Self confidence and limting beliefs

Why do we panic when we approach new people and why do feel anxious around strangers?
I am sure that you wanted more than once to speak to a stranger or to approach someone yet felt anxious and afraid. Most of us want to be outgoing and outspoken but sometimes we fail to maintain our confident state as soon as we encounter someone.

You might be wondering why you sometimes speak with confidence with some people and feel afraid while approaching others.

As soon as we meet strangers two things happen, we first load the beliefs we have about ourselves and watch for their bad feedback. If they greeted us in a nice way and we had false negative beliefs about ourselves then nothing will happen, however if any negative sign appeared we remember the false beliefs we have about ourselves and feel bad.

In short we become confident when people don’t remind us of our false beliefs and we feel anxious when these false beliefs come into our attention. As I said before people judge the world with a bias towards their own internal beliefs and that’s why people who think of themselves negatively incorrectly interpret the signals sent to them by others then feel bad.

A research found that people with negative beliefs about themselves interpret neutral facial expressions negatively and so reinforce these beliefs.

Confident people on the other hand don’t feel anxious around others because they don’t think negatively of themselves and even if they were rejected they attribute the rejection to other factors.

Another factor that ads to this fear mess is the lack of social skills. If you don’t know how to start to conversation or if you didn’t find the right words to say while talking to someone then there is a big possibility that you will feel very anxious.

So to sum this all up we feel anxious around people because:

• The false beliefs we have about ourselves
• The negative feedback that others send (whether its real or imagined)
• We lack the required skills

So contrary to common beliefs you can only feel confident around people when you are already confident on your own. If you managed to get rid of these false beliefs nothing will remind you of them while being with people and you will feel relaxed instead of anxious.