No amount of self-care or escapism will ever change what only exposure therapy and stepping outside of your comfort zone by walking by faith does. Escapism will not yield growth, and withdrawing won’t cast out anxiety — it only deepens it. Anxiety is a fear-based unreliable narrator that rejects you before people and opportunities do. The only way out is through those fears. Confidence isn’t magically bestowed, but built by risk-taking. Out of vulnerability comes growth. Walking by faith, not fear delivers us.
If nothing changes, nothing changes. Anxiety’s strangle-hold creates a comfortable pattern of behaviors that aren’t really you, but a defense mechanism to feel safe — to avoid feeling anxious. But these behaviors only weave a trap that deepens the anxiety instead of beating it. Anxious individuals lose themselves in avoidance, complacency, self-doubt, and fear that entraps them in a dissonant life year after year. Hiding their personality, talents, and joys that make them come alive because expressing that would mean facing fears outside their comfort zone. But there comes a time when people recognize this affliction as a distinct unreliable narrator from who they really are, and want to change their lives.
One of the most helpful treatments for social anxiety disorder is exposure therapy. It can help people overcome fears of social and performance situations and is conducted typically with the help of a therapist as part of CBT programs. A lot of the techniques can be implemented in daily life to help combat fears of being judged or embarrassed or failing. Exposure therapy techniques work by entering situations that someone might avoid due to social anxiety in order to then disprove those fear based beliefs. This then builds a groundwork of confidence for which to challenge negative, anxious thoughts, and start achieving bigger feats.
Be fearful, but do it anyway. That is the goal with exposure therapy. Other people do not judge strangers, much less loved ones like you harshly judge yourself — they’re too busy thinking about their own lives. Focus on preparing yourself, detach yourself from the outcome, and make your goal trying not strictly succeeding.
Implement exposure therapy in daily life by speaking in frontof a group, striking up conversation with people you might want to be friends with, sharing your own vibrant inner world, sending a text or email, talking on the phone, being assertive, participating in a daunting job interview, giving compliments, saying “no” to things you’re not interested in, saying “yes” to things you’re interested in but just fear embarrassment attending, and going out by yourself to all those places you’ve missed out on in fear of being seen alone.
In fact, feelings of anxiety can be part of the growth process and evolution into your ideal self according to Dabrowski’s “theory of positive disintegration.” Anxious thoughts point out areas of dissatisfaction in your life that you want to work on to align with your inner goals, personality, and desires to live out your personal values.
Exposure therapy simply works — I’ve seen it diminish my fear of presentations, interviews, public speaking, and more. I did so by focusing on the controllable — my level of preparation, detaching myself from the outcome, and being fearful but doing it anyway. Confidence is built by disproving anxious thoughts. Stepping outside your comfort zone builds the confidence needed to challenge anxious thoughts and tackle bigger feats. Remember, anxiety is an unreliable narrator.
If you protect yourself from the possibility of failure, you protect yourself from success. This is why the growth mindset — backed by neuroscientific research — is the number one determinant of success. Accepting that a learning curve and failure is part of the journey towards mastery and success, not innate ability, is what makes people achieve. A fixed mindset leaves people stuck miserably believing their abilities are fixed so they flee from their goals.
If you continue thinking confidence is an inherent trait some are forever destined to lack, you will never challenge your anxiety and achieve all that you’re capable of in your healthiest mindset. The grandiose idea of “confidence” paralyzes people thinking they must possess an insurmountable amount of confidence in one self before they do anything to pursue their goals. But we must recognize that fear and do things anyway – that is how you grow.
Remember, behind every self-made story of success was not an individual with grandiose, insurmountable confidence, but rather a need greater than their fears. It is not the absence of qualms which led Joan of Arc to a French victory, but rather the belief that something was more important than their own instinct for self-preservation. That an external goal and purpose was worth being vulnerable for. Motivational gurus have sold us the mentally paralyzing lie that we need impassable self-confidence before we do anything to take over our human-agency and pursue our passions and goals. When in reality, we’d be fulfilling our potential by realizing we should never become complacent. We should stay fearful, and do it anyway – that is how we grow.
