, wouldn't even notice a slight misalignment in my eyes. Also even if there is an optometrist in the room who can notice my strabismus condition, he is too used to seeing it in his patients and it wouldn't even surprise him.

People are always focusing on their own concerns and insecurities first.

Announce your fears or anxiety to people

Yes do that. This will be liberating to you because you will no longer feel like you have to hide something from others.

For example I remember I decided to approach an alluring girl at the shopping mall when she was standing right outside the H&M store. I made up a phrase in my mind that I will start a conversation with, however I forgot about it while I was walking towards her. I just got very nervous and my mind actually went blank. But I didn't chicken out and wanted to see what would happen.

When she noticed me coming, she looked at me and I locked the eye contact: "My mind went blank, but the momentum from heading your way was too strong to stop immediately, so here I am. My name is Rashid, what's yours?" She giggled and responded with her name. We had an entertaining conversation to which both of us equally contributed. It was not intimate as I wanted, but it was witty and energizing. Then her boyfriend came out, he was positive as well, we chatted for another 3 minutes and left wishing each other good day.

So nothing bad happened when I announced to her that my mind went blank and I didn't have anything to say and instead I just introduced myself.

Reward and congratulate yourself

Yes, do not forget to congratulate yourself for every little accomplishment such as facing your fears. You deserve the biggest congratulation for ATTEMPTING to confront what is so difficult.

You do not have to ACCOMPLISH anything. You just have to try, just to go, just to stay there -- outside the comfort zone and tolerate the discomfort. These are the reasons for the reward.

There is a HUGE difference between "trying and failing" and "failing to try"!!!

And don't forget that each time you confront and face your fear, you WIN and it LOSES!

The war is won by winning individual battles!