A short motivational talk by Dr. Aziz presenting a single core strategy for overcoming social anxiety: deliberately approach feared social situations, accept the risk of rejection, and learn through experience that imagined negative outcomes are exaggerated. The talk emphasizes exposure, risk-taking, and discovery of positive social responses.
Do you want to know the number one secret for solving social anxiety? I've helped thousands of people do this and I've written a best selling book on the subject and here it is right now. The hallmark of social anxiety is you imagine a negative outcome in a social situation and you imagine it's going to be way more likely and way worse than it really is. And no matter how much you try to talk yourself out of it, it just feels like that's what's going to happen which causes the anxiety, which causes you to want to avoid. So the solution is to approach when you want to avoid, to risk when you want to retreat and ultimately sometimes get rejected and learn that you can handle it. And the more that you risk, the more you discover that people do respond positively, that your projections, your imagining is often if not always wrong and there is way more opportunity for connection, love and everything that you want in the world when you take the risk.