Confidence is built through achievement, through physical confirmation that your mind is full of potential, and that you can have what you want as long as you’re willing to traverse through the tough terrain others turn back at. Real self-confidence and self-worth is not something achieved through fleeting external validation but through feelings of accomplishment and personal growth. Though he made no money, Van Gogh still painted 900 works of art, posthumously going down as one of the most talented painters in history. Have the courage to seek inner growth, not external validation or cheap “confidence.” Otherwise, it can be no more than a mask putting on the appearance of growth while continuing to carry feelings of emptiness and insufficiency.
Have the courage to determine how far you go. We’re all human, the only thing separating you from those at the top of your field is the amount of discipline/work you apply and resilience. No one knows your behind the scenes – your doubts, fears, failures, so stop feeling like an imposter. You are a blank page with an equal shot in anyone’s eyes. Start thinking ‘why not me?’ That heavyweight champion did not start off lifting 200 pounds. Have the courage to feel uncomfortable at the gym, to not be confident, to feel out of place. Those shortcomings and anxieties are the driving force behind every success story. More dreams are ruined by doubt than failure. And impact isn’t created, lives aren’t changed, the world isn’t left off a better place through “would’ves.” Stop waiting for permission from an abstract spurt of “confidence” to make life-changing leaps that will transform your life for the better.
Those of faith can rest comfortably walking by faith, not by sight or fears we create. No matter how our false fears may try to lie to us about what we can do, who we are, and our worth, God’s word is the final truth. Omnipotent, almighty, loving God loves us for being His children, He will never forsake us, and He has called on us to not be anxious about anything. His strength is made perfect in our weakness so we must not succumb to this world in fear, but trust in God.
Faith is the opposite of fear. Moses was fearful, felt wholly inadequate for the seemingly insurmountable mission God had put him up to, but he listened to God anyway and walked outside the camp, trusting His word that He would not forsake him or the Israelites. By faith countless men and women of the bible were delivered as told in Hebrews 11.
God is a good, all-powerful, sovereign, merciful god — the alpha and omega, the creator of this universe. Nothing evil comes from God but rather from the consequences of living in a fallen world. Jesus has sent us as helpers towards this rworld For this reason, many are quick to become spiritually jaded, and forget that greater men such as Joseph, David, Abraham, Job, Jeremiah Paul the apostle, John the baptist, and others suffered too. Joseph was sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers and despite suffering greatly, he not only chose to forgive, but to endure with great humility and faith until he was able to carry out God’s plan. He ultimately saved his betrayers and called them unto repentance all by trusting in God. God used Joseph’s suffering for a larger mission to enact tremendous good. “You meant evil against me,” Joseph says, “but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).
Proverbs 3:5-7 -“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil” .
God’s strength was made manifest in biblical figures manifold times when they faced fearsome challenges in order to glorify Him. When Moses naturally feared going to the Pharaoh, saying “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” (Exodus 3:11), God promised they would listen to Moses (Exodus 3:18). But Moses was full of unbelief. God chose Moses as he was, to lead a nation into the promise land through the wilderness for 40 years. God used the rod in his hand to part the Red Sea, to retrieve water from a rock, to be raised over Israel’s win in battle. It became the rod of God (Exodus 4:20).
Moses begged God to use someone else for His purpose, Moses feared that he was inadequate, he feared the challenge he faced, but ultimately, God’s strength and power was made manifest in him despite his qualms as He delivered the people to the promise land.
Exodus 4:10-17 And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.
And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God. And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs.
Hebrews 13:6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
Our Lord, Jesus Christ has overcome the world. Knowing this, we should rest in faith, not fear.
John 16:33: These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
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