Tag: how to overcome anxiety

Improvement pill here a very interesting
study was conducted in 2000 at Cornell University by Professor Thomas Gilovich
he took groups of students and randomly selected one individual from each group
he then told the rest of the students to show up to a certain room at a certain
time to work on a quote-unquote project it's very important to note that all of
the seats in this room were positioned in a way so that everyone was facing the
door he then took the singled out individuals purposely stalled them a bit
and had them wear a t-shirt with a well-known person on it such as Martin
Luther King or Bob Marley he then told that individual to go to the room
knowing that they would be late and also knowing that all of the other students
would look up at the door and notice who was coming in this experiment was
supposed to replicate an embarrassing event the singled out individuals knew
that there were the only ones who were late and they were led to believe that
everyone else noticed by the fact that everyone looked up when they walked into
the room after the experiment the researchers asked these embarrassed
individuals how many of the students do you think remembered the incidents
vividly and on average these singled out individuals reported that 50% of all the
other students would be able to recall the event and the shirt that they were
wearing because well they messed up and they were absolutely sure that a large
chunk of people in the room noticed but what the researchers actually found was
that only 10% of the students in that room were able to recall the event and
the t-shirt five times less than what our embarrassed individuals thought what
this experiment discovered is what's called the spotlight effect we humans
often overestimate how much others care about our negative and also positive
actions we think that the spotlight is on us that everyone is looking at us and
judging us when in reality the large majority of people simply don't care and
this is a very very important concept that you need to internalize if you are
struggling with social anxiety see the main reason we feel anxious around
others is because we feel like they're watching us and judging us we're scared
to act how we want to be ourselves because we don't want to risk people
looking down on us we don't want others to dislike us but in reality the large
majority of people simply don't care that much about you I know this sounds
like a bad thing but it's just human nature
most people are stuck in their own heads and are thinking about themselves not
you the moment you internalize this concept and genuinely start believing in
it your levels of social anxiety will drop significantly but of course this is
much easier said than done how in the world can we get ourselves to truly
truly believe in the spotlight effect well today I'm gonna show you a simple
two-step process that I personally used to drill this concept into my own head
step 1 you need to become more aware of your own thoughts the large majority of
us are oblivious to the fifty to seventy thousand thoughts that we have on
average every single day which is why you need to start building a mindfulness
habit like meditation where you try to clear your head and try to focus on one
thing like your breathing when you build a mindfulness practice like this you
will become 10 times more aware of how you think and you will also start to
notice that the large majority of your own thoughts are about yourself past
events future concerns worrying about what others think that sort of stuff
you'll notice that less than 1% of your own thoughts will be about other people
that you come across randomly throughout the day step 2 once you've started
becoming more aware of your own thoughts you can start doing another mental
exercise one that I like to call the swapping shoes exercise this is when you
go to a public place and pick out a random individual then you focus focus
focus and you try your hardest to imagine what's going on in their head
imagine that you're in their shoes living their life what problems are they
currently facing what are they currently worrying or stressing out about what
sort of insecure thoughts are going on in their head what other things do you
think they're thinking about allow yourself to really imagine being in
their shoes and also imagine what sort of thoughts are going on in their head
by doing this exercise you will start to condition yourself to believe that
others spend the majority of their time thinking about their own problems and
themselves which is actually true the more you do this the more you will
internalize the spotlight effect which in turn will allow you to start feeling
less and less social anxiety as you start to realize that people just aren't
paying that much attention to you it might sound a bit sad to realize this
but in reality you'll feel a huge weight being lifted off of your shoulders you
will feel free this episode is sponsored by blankets oftentimes I get questions
from you guys about where I get all of my ideas from and to be honest a fair
amount of them do come from books the problem is that sometimes it can be hard
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from great books such as truth by Hector McDonald life lessons from a brain
surgeon by rahul jandial and childhood disrupted by donna
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besides that guys stay tuned