What the fuck is my problem?

[Anonymous]

Hey, I'm just looking for a bit of advice, and hopefully some feedback from anyone who has experience similar situations as I have.

I think the term social phobic could be used to describe me. However, what is interesting is that I think of myself as only being an initial social phobic. By this I mean that the first time I do things I am terrified of them but then the second time I do them I am fine. This second time can come as little as a few seconds later. To give you an example, I'm pretty scared of making phone calls, mainly calls to important people. Today I made one such call and completed it, but was pretty nervous the entire time. I turned around, not 2 or 3 minutes later made another similar call and had plenty of confidence. Even though I hadn't done very well with the previous call the new one was no problem at all. Similar situations happened to me in college. The first comment I made in class was terrifying experience but after that I was perfectly fine and could speak my mind without any real nervousness.

The interesting thing about my condition however is that my "confidence" doesn't seem to carry over from day to day. For instance, if I made another similar phone call tomorrow I would be nervous all over again and if I made a second phone call I would be fine.

This really pisses me off, does anyone have any advice on approaching situations with confidence the first time? Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Any ideas?

 

[Anonymous]

yea you gotta take yourself back to the frame of mind you were in when you was fine in this situation.

before making another another call for the first time build up abit of confidence in something else, something smaller, say speaking in person to someone and then carry that confidence over to the phonecall.

 

[Hype1010]

Just keep making those phone-calls again and again until it's so second nature, it doesnt seem awkawrad at all.





















No ones gonna do that, but it's the best advice I can think of at the moment.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice.

Any specific tips on going back to my successful states of mind? It's like I wish my brain had a system restore button so that I could restore it to a certain day and time, like a computer. That would fix everything.

Also, it's not just with phonecalls but basically everything. The first time is terrifying, the second time (if done the same day or in close proximity) is just like anything else.

 

[Anonymous]

learn nlp (neuro linguistic programming)

 

[Anonymous]

Just stumbled across this site.

But just wanted to say I've experienced the _exact_ same thing for years!

It's crazy, I'll get over being nervous about something, be super assertive, outgoing, then the next day, poof, it's gone.

It's like my confidence resets itself to zero every morning.

 

[richkid]

Imagery is probably a good way to get back in you confident way of mind.
Imagine your making the telephone call to someone important when you feel yourself get nervous stop for a couple of seconds relax, go through it again this time how you would like to do it or the way you know you can do it. Soon it will feel more natural.

Sports people use it to improve on performance so I do see why it can't work in different areas. Give it ago and let me know if it works or if it's a load of crap.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote="Anonymous"
It's like my confidence resets itself to zero every morning.[/quote]

Yeah this used to happen to me. You have to stay aware of your thoughts and figure out what beliefs makes you so limp. You gotta catch the belief, when you go for that phone or whatever you're probably believing irrational/negative thoughts, I turned mine around. Then renforced them in the morning. It was scary though cos i clung to those thoughts like part of me, and i felt guilty about being to rebellious to my mind and felt i would hurt others by changing. It takes time to change beliefs/perception.