Do we need goals and ambitions?

[charlieHungerford]

I have been thinking today about what is next for me (I kind of feel I have to start making changes soon because I have had the pause button on my life for 5 years now) and I have no idea what is next. My only aim in life right now has been trying to overcome SA and although I am making progress it is a slow process so far. But having this one single aim in life right now is not really an incentive to get out of my current lifestyle and I am still in this rut of being in the same boring job for 6 years, no social life, no girlfriend, nothing exciting happening, etc. I am not unhappy or depressed, I never have been, but time is ticking and I feel there must come a time where changes have to be made.

The problem is, if I have no plans to make a change in this next week in my life, then I am pretty certain I won't the week after, or the week after that, and so on. Its not right, if I am to make things happen it would seem I need that real desire to make changes, which I don't seem to have (even though I want so much more!).

My whole point is, can we escape this 'rut' (if you feel you are in a rut as well) until we want something bad enough that we make it happen?

On friday I was told that a girl I used to really like at work has moved in with this other guy at work and they are planning on getting married. I just thought that lucky guy! It seems people are moving on and finding happiness, whilst I am stood still. But, I am stood still because I don't have the confidence to really make things happen.

In order to overcome SA and really put yourself into new challenges, new situations, making things happen in life (which will undoubtedly mean coming face to face with many feared situations) - do you need that real hunger for more in order to put yourself in situations?

I just remember as a kid wanting something so badly like a new computer game or new bike and I would be so focused on getting it, saving money and doing jobs for money and I would achieve my goal. Same with my studies in the past, I remember needing certain grades to make it into university and I just worked so hard to get those grades. It seems like I want to be happy, meet someone nice, have a good career, but am doing nothing about it and am not pushing myself towards achieving these things. Its not because I don't want it, it feels like I don't believe I can get it.

I am just wondering what others think is the answer to progressing? Can you really progress in life if you don't have a hunger and determination for things?

Ahhh, its rubbish post, I am close to deleting this, but may as well post it.

 

[samana]

I understand what you are talking about. I think, as you referred to when you were a child, that its easier to push for things because we have so much to fall back upon (such as parents, their money, etc), and not much to lose...and nothing much will change (ie, getting a bike isnt exactly on the same level of life-changing as moving). I think as we get older (20's and on) we find a comfortable routine or 'rut' as you call it, that makes us feel secure. It's not that there's necessarily a lack of desire or passion to change, but more likely theres an equally strong desire to stay comfortable and in our secure routines and way of life, even if its not great at all in our personal opinion. What we have to do as we get older, is override this desire to stay unchanged, that we didn't really have to do when we were younger much. Even if you want to travel the world, or help the poor, or whatever, few of us ever really get around to doing that, since in our minds it is too 'inconvenient' to change our lives that much. Perhaps it would help to sit down and write out what you'd like to see change in your life, and then write out what things you might want to do to make that happen (what you might have to do to meet new people, etc.) and take things one step and day at a time. It's not necessary to make all the changes at once, be patient with yourself Things don't happen instantaneously, but if there's one thing I know, is that nothing is forever except change.

 

[charlieHungerford]

I like your posts Samana, I think what you say is totally right, I think that is what it is all about - the fact my life is so comfortable and non stressful that I find it very difficult to give that up. It got me thinking that in order to move on I really have got to sort out this fear of speaking for me to feel ready to take on new challenges and go for the things I want. Because in the meantime I will always feel far far safer and better off in the 'comfort zone' and hence find it so much harder to leave it. I have been working on this a lot of late but realise I have not put the fears and negative beliefs of speaking to bed. Tomorrow I plan to spend the whole day at desensitising my fears and beliefs on speaking.

Thanks Samana, that has helped me a lot.

 

[signs05]

When it comes to desensitising fears, one can not achieve this without actually facing what is feared. If a person is scared of public speaking then he must gradually expose him/herself to public speaking, and this will make the person less scared. While analyzing your thoughts and beliefs is a good thing, your fear will not diminish until you actually do what you fear. The mind does not respond to logical reasoning, so actually going out and doing some public speaking (albeit very gradually) for 5-10 minutes a week will do you more good than spending 10 hours each day analyzing your thoughts.

This isnt really related to the real topic though, more to desensitising fears in general.

 

[charlieHungerford]

When it comes to desensitising fears, one can not achieve this without actually facing what is feared. If a person is scared of public speaking then he must gradually expose him/herself to public speaking, and this will make the person less scared. While analyzing your thoughts and beliefs is a good thing, your fear will not diminish until you actually do what you fear. The mind does not respond to logical reasoning, so actually going out and doing some public speaking (albeit very gradually) for 5-10 minutes a week will do you more good than spending 10 hours each day analyzing your thoughts.

