Social Anxiety at Work: Coping Strategies from a Psychologist
It’s bloody happened again. You’re in the middle of giving a presentation at work and you can feel yourself starting to go hot in the face as you notice everyone’s eyes on you, waiting for you to start. Your heart feels like it’s thumping out of your chest and your breathing quickens. As you notice your body reacting in this way, your anxiety and self consciousness grow and you feel mortified. You freeze and completely blank out, not remembering what you were supposed to say next and spend the next 20 minutes stuttering and stumbling your way through your presentation. If this sounds like you, you might be dealing with social anxiety…
What is Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety is a persistent and intense fear of embarrassing yourself in social situations. This can include, parties, networking events, public speaking, or even going into shops or restaurants where you have to ask for something or place an order. You may notice a tendency to blush very easily, or have “hot ears”, freeze and find it difficult to get your words out, experience physical symptoms of anxiety such as difficulty catching your breath or heart palpitaitons, experience panic attacks, or find yourself replaying conversations in your mind over and over.
People who struggle with social anxiety tend to focus their attention on themselves, observing how they are speaking and reacting in social settings. This tendency to focus too much on themselves and not enough on what others are saying, doing, or what is going on around them, simply makes the anxiety worse.
While some level of social anxiety is very common and normal (after all, who likes public speaking anyway?) when it causes you a high amount of distress, or makes you avoid these situations that trigger it all together, then it can become a problem.
How Social Anxiety Shows Up at Work
- Shying away from applying for promotions due to a fear of having to interview
- Avoiding putting yourself forward to lead on projects or give presentations
- Avoiding networking events or work socials
- Avoiding engaging with the C suite or more senior members of staff
- Over rehearsing what you plan to say in a Teams meeting or one to one
- Preferring to work from home so you can avoid meeting colleagues in the office
- Experiencing panic attacks when having to give a presentation
- Blushing when having to answer questions or give feedback during group meetings because others are looking at you
If you experience social anxiety and notice yourself doing some of these things, it doesn’t mean that you are not ambitious or won’t succeed in climbing the corporate ladder. In fact, people who struggle with social anxiety are often very skilled at their jobs, but feel inhibited and held back by the fear of saying or doing something embarrassing. Once you learn how to manage your fears, you can learn to overcome them so you can continue to pursue your career goals.
How to Cope with Social Anxiety in the Workplace
- Stop Avoiding: when you give yourself an excuse not to attend that work social or not to put yourself forward for that job promotion, your anxiety is being reinforced, and you never give yourself the opportunity to actually play it out and see if your prediction would have been wrong. Easier said than done, but starting with a commitment to stop avoiding your triggers is the first step.
- Change the Narrative: rather than seeing these situations as threatening to you and that must be avoided at all cost, try to change up your self talk by telling yourself these are opportunities rather than threats. That work social that you are avoiding going to is an opportunity to network and be more visible in the company. That coffee room conversation that you avoid at 8 am every day when the CEO makes his morning cup of tea is an opportunity to get to know each other with a bit of small talk. Rehearsing a few conversation starters in advance is OK too!
- Take the Focus off of Yourself: if you find yourself becoming self conscious in work situations, try to force your attention outwards instead by focusing intently on things around you (what you can see or hear in the room, or in some cases, what you can notice about the person you are talking to- what their facial expressions are, what they are wearing, what they are saying, how their voice sounds).
While social anxiety can sometimes feel paralysing and all encompassing, we have extremely effective psychological treatments such as CBT and other therapy approaches that can help make a world of difference.
As an anxiety specialist, I understand how to make people with social anxiety feel comfortable and welcomed and will work with you to make it as easy as possible to access therapy. It's the reason why I have lots of photos and an intro video of myself up on my website, so that you can get a sense of who I am and how and where I would see you for therapy sessions.
So if you need a bit of extra support and you are ready to challenge your social anxiety, then please fill in the contact form for a free telephone consultation to see if I can help!
