Some people believe the world is out to judge them. It is just waiting to make fools of them. Everyone is ready to pounce on every flaw you have.
Hey that is what all the commercials say :). You don’t smell right. You are fat. You are wearing the wrong clothes. Driving the wrong car. If you don’t do what they say everyone will think less of you. It is like facing forced paranoia a 1000 times a day. There are huge amounts of social pressure every day.
Most of the time our projections of rejection, ridicule and judgments are 100% wrong. Our brains are constantly trying to predict what is going to happen. It is part of our primal survival mechanism left over from when we had to worry about being eaten or attacked. Imagine having the same reaction to a social judgement as being eaten by a tiger.
In the modern world it sabotages us with over reactions to social dangers. It treats them the same as life threatening dangers. Your brain can’t really tell the difference since this all occurs in the primal reactive part of the brain. Even when you rationally know there is no real danger your brains alarm system still fires as if you are being chased by a tiger. Even though it is just social anxiety.
Recently I had a coaching client who was afraid of what everyone thinks of him. He imagined everyone saw every flaw he had. He imagined that people were always laughing at him. He imagined that everyone noticed every mistake he made and that he was a fool. He was socially paralyzed.
So here is what I did. One day I had him go out wearing 2 different shoes. They could be similar but they had to be different. He was horrified. He said I was trying to kill him. He recoiled in horror at the thought. Well he didn’t wear them to work but he wore them around his town walking his dog one day. Guess what? No one noticed.
He was stunned. As he walked around he was amazed no one was seeing his shoes. He even went as far as going into a high end shoe store shopping for shoes. No one said a thing. I
Next we did button the shirt wrong day. He had to have his weekly meeting in front of his staff with his shirt buttoned wrong… no one noticed.
Next was different shirt day. He took 3 or 4 radically different shirts to work and had to change his short to a different one ever hour…no one noticed.
Next was wear 2 different shoes and ask 3 women which one went best with his pants… He asked about 10. He met a girl and went on a date with her… Not one even asked why he was wearing 2 different shoes. They just gave him advice on which was better.
Then I had him go into restaurants and intentionally order something they did not have. No one treated him poorly and it started several fun conversations.
So here is what I want you to do. Over the next few days do something different. Make it be different day.
It can be different shoe day. It can be different sock day. It can be upside down watch day. Do something small that you think other people would notice and see what happens.
Take pictures and post them on our fan page.
https://www.facebook.com/Essentialskills
You might be surprised. You actually might not be the center of everyone’s attention. You might be surprised that your predictions are wrong 🙂