This isnt really related to the real topic though, more to desensitising fears in general.

You see I disagree with that, maybe its because my fears are different to yours, but I have been making so much progress by changing beliefs and analysing fears so that when faced with a certain situation I am more confident and less anxious. At the end of the day I have exaggerated negative beliefs and fears that need correcting, my mind sees these things are so scary, so threatening, so terrible, etc. Putting myself into such a situation when I have these thoughts achieves nothing. The thoughts have to be changed. Analysing and addressing the fears behind speaking is not something I have addressed directly and I will be extremely interested to see how I get on by doing this.

You are probably disagreeing with me here signs, but I think we suffer very differently. I think if you feel you can do a situation but are not good at it, then practice practice practice is the answer. If something scares you to the point you cannot put yourself into the situation, then core beliefs have to be analysed and the fear and negative beliefs must be addressed.

I saw on tv a man who had a fear of spiders and he overcame it through hypnotherapy. He didn't just go down a line of being near small spiders and then slightly bigger spiders. In hypnotherapy his beliefs were questioned and he was made to understand that spiders are harmless and all his negative thoughts that they were creepy and evil were addressed. He then got in a good frame of mind that spiders are harmless good creatures and then he did the practice, the exposure, and because he wasn't scared or thinking negatives like he was he was able to touch a spider!

The reason I am so anxious about speaking is because of the core beliefs. These need changing in order for the situation to take some reality again. Putting yourself in a situation doesn't change the way you think about that feared situation/activity necessary. I have had a fear of women my age who I don't know. I just have always been so self conscious, so shy, felt so inadequate, etc - (all this made me anxious and have such little confidence around women) even though I have been around and interacted with so many such women every day for years. So how come I have not developed more and more confidence with this exposure? The interaction didn't change beliefs, but of late I have seen a real improvement and that has been done purely by changing beliefs of myself and of the situation, understanding the reality. I have worked on changing my beliefs on my self worth, more confident in my appearance, believing I am good enough, that the situation of interacting with women is not scary or that I am being judged negatively, but infact its a great chance to show how cool I am, that its good to meet new women, that the interaction is not threatening, etc. I know that is brief but I have been improving lots at last after addressing beliefs. For sure practice now I am in the right sort of frame of mind is necessary in order to become more confident, but that is only any good when you are seeing things correctly.

I am not for one minute saying you are wrong, I realise that there will come a point where I need to start facing the situations in order to gain experience and confidence, but first of all I simply have to put beliefs right, understand that the fears I have are just so ridicule and inaccurate. I also am not saying this desensitising of beliefs and fears is the answer for all problems, but I hope you will respect that for my fears which have come from traumatic experiences where I did a presentation and was so anxious about speaking because of the fear of ridicule over a speech impediment, I got so anxious and worried that I couldn't get my words out, I was having a panic attack in front of 30 people, shaking like mad, I was terrified and I failed. My mind then feared such situations because it didn't think I could do it, the humiliation that I experienced, the belief that speaking is so scary, this is how my mind sees public speaking - 100% the most negative things possible. I cannot do this until I change the way I see speaking in public. My fears have become mis-wired, I need to understand the reality and see speaking as non threatening, because the reality is speaking is not threatening, we can all speak, its so natural, but whilst I harbour such ridiculous exaggerated beliefs I don't think that way.

You say graded exposure is the answer, but its not as if I haven't been exposing myself to these situations. I mean I speak on the phone fine, I can make phone calls, answer the phone, etc when people are all around me, I am very confident on the phone. I can speak one on one with most people totally confidently unless they are women who I don't know. I speak to new people in my job and in shops. I speak with my team as a group of about 5 people a lot. I have meetings at work where there are about 10 people and that is more of a struggle but I am in there and often say things. Then there have been presentations and training courses we have to attend and they freak me out. Its not like I don't do different levels of exposure. It doesn't give me more confidence as its my core beliefs that determine my fears. These are not changing until I address them, and that is what I am doing today.

I bet you tell me how wrong I am and make out I am talking crap now. I hope you won't because like you know yourself - what may be right for one person you may think is totally not right for someone else. Graded exposure is not the answer for me UNTIL I sort out my fears. Would you suggest a person with a severe fear of heights sort it out by climbing a ladder to different heights? Or would you address the fears behind it first?
Would you suggest a person who has a fear of enclosed spaces face this fear by exposing them to different types of enclosed spaces or work on the fears behind it?

