Social Anxiety: Challenges & Goals

Social Anxiety: Challenges & Goals

Main idea:
social anxiety (social phobia) works by creating feelings of anxiety in social situations and then reinforcing them when those situations are avoided, because you feel relief after you've escaped the situation (positive reinforcement). That's why exposure therapy (CBT) works so well with social anxiety: you face your fears and the fear response declines, restructuring your anxious thoughts that pop up during social situations. We want calmness in social situations to become habitual.

So, it'd be great to have a thread here dedicated to:
> sharing self-made social challenges / goals
> encouraging others to complete their tasks / goals
> posting when you've completed a goal

For example;
> my goal is to say hi to one of the other students that I don't know at my university.
> I challenge myself to order coffee in the next week.
> my goal is to be able to request and chat with a listener for an hour.

Tips:
> don't make the goals too challenging. know your limits and let yourself ease into it (make realistic goals)
> don't make a time limit that's too short --- give yourself time! (don't pressure yourself to be cured within 24 hours)
> even if a situation doesn't go well, keep trying! maybe even let us know what happened so we can help you get back up