Dealing With Social Anxiety
Today, we’re going to talk about something many indie developers struggle with: social anxiety. Whether it’s at events, meetings, or online interactions, social anxiety can hold us back from reaching our full potential. Let’s discuss what it is and some practical tips to overcome it.
Understanding Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is more than just shyness. It’s a fear of being judged or negatively evaluated in social situations. For indie developers, this can mean avoiding networking events, not reaching out for help, or missing opportunities to showcase your work.
Let’s look at the key characteristics of social anxiety.
- Fear of Social Situations: Individuals with social anxiety fear that they will act in an embarrassing or humiliating way. Are you afraid to say the wrong thing? Do you worry about blurting out the dumbest thing that comes to your mind?
- Avoidance: This fear often leads to avoidance of social situations, such as meeting new people, speaking in public, or attending social gatherings. As a result, how many crucial and useful events have you skipped? But then, the fear is palpable too, right? Therefore, you feel justified in your decision to avoid. People with social anxiety experience two symptoms that feed each other.
- Physical Symptoms: Common physical symptoms include sweating, trembling, rapid heartbeat, nausea, and blushing. It is kind of hard to ignore all this. Your body is ringing the alarm bells!
- Cognitive Symptoms: These include excessive worrying about social interactions, self-consciousness, and negative thoughts about oneself. When you direct your attention at yourself, your sense of physical discomfort will be triggered and, if it already exists; it will worsen.
Physical symptoms may feel too real to ignore, but they are usually the result of your cognitive state. To make things worse, your mental state will also trigger physical symptoms, then you will feel you are in a dangerous situation for real. Hence, the flight behaviour.
However, social anxiety rarely starts physically. Sure, the room you are in might be hot, then you might be sweating, and wondering about whether it will be noticed. What are the chances that you were already nervous about the event? Thus, sweating became a natural outcome since your mind was not at ease.
What can we do about it since this is not serving us well?
Practical Tips to Manage Social Anxiety
Tip 1: Preparation
Preparation is key. Before an event, research who will be there and what the setting will be like. Have a few talking points or questions ready to go.
For example, if you are attending a local game development Meetup, chances are you will bump into other game developers. A common question might be about what the other person has been working on. This is as casual as it can be as far as events go.
If you are attending a more professional event like a conference where meetings can be arranged thanks to a booking platform, like MeetToMatch, then you can look up the other party’s profile and inform yourself about the person you’d like to meet.
Any kind of preparation will help you. Even knowing beforehand how to get to the venue might reduce your stress level because who wants to show up at a place looking tilted and exhausted from their trip?
Speaking of settings, will there be food and/or alcohol at the venue? What will be your plan if you get hungry but there is no readily available food source around? The more you find out, the calmer you will be, and reduce your stress level.
Tip 2: Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques
Deep breathing, meditation, and visualization can help calm your mind before and even during social interactions.
Assuming you’ve prepared yourself for the event as much as possible, try to do a practice run in your mind. You’ll be putting your favourite and the most appropriate clothes on, leave the house on time, and head out to the venue. Congratulations! You’ve done most of the work.
At some point, regardless of how the event goes, you’ll be back home. Thus, leaving the house and coming back are your two safety points. Have confidence that anything in between will go smoother thanks to the preparation you’ve made.
Once you are at the venue, it’s quite possible to feel overwhelmed. Then, excuse yourself, and find a corner where you can recollect your thoughts. Take a few deep breaths and remind yourself that preparing and visualizing has helped you immensely. You just need this quick break to regroup. So, you can go back to enjoying the event.
This is especially common among introverts, since their social batteries often drain quickly. It’s not a sign of weakness. In fact, it shows that you honour your feelings, and take care of yourself.
Tip 3: Start Small
Start with small, manageable interactions. Try talking to one new person at a time or joining smaller groups. Gradually, you can build up to larger groups and events.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Guess what? Nobody is asking you to build Rome either. Start small, go bigger later. You have no obligation to meet everybody at an event. In fact, you could set yourself a goal of meeting one person, and that should be enough for starters.
Then, when you attend many more events, you will most likely find yourself naturally breaching your limit of one because things will feel more comfortable. Only then will you entertain the possibility of connecting with more people, but large groups should not be your immediate goal.
Starting small also involves the notion of length. Perhaps you shouldn’t feel the need to stay for long hours. You could set yourself a goal of staying for 30 minutes, and after having spent that long, checking in with yourself whether you would like to do another 30 minutes might be a good idea. Refer to the previous tips. Do you feel prepared to stay longer? Have you depleted your social batteries, and you need a breather?
Tip 4: Focus on Others
Shift the focus from yourself to others. Ask questions and show genuine interest in what others have to say. This not only eases your anxiety but also makes you a better conversationalist.
Let’s play a small game here. Imagine you are an introvert, and you are talking to another introvert. Both of you will be comfortable if there are silent moments, respect each other’s space, value depth over superficial conversation. This takes time, and taking things slowly might be just the thing both of you need. So, a good match.
I’m going to skip both extroverts talking to each other case since I have seldom seen that being a difficulty for either party.
Social anxiety usually happens when an introvert is talking to an extrovert. So, let the extrovert do the talking, you listen. People love it when they are listened to. Also, by focusing on the other person, you are strategically deflecting the attention away from you. Sure, there will be times when you must interact with the extrovert, but by virtue of them wanting to talk, they will do the heavy lifting. This should reduce your pressure, since you don’t have to perform and deliver. If you feel stuck, ask an evergreen question, and actively listen.
Let me tell you about a secret at this point which has been shared by many extroverts I have known. They too feel social anxiety to a certain extent. It’s human and very primal. You enter a space with a bunch of strangers, after all. Everybody navigates it a bit differently, and that’s ok.
Practice Makes Perfect
Like any skill, overcoming social anxiety takes practice. The more you put yourself out there, the easier it will become. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks; every interaction is a step forward. Consider the four tips I’ve presented as your guide and refer to them as often as you need to.
Remember, social anxiety is something you can manage with the right strategies and support. Keep practicing, stay positive, and don’t be afraid to seek help when needed. If you found these tips helpful, please share them with others.