CBT which you yourself talk about is about working on the negative thoughts behind fears/anxiety. Why do you bother with it then, why don't you just expose yourself to the situations you fear? I mean your post makes out that I am wasting my time trying to desensitise the fears that are crippling me in such situations, and that I am wasting my time aiming to change the fears so that I end up approaching this sort of speaking next time with a more positive mindset where I recognise that the fears that have haunted me are just wrong and instead I see it as non threatening.

I have spent last 10 years putting myself in social situations and still felt crap about myself. When I addressed my beliefs on myself and started to change these beliefs I developed so much confidence in one weekend. I developed more confidence there in 2 days than probably I did in 5 years.

Anyway, I am off to work on this, even if you think I am wasting my time.

 

[charlieHungerford]

I have been working on this for an hour and a half this morning, will go back to it soon, but I have been looking at the roots of this problem and it seems like I am making some good headway into this problem which need sorting out. It seems like the problem is because I have deep rooted beliefs that I believe people will be so critical of me. I have deep rooted beliefs that speaking in front of many people is so terrible because I believe they will be so critical of me, afterall I did receive constant ridicule for so many years and speaking was something that I suffered very much for what with a speech impediment. I seem to think that speaking is so awful because everyone is so critical and looks at me negatively and badly, and will probably laugh at me or think I am weird.

There is evidence to back this up. If I was to go to another office and have to ask for something, if its quiet and everyone seems to be looking at me, I get extremely anxious and worried, but if I went into the office and its noisy and people seem to be chatting amongst themselves or are on the phones - I feel zillion times more confident and less anxious. It also explains why I am so confident around people I am comfortable around - such as friends, family, colleagues I work with and get on well with - I trust these people and know they won't be critical of me.
I am very good on the phone at work, but if it gets all quiet and I have to make a call or the phone rings when its so quiet I sometimes get really self aware - and this is simply because of others can hear me, and I definitely have deep rooted beliefs that people will be hearing me and I feel they will be critical of me.

I seem to be so self conscious about speaking because when I am speaking I am centre of attention which I don't feel comfortable with, I feel self conscious because I feel people are looking at me critically. All I have ever had in the past is ridicule, put downs, people just always seeing the worst in me. I seem to think that is how people really are until proven otherwise.

I know speaking is nothing, its natural, I can speak fine and confidently as long as anxiety is not triggered and it seems like anxiety is triggered because I feel people are so judgemental and see me so critically. This is backed up with beliefs that I have believed women are so shallow and looks orientated. I know consciously that is not true, but I have believed that for so long and it shows that I have beliefs that I have such little faith and belief in people to see people fair.

I can speak fine in reality, I can read out loud in my own house easily and confidently. I can speak fine around people I am comfortable around. This fear of speaking is not just about speaking, it is to some point - i.e. I believe speaking is something that people can judge me on more for - and of course I believe its negative.

I am going to go back to work on this in a minute. I am going to work on my beliefs of my perception of others and what they really think. It seems like if I can believe people will not be critical of me and speaking is not a situation in which I am 'in danger' in then in theory the fear behind speaking will not be like it currently is for. Afterall, when people are speaking around me or I can see them, I think only good things of them, but in the same situation I think people are slaughtering me. When I used to be able to do 'public speaking', I didn't have any thoughts that people were being critical of me.

This is something I have to sort out. Maybe I think people are so critical of me because of past experiences, but the reality is this was when I was at high school mainly when kids were so horrible, insensitive, immature and would ridicule anyone for anything. Its not like that any more. Whilst I harbour such beliefs its always going to be so hard and critical.

I will see how I get on with this approach at aiming to desensitise my deep rooted negative beliefs that people are so critical and mean.

Not sure if anyone has any thoughts on that?

 

[signs05]

Thanks for your reply Charlie.

I think the best way to overcome these fears is a mixture of theory and practice, just like you can not learn to drive by just passing the written exam, nor can you learn the rules of trafic by just driving, you need both.
If you do exposure without learning how to deal with the thoughts that will come up, chances are you will be more scared of the situation. Likewise, if you analyze your thoughts, and tell yourself public speaking is nothing to be scared of, while at the same time avoiding situations that include public speaking, your brain is getting mixed signals, if its nothing to fear, why do I avoid it?

I used to also focus alot on my thoughts, until I read more about CBT and contacted a psychologist for help, and both sources told me the same thing, that overanalyzing your thoughts is overcomplicating the process and giving more power to destructive thoughts than they deserve.

