Ask a Coach - Social Anxiety

There's certainly a lot of people who want coaching around that kind of social anxiety. You may be more introverted, you may just kind of like being to yourself, but we wanna find maybe one or two thoughts that we can begin to replace and start practicing them. Hey, I'm Neca and welcome back to "Ask A Coach." Our next question comes from Christine. Christine says, "I've never been a super social person. In a couple of weeks, I have two parties to go to in one weekend, and I'm going to both because I love and wanna support my friends, but it's so hard because it takes so much out of me to go out and be social. How do I prepare myself and manage getting through these social situations without getting completely drained?" There's certainly a lot of people who want coaching around that kind of social anxiety. You may be more introverted, you may just kinda like being to yourself, and so being out and being the life of the party isn't your thing. Totally fine, and it totally makes sense. One of the things we like to do to really help you go to the event, but not feel as though, "I'm going to leave this event exhausted just from talking to people," is to start identifying any negative thought patterns. So even the thought of, "I'm going to be drained," before you get to the party, let's look at that thought pattern, right? So let's create a little bit of a plan to say, "Hey, how can I replace or reframe this thought?" Instead of saying, "I'm gonna be totally drained," well, you might not be totally drained. Might be a little bit drained 'cause I like to be realistic, okay? Or we just say, you know, "I'm gonna go support my friends. I'm looking forward to having a good time." We wanna find maybe one or two thoughts that we can begin to replace and start practicing them. Start practicing them before we get to the party or to those social events. We want to begin to start a new narrative for us, a new thought pattern. The other thing I would do too is to find a mindfulness meditation in our app because that'll also help you to stay a little bit more focused, little less anxiety, a little less stress. That's what I do. So I hope that's helpful to you....