I for example used to be real scared of meetings at work, I mean real scared. I told myself that there was nothing to fear, nothing to fear, its all in my head. I however never really believed this and it only provided real temporary relief. One time I forced myself to ask questions during the meeting, just to push myself into it, and after this I became much less scared of the situation. I had provided both theoratical evidence (telling myself theres nothing to fear) and at the same time backing it up with real life exposure.

 

[charlieHungerford]

I would agree with that signs. I totally believe its a mixture of both, I think if you can probably do something but a bit anxious about it, then you have to attempt it. If you feel you just cannot do it, then that is when analysis is needed to ease fears and change the irrational and negative beliefs.

Anyway, this is what I have come up with today, I am sure some people think its rubbish and think I have lost the plot. But, I do feel its correct, its very much linked to self consciousness.

I believe my problems lie with the fact I believe that people are so critical and always see the worst in me, never anything positive. I believe this because of years of put downs, people always putting me down, ridiculing me, point out my flaws, etc - why should I believe in and trust people when I simply have been lead to believe people are so horrible? I am confident around people I am comfortable around and trust - friends, family, people who I work closely with, etc. I don't feel anxious around such people because I don't feel they are critical of me at all.

So I believe that whoever I am infront of, interacting with, who is looking at me, etc - they will be looking at me critically. I believe they are critical of me for any of 4 catergories - looks, confidence (I believe if people see I have little confidence they think I am weird), Status (job) and social status. I don't believe anyone could fault my intelligence or personality. No one ever has done and I have 100% confidence in these parts of me.

So for instance women my age I feel they will be critical of me for looks and for my confidence (my confidence is only low because I feel they are being critical of me which makes me self conscious, feel inadequate, etc). I feel women will always judge me negatively. Hence why I feel women are so shallow and looks orientated. I know its wrong but that is what I have experienced and seen so much evidence of, but it needs putting right because its not right.
I am anxious when I see the neighbours opposite. Why? Basically because I feel they must think I am weird as I hardly ever go out, I clearly have no social life. I think they must think I'm a loner and god knows what I do at home all the time. So I believe they are critical of me.
Meeting a new person - I feel they will be critical of me for looks and confidence (they will see I am not very confident in that situation).
I think in a situation like public speaking - I feel people will be critical of me for looks and confidence (they will see I am not confident and think I am weird or odd for the lack of confidence I have - but if I didn't believe people were critical - i.e. like my friends and family, I won't be self conscious and nervous).
In an interview - I think they will think negatively of me for pretty much everything - confidence, status, looks, etc.

It kind of explains why I am confident on the phone - I know I am good on the phone and know my stuff and speak well - therefore I don't believe anyone would be critical of me on the other end of the phone. I am not anywhere near as anxious around men - and that is because I don't think men look at looks in other men so wouldn't think negative of me for that, I feel fine chatting with men about whatever.

So the answer for me overcome my anxiety is to believe people are not critical of me at all. If I believe no one is looking at me critically/negatively (just like I don't believe my family and friends don't) then I don't believe I would be self conscious - why would I if I don't think people are judging me badly? I clearly have no faith in people, I feel people are horrible, shallow, judgemental, always see the worst in me. In effect the definition of SA is correct - a fear of being judged negatively by people - its not exactly that I fear being judged negatively, its that I believe I am always being judged negatively.

Therefore the answer, which I will work on tonight is analysing my beliefs on people being so critical. I have developed these beliefs because of the past, but a lot of it is very unfair - i.e. most has come from kids who used to always be so critical of me all the time, always picking out my flaws, calling me names, laughing at me, etc.

I just think about situations like if I met a new person would I be anxious if I didn't feel they were critical of me or thinking anything negative of me? Why would I be self conscious if I think people are judging me fairly and nicely? Would I be anxious around women if I didn't think they are looking at me negatively? I don't think I would. Would I be self conscious around my neighbours if I think they are not thinking anything negative of me?
Why would I be anxious and self conscious about public speaking if I don't believe people are critical of me?

I don't know if others can relate to that? But I am going to work on this tonight. Try and see that people are not critical of me all of the time whatsoever. I just seem to believe when I enter the room there is a spot light on me and people are just critical of me. There is a saying - if only you realised how little people cared, you would care! Not only am I going to work on what people are thinking, but that it doesn't matter what they are thinking. So what if they are thinking I am an ugly stupid freak?

I can totally understand if people think this is a load of rubbish. If anyone is thinking they can relate - well you may believe people are critical of you for other reasons - which may be you think people think you are boring (which I read a lot of people say). But the truth is there is a lot of truth in this too - I am so self conscious, and for instance if I did a talk in front of 30 plastic dummies I would be fine and confident, but replace them with 30 people and I am so self conscious of what people think of me.